Cartographic Exhaustion, Paintings by Charles Grund

The Cincinnati Arts Association’s Weston Art Gallery in the Aronoff Center for the Arts announces three new exhibitions: Cartographic Exhaustion, a new series of paintings by Cincinnati artist Charles Grund reflecting the paradoxes inherent in our motor-driven society; Inner Sanctums, Urban Medals and Other Short Subjects, a provocative body of work by Thom Shaw investigating social and political challenges within the African-American community; and Nuts Society T-Shirt Center, a site-specific installation guised as a retail operation by the Thai artist-collective Nuts Society that seeks to integrate art into everyday consumer-based activities.

Charles Grund, a Cincinnati native and University of Cincinnati alumnus, has for the past few years refrained from exhibiting his paintings while he focused on parenting his young daughter and pursuing a separate career in establishing a decorative arts business. The challenges of balancing his domestic life with business pursuits while maintaining his painting interests has resulted in the artist spending a great deal of time in his car traveling to business appointments, school related activities and his studio. This dependence on his car both fascinates and horrifies the artist and has served as inspiration for his latest series of paintings.

Cartographic Exhaustion features a series of paintings primarily comprised of compressed landscapes densely populated with automobiles that appear to morph into animated creatures of their own that clash with the idyllic settings they inhabit. Grund’s paintings address urban sprawl and the inherent stress of a motor-driven society that paradoxically views the automobile as both escape and entrapment. Cartographic Exhaustion is sponsored by an anonymous friend of the Weston Art Gallery.