Rhonda Gushee: Role Model

September 1 - 28, 2006

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Rhonda Gushee received both her BFA in mixed media and her MFA in printmaking and sculpture from the University of Cincinnati. She has exhibited in numerous group and solo shows and has her work in public and private collections. Rhonda Gushee is Adjunct Professor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

Artist Statement: My figurative sculptures are investigations into how humans interact socially and within personal relationships. They are reconstructions of the emotional and intellectual mechanisms that people use to cope every day. My objective is to evoke memory, narratives and psychological connections. Most recently, I have created works for "The Thinking Cap" series that reference my mother’s early symptoms of some sort of dementia.

Myths and fairy tales, family and friends inspire my characters. Some of the figures emit various toy sounds when certain buttons are pushed, pulled or squeezed. The work involves taking apart found objects, and combining human and animal forms. Tactile materials such as Raku clay and stitched fibers come together and become a hybrid of the old and new. I find that these elements highlight contradictions such as humor and fear, beauty and decay, the antique and contemporary.