Jian, Appleton exhibition to open Oct. 15 at the Coburn Gallery at Ashland University

10/11/2020 ASHLAND, Ohio -- The Coburn Gallery at Ashland University will host a two-person exhibition featuring works created by Texas artists Dan Jian and Kalee Appleton.

The exhibition will run from Oct. 15 through Nov. 24 at the gallery, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday and is free and open to the public. COVID-19 safety protocols limit the maximum number of visitors to 15 visiting the gallery at one time, and groups no larger than five. Face masks must be worn at all times on the Ashland University campus, including outside a building.

Jian is a visual artist who works across painting, drawing, and project-based installation. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University, and a Master of Fine Art with a minor in Comparative Study from The Ohio State University.

Jian is a residency alumnus of Ragdale Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. She currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is an assistant professor of art at Texas Christian University and maintains an ongoing studio practice.

Her work explores landscape as a motif and metaphor that conveys a depth of meaning through the reductive representation of form. As an immigrant, she finds the landscape acquires meaning through memories; as we dwell, we are the subjects overwriting a landscape's original narrative through our reflections and recollections, while holding the potential of all future memory. Drawing and painting have been the constants on which she relies on to investigate this process. Each work is an open-ended formal search that examines how culture builds myths, defines what's ordinary, and incites emotion.

Appleton is a photography-based artist and assistant professor of photography at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. Originally from Hobbs, New Mexico, Appleton attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock and received a Bachelor of Fine Art in photography. Shortly after graduation she worked as a corporate and aviation photographer, and later attended Texas Woman’s University in Denton, where she received a Master of Fine Art in art. Appleton’s work deals with digital technologies and their effects on society, as well as with the nature of photography, specifically landscape photography.

Appleton’s work explores the objecthood of the photographic backdrop, a prevalently used trades-tool of mainstream photography studios as well as challenges the tradition of the photographic print. Visually transporting sitters into idealized landscapes and utopian worlds, these backdrops' pure purpose is to act as a false contextual space. By manipulating the backdrop it is transforming the space it portrays, while simultaneously changing the nature of the object. The shape and size of the non-traditionally framed images in this series challenge the notion of traditional fine art photography by changing the traditionally square/rectangle format of the classic photographic frame.

For more information about the exhibition, call 419-289-5652 or find the Coburn Gallery on Facebook.

Ashland University is a mid-sized, private university conveniently located a short distance from Akron, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio. Ashland University (www.ashland.edu) values the individual student and offers a unique educational experience that combines the challenge of strong, applied academic programs with a faculty and staff who build nurturing relationships with their students.###