Two Wall Gallery will present a retrospective of prints from one of its curators, Greg Wessel, opening with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, July 3. The artist will be in attendance.
The exhibit, “Wessel: Works on Paper, and Sometimes Doesn’t,” documents nearly a decade of printmaking by the artist. Early works will be presented alongside pieces from past collections —including “Lessons I Learned The Hard Way,” and “Stories Too Small to Fit in a Book” — as well as prints that the artist described as “outliers that spice up the set.”
This will be the last opportunity to see this body of work, as there are no more exhibitions planned for it.
Wessel grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he traversed the frontier separating farm country from encroaching suburbia. This taste of wilderness in his childhood led him to develop an affinity with the natural world, which can be seen in some of his prints.
A childhood fascination with the fossils that are abundant in southern Ohio naturally led to a career in geology that took him to interesting and challenging environs in eastern Europe and South America, as well as all over the American Southwest.
Wessel received no formal art education and considers himself to be an artist “in the loosest sense of the word,” as he put it. Whether Wessel is arranging paving stones in the yard or pencil strokes on paper, he approaches all of his creative efforts with a mental energy and attention to detail that he said sometimes infuriates those around him.
“I have gotten most of my art experience through independent efforts, including doodling in the margins of my papers,” Wessel said. “Despite the wishes of my teachers, I continued to doodle well into high school. Once in civics class, my teacher held up my notebook as an example of what not to do. I did not allow this to deter me.”
Borrowing from another Ohioan, James Thurber, Wessel said that viewers might be able to discern some of the “mistaken exits and entrances” of his youth in his work.
He looks forward to joining gallery walkers around the wine table at the Two Wall Gallery on July 3.
Proceeds from the exhibit will benefit the Sophia F. Tussey Educational Fund.
