10 works by artists with CCAD connections you’ll see at the Greater Columbus Convention Center

Franklin County’s largest contemporary collection of local art features a number of  pieces by Columbus College of Art & Design alumni.

Sure, there are a number of galleries and world-class museums to found in Columbus, but if you’re looking for contemporary art created by local artists and designers, you’ll want to make one more stop: the Greater Columbus Convention Center, whose art collection is part of the county’s largest contemporary collection of local art. 

Artists and designers with connections to Columbus College of Art & Design make up no small proportion of the Convention Center’s impressive collection. (You might be familiar with Advertising & Graphic Design Associate Professor Matthew Mohr’s eyecatching interactive sculpture As We Are, which was unveiled at the convention center in 2017.) 

Here, we’ve selected 10 more works by CCAD artists you simply won’t want to miss.

Check out examples of paintings, photography, mosaics, and other artwork by CCAD graduates, faculty, and even a former CCAD President at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Terri Albanese (Graphic Design, 1980), In the Shadow of its Branches

Working with cut glass strips in the way a painter uses brushstrokes to create color and texture, Terri Albanese celebrates colorful fall foliage in a glass mosaic. The layered, handcrafted sheets of glass she uses were selected for their color, textural waves, striations, and bubbles.

Kirsten Bowen (Illustration, 1989), Get Together

With Venetian plaster as her medium, Kirsten Bowen combines landscape painting with language. Her work starts with an underpainting of a landscape to which she adds layers of poetry, lyrics, and quotes. A final layer of varnish gives the appearance of an oil painting.

Todd Camp (Photography, 1989), Observation Cloudscape

Todd Camp’s mixed-media abstract painting is made of acrylic, spray paint, latex, shellac, and mastic, which together create a layered and textured surface with a puff of white at the center suggestive of a cloud.

Laurie Clements (Illustration, 1980), Local Lingo

Former CCAD Director of Admissions and instructor Laurie Clements works in oil to paint an image many Columbus visitors might miss—an ordinary road at the back of the Greater Columbus Convention Center. 

Nick Dayringer (Fine Arts, 2015), Graphing

Three elements—a grid pattern, a fluid swirls, and interlocking angles—comprise this abstract acrylic painting from Nick Dayringer. Together, those elements mesh 2D and 3D sensibilities and are intended to prompt viewers to question what is real and what is illusion. 


Jennifer Dunlap (Advertising & Graphic Design, 1993), ART

Since graduating from CCAD, Jennifer Dunlap has worked professionally as a freelance photographer and a fine artist who combines photography with other media such as silkscreen and enamels, glass, tile mosaic, and fabrics. Here, she references her alma mater with a striking black and white photo of CCAD’s Art Sign.

Michael Guinane (Illustration, 2000), Under the Arches

Michael Guinane seeks to capture the emotion of a single moment in time in his paintings. Here, in watercolor and acrylics, he shows the glimmer of the Short North’s iconic arches and depicts the connection between individuals and their environment.

Fine Arts Professor Carol Griffith, Pattern Painting - Circularity

Carol Griffith gives a nod to Joseph V. Canzani, CCAD’s first President, with the title of her watercolor, which combines still-life with abstract painting. Canzani spoke of circularity, linearity, and rectangularity in his design lectures and applied those principles to many aspects of life. 

Former CCAD President Dennison W. Griffith, Untitled

Best known around CCAD as “Denny,” former CCAD President Dennison W. Griffith maintained an active career as a visual artist until his death in 2016. This piece sees Griffith using the ancient medium encaustic (when an artist suspends pigments in melted wax) to create biomorphic abstract shapes that reference the body and landscape. 

Pamela Workman (Fine Arts, 1999), Untitled

Working in acrylic on canvas, Pamela Workman depicts an anonymous Cuban ballet dancer in repose, featuring her poised and serious expression. This painting not only captures the individual but also reflects a facet of Cuba’s evolving cultural life.

Bonus: Through the end of 2019, see Peeping Peepers, by Mackenzie Bigley (Animation, 2020), screening on the convention center’s vast, 60-by-7-foot digital board as part of its first-ever Creative Video, Animation, and Motion Graphic Design Festival competition. Bigley’s work, the judges’ favorite selection, will be on the big screen through the end of 2019, as will work by CORE Studies Assistant Professor Eric Homan (Media Studies Time-Based, 1998), which took home fourth place in the competition.

Bonus-bonus: Stop by the convention center’s Vine Street parking garage to see tile mosaics created by young people and members of the public with assistance from CCAD’s Continuing & Professional Studies department. The works depict whimsical images as well as pay homage to the city’s long-demolished Union Station.

Post date
October 7, 2019