Professor and alumnus to participate in international competition

Ben Mahan (CCAD 1965) may call Ohio home, but he will soon travel to Venice for an illustration exhibition that will include one his works.

The exhibition, Cannonball Lady, features American illustrators and explores diversity and its many possible interpretations.

The organization chose the United States as their guest country for their 16th International Competition of Illustration because of their, “unbridled versatility, richness of iconography, and the constant experimentation of new media are characteristics of the flowing American imagination."

The exhibition will feature “a bizarre gallery of characters that becomes a hymn to differences, to the hybrid, the incongruous, the unfit, the deformed."

"I heard about the exhibition due to my previous experiences with the Associazione Culturale Teatrio and I have been a part of their workshops and classes in the past," said Mahan, who majored in Illustration and teaches illustration at CCAD.

Mahan will not only be taking part in the exhibition but he was also invited to be a presenter at the Mazza Children's Book Museum Summer Children's Workshop.

"It is always a joy to return to Italy and see the sites and art," he said.

Prior to teaching at CCAD, Mahan worked at Hallmark and was a graphic design instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.

The opening for the exhibition is Nov. 11, 2011.