“People are quick to say these days that a lot is going on in the arts in Cincinnati and it seems to me that Near*By is one of the factors in helping things to happen.” – Jane Durrel, WVXU
NEAR*BY is an untethered curatorial collective that seeks to bypass the art institution, working as liaison between artists and pluralistic audiences. We aim to create ephemeral and interdisciplinary exhibitions that connect art with location and meld curatorial and artist practices while blurring the boundaries between installation and white cube.
Members:
(with illustrations by Jiemei Lin)
Chris Reeves
With a fondness for talking about himself in the third person, and long run-on sentences, Reeves has spent the last seven years of his life in Cincinnati, OH where he has attended and received a MA in Art History from the University of Cincinnati, co-founded two independent gallery/project spaces, Museum Gallery/Gallery Museum and Third Party Gallery, and has exhibited his artwork, usually collage, but sometimes video, sculpture, and site specific installation, throughout the United States and Europe. He is currently working towards a PhD at the University of Illinois Chicago, with a focus on the Fluxus group.
John Auer
John Auer received his BFA from the University of Cincinnati in 2013. Working as a carpenter and furniture builder as his primary source of income, Auer’s work focuses heavily on tradespeople and their roles as employees of their own utility. His work aims to comment on middle to lower-middle class roles and lives from within the group as played out in middle class middle America.
Loraine Wible
Originally from France where she studied Film, Wible arrived in Cincinnati in 2007 in order to pursue a MFA at the University of Cincinnati. She found in the Cincinnati art scene a motivating and exciting opportunity to collaborate. She has multiplied projects with artists, musicians and galleries. In 2009 she co-founded an experimental art gallery named Museum Gallery Gallery Museum. Since 2012 she has been volunteering in Cincinnati oldest co-op gallery, Semantics.
Wible is also an art educator at local universities. She considers teaching an integral part of her artistic practice, along with curating. Making art, talking about art and showing art are all a way for her to engage in the global art dialog.
Maria Seda-Reeder
Independent curator, freelance writer and university adjunct instructor Maria Seda-Reeder has been working with and on behalf of artists for nearly 15 years. Writing is the common thread in all that she does, and she actively pursues a multi-faceted career that allows her to dissect and seek out critical perspectives on our roles as consumers and co-creators of visual culture.
Anastasiya Yatsuk
Anastasiya Yatsuk was born in Hungary and raised in Russia. She studied Journalism and Creative Writing at Belgorod State University from where she transferred to University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. Currently Anastasiya is working on designing and manufacturing her first sustainable outwear line for TEXTILEHAUS.
Joe Hedges
Hedges is an artist working in a variety of media borrowing from the visual language of science and the archive. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting from Northern Kentucky University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Cincinnati. As an art educator Hedges has taught at Miami University Hamilton, Northern Kentucky University, and currently works as Assistant Professor of Painting/Intermedia at Washington State University in Pullman, WA.
Hedges has also worked with Artworks, a Cincinnati based non-profit organization, as a lead artist and project manager, creating public art projects to be executed with area teen apprentices.