Bestiary sweeps through all three rooms of Manifest Gallery in a lively embodiment of the kind of show the East Walnut Hills gallery has to a degree pioneered and does well.
An idea (in this case “animals”) is thrown out worldwide, thanks to the Internet, and a stringent jury/curatorial process sifts the keepers from what is usually a heady number of submissions. This time, 410 artists submitted images of 985 works. Twenty-five works by 17 artists, from France, Canada and England, in addition to the U.S., made the cut. No one local is among them, but they are a happily diverse assemblage. The show includes drawings, prints, paintings and sculptures as well as excursions into video, photography and digital collage.
These animals are not necessarily cuddly. In the front gallery, Minneapolis-based Jessica Teckemeyer's “Reliance (Sinners and Saints)” immediately states the dichotomy of our relationship with animals. She has cast a pair of black heads of what seem to me an undetermined animal (wolf? dog?) and, with only tiny differences in the mouth and lines around the eyes, made one fearsome and one friendly.
Bestiary is on view at Manifest Gallery through Dec. 3. Go here to read Jane Durrell's full review.
