Good news: We’re all human. Bad news: This condition comes with some side effects, including but not limited to stress and emotional burnout. More good news: Wave Pool’s new exhibition can help with that.
Through a collection of simplistic works of ink on paper, Start Over Tomorrow While There’s Still Time seeks to celebrate the mundanity of everyday life and all the weird and wonderful that comes with it. The exhibition features the work of Cincinnatians Karen Boyhen, Macartney Greer and Evan Verrilli and Kyle Knobel and Nathaniel Russell, from Oakland, California and Indianapolis, Indiana, respectively.
Knobel draws ordinary things without the context of backgrounds; there are flowers, sea coral and a pair of braids without a head to attach to. Some pieces are covered with grids, each more densely filled with crisscrossed patterns than the next. A tear rips through one of the pages like a shock of lighting. Hanging underneath it: a page that simply says “UGH.” It reads like something you might find in the margins of someone’s notebook as they scribble away their frustrations.
While Knobel draws with fluid, sweeping strokes, Verrilli’s red and blue pen drawings are incredibly precise. In his “honda’s odyssey” series, he draws detailed minivans with big decals advertising things like “1-800-CALL-MOM” and “findyourdad.com.” The frames hang surrounded by a web of arrows scribbled in pencil, which point to holes in the wall left from the first attempts at hanging the drawings. A note reads, “labors of love” and, for one lonely little nail hole, “labor of hate.”
Wave Pool Executive Director Calcagno Cullen says she’s noticed “a de-skilling trend, where it’s not about making something look photo-real or making something perfectly to proportion. It’s more about finding the humanity in hand-drawn things.”
Russell embraces weirdness through a series of fliers that wouldn’t look out of place on a community bulletin board. One features a cat with a white, glowing void where a face should be. The text reads, “HAVE YOU SEEN HER? LOCAL CAT, SUSAN, APPEARS AS AN INFINITE BALL OF LIGHT HURTLING THROUGH TIME AND SPACE. CALL FOR INFO.” But there’s no phone number. The exhibition takes its title from another flier. In a photo, two figures are silhouetted in the darkness against an enormous bonfire. It reads, “BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN / START OVER TOMORROW WHILE THERE’S STILL TIME. THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.”
“Who doesn’t feel like getting in the car and driving away, you know?” Russell says. “That’s like my most Punk Rock flier. Because it’s about destruction but it’s also about rebirth. It’s about finding what it is you’re supposed to be here on earth for.”
There’s a duality to the works here.
“They are lighthearted and totally you can just look at them and laugh and feel good,” Cullen says. “But there’s a lot of undercurrents of the work that are pretty serious.”
This is evident in Boyhen’s work, too. Her autobiographical drawings were torn directly from her sketchbooks. They detail some humdrum parts of life — eating noodles or sitting in a coffee shop — but difficult ones, too; many of her illustrations take place inside a hospital. Her work feels like prying into someone’s diary, but the drawings’ familiarity and intimacy make it seem like it could be our own.
Greer tackles driving anxieties through “Signs of Life,” an illustration series that features signs from the road. Messages include “PLEASE GET WELL” and “WHAT DOES PEACE FEEL LIKE.” Following a traumatic car accident, she explains that sharing her struggles allows for making more honest connections with other people.
“It’s kind of…making a joke out of the things that I’m scared of,” she says. “Making fun of myself is a way of being cathartic. Just opening up, I was like, ‘Dude, this is a release for me to talk about my problems.’ Let’s get everyone into the game.”
One of Russell’s fliers advertises a support group for the masses. “WE’RE NEVER GETTING OUT OF THIS PLACE / GROUP COUNSELING SESSIONS / OPEN TO THE PUBLIC / EVERY THURSDAY AT 6 PM / IN THE COMMUNITY ROOM / FREE DONUTS.” The group is imaginary, but Start Over Tomorrow While There’s Still Time is the next best thing.
“I hope people leave the exhibition feeling a little better about life,” Cullen says. “There’s something about these drawings that make me feel hopeful that we’re all on this planet, we’re all sharing these emotions and we’re not alone.”
Start Over Tomorrow While There’s Still Time runs through April 6 at Wave Pool (2940 Colerain Ave., Camp Washington). More info: wavepoolgallery.org.
