7.17.15-9.4.15

Fractured Planes explores the abstraction and fragmentation of the pictorial plane. A wide berth of time in Cleveland art is examined from the early twentieth to the early twenty-first centuries. From Cubism and Futurism, to Op Art and hard-edge abstraction, the works illustrate how artists in Cleveland adapted and built upon innovative artistic concepts and formed a continuity of creative expression. By dividing and breaking up space to flatten reality, artists William Sommer and August F. Biehle set the stage for further developments by Paul Travis and William Grauer.

Moving from representation toward pure non-objective imagery, artists Thelma Frazier Winter and Edwin Mieczkowski both explore spacial depth. Using line and overlapping shapes, each artist develops a complex system of form. Winter utilizes color and shade to create a sense of space, while Mieczkowski uses solid black and white shapes to create a two-dimensional composition, broken up by overlaid constructed forms to shatter the perceived work into three-dimensionality.

Both reality and non-objective abstraction collide in more current works by artists such as Mark Keffer and Dante Rodriguez. Each of these artists make use of geometric forms mixed with referential depictions of identifiable subject matter. The figure or the landscape are present in the works by these artists, often broken up by hard-edged geometry. Linear forms fragment the representational elements to create a hybrid of movements firmly planted in the contemporary scene. Fractured Planes brings together these diverse works to explore stylistic development, and examine a Cleveland tradition in geometric abstraction.