McDonough Museum opens first Spring 2024 exhibit

The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown State University’s Center of Contemporary Art, is featuring five unique exhibitions now through Saturday, March 2.

Roberley Bell’s, “Always and the lake.” Bell is the recipient of several fellowships including awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Pollock Krasner Fellowship and a Fulbright to Turkey. She has lived in various locations worldwide, from Paris; Austria; Utica, New York and Sweden. Bell’s work was exhibited nationally and internationally, including, Alan Istanbul, The Brattleboro Museum of Art, The deCordova Museum, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, amongst others. She completed public projects in numerous cities, such as Istanbul, Turkey, Kaliningrad, Russia, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cambridge. Bell lives in Western Massachusetts, maintaining a studio in the historic canal city of Holyoke.

Lauren Semivan’s, “A Map Both Distant and Concrete.” Semivan received a bachelor’s in Studio Art from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin and a master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work has been exhibited at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Cranbrook Art Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Silver Eye Center for Photography, Paris Photo, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Hunterdon Art Museum and Museum of Wisconsin Art. Semivan’s work is part of several permanent collections and she is represented by Benrubi Gallery in New York and David Klein Gallery in Detroit, Michigan.

Jonathon Brewer’s, “Quemar Las Naves.” Brewer is an electroacoustic musician, audio engineer and composer living in Ohio. His work draws inspiration from quantum physics, consciousness, chaos theory and sociology to build on the vision of a music, which is self-evident without relying on overused formulas. This entails the use of generative systems and processes for music making. He received his bachelor’s in Classical and Jazz Guitar Performance at Eastern Kentucky University and master’s in Classical Guitar Performance from Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Morgan Bukovec’s, “are you on the menu.” Bukovec is a mixed media artist, educator and collector of things from Cleveland, Ohio. In 2018, she obtained bachelor's degrees in Fine Arts and Arts Education from the University of Dayton and worked with several community art spaces in Cleveland including moCa Cleveland, Spaces, Community Arts Center, Kaiser Gallery and Headspace Gallery, providing art engagement and workshops. Bukovec is interested in how art builds empathy through storytelling, which inspires her interdisciplinary art practice.

Bukovec will be hosting an artist talk at 5:30 p.m., January 31 and an artist performance at 5:30 p.m, February 28.

Posters Without Borders began in 2013 as an international invitational poster exhibition on the subject of immigration, organized by Erin Wright, Professor of Art at the University of Alabama at Birmingham; Antonio Castro H., Professor of Art at the University of Texas at El Paso, and Eric Boelts of Brain Bolts Design in Boulder Colorado.

All exhibitions are free and open to the public. The McDonough Museum is open 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.