Harvest Gallery Opens with the Art of Chris Hoeting

Hello. My name is Michael Hurst, local artist and director of the Harvest Art Gallery at 216 W. 15th st in Over the Rhine. This is a press release regarding the artwork of Chris Hoeting, the featured artist in our inaugural show. February 10th will mark the official beginning of Harvest Art Gallery, although the preparations were put into motion months ago. In this opening show you will see the artwork of local artist Chris Hoeting. An established figure in the Northside art scene, I feel lucky and honored to show his work in Over the Rhine. In it’s essence, his work is both haunting and beautiful, taking highly charged emotional images of people in distress and softening them with multiple layers of gel medium, cracking and distressing as if echoing the over all feel of the piece. The work is both seductive and fragile, aggressive and vulnerable and executed in a way that begs for exploration. Chris creates a perfect balance in subject and medium, saying what he wants to say in the best possible manner. With a BFA in sculpture and painting and MFA that focused heavily in mixed media and medium exploration, Chris has become quite skilled at combining multiple classic mediums with very contemporary results. The end product is not easily achieved, but anything worthwhile rarely is. As one half of the founding members of Northside based parProjects, a professor at University of Dayton, a guest lecturer at UD and U of Maryland, an art handler at the Taft Museum and a visual artist, he is no stranger to going the extra mile to succeed. His evolution into a fast rising member of the Cincinnati art scene, in the studio as well as with his words and ideas, is why I insisted he be the 1st artist to show at Harvest Art Gallery. Harvest is a repurposed space inside Engine22 Studios. The name is meant to be symbolic. There is nothing newer and nothing fresher than the Harvest. My goal is to bring fresh ideas and concept driven art to the city in an “artist friendly” space. The gallery is operating with the philosophy that if you display good artwork, people will come. I believe in the old school theory that a gallery need only provide a large space with white walls and high ceilings to the artist, and need only provide good artwork to the public. I have no yearning to incorporate the community, have artists relate work to OTR or have artists present a project they want to achieve in order to gain a show. Ultimately my goal is to showcase unique work in a unique space that makes people say, “I can’t wait to see the next show here”. And like many of the artists on this first year’s schedule, Chris’s work will compliment, and be complimented by, the space that was originally built to house firemen and now houses artists. I look forward with great excitement for the opening of The Art of Chris Hoeting on February 10th, from 6pm-8pm and hope that you will help us get the word out. I appreciate any help that you can provide and will make myself available to answer any questions you may have about the show or the space, over the phone, via email or in person at the space. Thank you so much and I hope to hear from you. Sincerely, Michael Hurst www.michaelhurst.com Harvest Art Gallery, Director