3 art exhibits to open at McDonough

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The John J. McDonough Museum of Art, on the campus of Youngstown State University, will open its fall season with solo exhibitions by three dynamic female artists: Julie Mehretu, Dana Oldfather and Whitney Tressel.

The shows will be on view in the galleries from Friday to Oct. 26, with an opening reception Friday from 5-7 p.m.

Here is a look at the three exhibitions:

“Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”: While Mehretu is known for her large-scale paintings and drawings, this collection of her work is in the medium of printmaking. Her works mix elements of urban landscape with personal, energetic iconography layering of maps, urban planning grids and architectural renderings with whorls of abstract markings and bright, colorful shapes.

Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and currently lives and works in New York.

“Dana Oldfather: Our of the Woods, into the Weeds”: Oldfather celebrates paint and the oddity of human experience with a focus on femininity and motherhood in this show. Her large, abstract paintings reveal fantastical spaces and intertwined figures in a chaotic, yet whimsical arrangement. They underscore the inherent emotional conflict of parenting young children, and the fragility of comfort and happiness in America today.

Oldfather currently works and lives just outside Cleveland with her husband and young son. She will deliver a lecture at the McDonough at 5:10 p.m. Oct. 17.

“Whitney Tressel: America Still”: This exhibition, which will launch the McDonough’s Emerging Artist series, features works by travel photographer Whitney Tressel.

For the past two years, Tressel has traversed North America alone in a truck camper, capturing a sense of place in the diverse sets of American landscape.

She will give a talk at the McDonough at 5:10 p.m. Aug. 26.