Culture
Dairy Barn Arts Center Exhibiting OH+5 Through March 14
By: Jessica Jones
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The Dairy Barn Arts Center (8000 Dairy Lane, Athens) is currently in the middle of exhibiting one of their most popular art installations, the biannual OH+5.
“OH+5 is open to artists living in Ohio and the 5 surrounding states- Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky- it’s our biannual regional exhibition that premieres each winter in the even year, and it’s an all-media juried exhibition so we have a variety of artwork and disciplines at each exhibit,” said Holly Ittel, the Dairy Barn Exhibitions Director. “This is the 11th exhibition, but it’s been going on for about 18 years.”
Each time the exhibition opens, there is a new panel of jurors chosen. This year’s jurors included Robbert Peppers, Kevin Harris, and Shalya Marsh.
“The jury reviews the images online before they come to The Dairy Barn, so they’re familiar with the works, and the three of them go through all of the submissions together to select the works and so after a couple rounds their able to discuss each remaining piece to make sure it fits the merit that they set for exhibition, and doing it in this process is actually a little bit uncommon because it would be easier for us to just tell them to pick your favorites online, but this way they’re having a conversation about a piece,” said Ittel. “Which means a jury member can defend a work they are really excited by, or vice versa. So it always comes out to be a really interesting show when the jury is here in person.”
The exhibition runs from January 18- March 14 and can be viewed in The Dairy Barn Arts Center Gallery Tuesday – Saturday from 12 p.m. – 5 p.m. Admission is $5 and is free for members and children under 12.
“I think it’s so wonderful to see the variety of contemporary artwork that is happening in our region by artists that are emerging or established, there’s a good range of the artists that are attracted to submit to the show as well. This year we have a lot of ceramic art and a couple of installation pieces, we even have a video, and we have the traditional art forms like painting, printmaking, and photography on display.”
The call for entry for 2022’s OH+5 will open the fall before the exhibit premiers. There will be a new jury panel and it will be open to artists currently living in the region making any type of art. For more information about the next OH+ 5 event, contact The Dairy Barn at artsinfo@dairyban.org.
“Every jury is different – they all have the same goal of picking the best work to display, but within that common goal they all have different priorities of what makes an interesting show, I think every show is successful and that’s from choosing stellar jury members,” said Ittel. “It’s fun to work with them and just hear what they choose and vs. what I would choose for the show, it’s fun to sit through that process.”