Join us for a free virtual tour & talk. 

Through the Female Lens explores the works and voices of four artists featured in moCa Cleveland’s current exhibition Ohio Now: State of Nature.

This free, virtual program is presented by the Ohio Advisory Group (OAG), a National Museum of Women in the Arts affiliate, and moCa Cleveland.

Moderated by moCa’s Kohl Executive Director Megan Lykins Reich, the program offers personal insights from Ohio-based artists Charmaine Spencer, Tina Gutierrez, and Lori Nix + Kathleen Gerber. Sustainability, agriculture, food justice, and natural ecologies are manifested through painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography. Their works highlight the urgency of environmental issues while reflecting our relationship with nature.

The Ohio Advisory Group (OAG) of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) showcases and advocates for women artists and is committed to extending the mission of NMWA.

A link to the talk will be sent to registrants closer to the event.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Tina Gutierrez

Cincinnati

For her project Culture Crops, Tina Gutierrez traveled across Ohio, taking portrait photographs and conducting interviews with community gardeners and family farmers, with a special focus on immigrants and Indigenous people. By choosing to photograph her subjects surrounded by the plants they tend, Gutierrez presents clues to their relationships with food, cultural heritage, and natural environment. In this photograph, Jordyn Flowe and her four-year-old son pose in a community garden in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Walnut Hills. She holds him on her lap as he clutches an unripe tomato to his chest and gazes out toward the viewer. Flowe, whose heritage is Black, Sicilian, and Italian, grows herbs and vegetables for teas and pasta sauces.

Lori Nix + Kathleen Gerber

Cleveland

Lori Nix and Kathleen Gerber’s photographs appear to capture the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophic event. Humans are nowhere to be seen, and plant life has reclaimed the crumbling buildings and infrastructure. These uncanny images are the result of photographing scale dioramas, which Nix and Gerber build as a team. Nix draws inspiration for this work from her experience growing up in western Kansas, where, as she describes it, “Mother Nature was an everyday powerful force.” In addition to weathering tornadoes, blizzards, hailstorms, and droughts, Nix consumed science fiction and disaster movies as a child. The possibility of manmade disasters influences these works. “I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time, I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring,” Nix says. “I’m fascinated by how resilient nature is. It will go on well after we do,” Gerber adds.

Charmaine Spencer

Cleveland

Dirt may be humble, but Charmaine Spencer recognizes its significance. “Healthy dirt is what feeds us,” she explains. “It’s what makes everything happen.” Spencer addresses the environmental effects of Cleveland’s postindustrial landscape with Amendment, designing the sculpture to serve as a habitat for bats, birds, or insects, and constructing it from nutrient-rich materials, including worm castings and compost. When installed outdoors, rain runoff carries minerals to the ground underneath the sculpture, creating healthier soil.