November 11, 2024 - February 28, 2025
The Gallery at The Summit Hotel
5345 Medpace Way
Cincinnati, OH 45227
The Gallery at the Summit Hotel is pleased to present “Lilac Chaser.” This two-person exhibition pairs Anita Douthat’s recent digital photographs with Jimmy Baker’s new oil paintings and monoprints. While Douthat has historically been associated with photograms and Baker with oil painting, “Lilac Chaser” assembles new bodies of work whose digital processes are delimited by the human hand. In short, these artists intervene in ways that disrupt technology’s typical patterns. The respective outcomes prove surprising, even astonishing.
Working beneath a wooden lattice, Douthat used photograms created years ago as the ground, composing ikebana-like floral arrangements from her garden in relationship to the photogram’s forms. As the photogram encountered sunlight, a clear-blue sky, passing clouds, and the lattice’s shadows, the ground mutated. Each is titled Latticework, accompanied by a subtitle indicating their date and flowers. Even though these are digital photographs, all of the colors are truly “as is.”
While Douthat uses a digital process to freeze an otherwise dynamic, living process; Baker uses his hand to enliven an otherwise static digital process. Baker’s monoprints and paintings take as their starting point the Norfolk Southern freight-train derailment that disrupted ordinary life in East Palestine, Ohio on February 3, 2023. Working in photoshop, Baker created several elaborate digital collages, comprised of newspaper texts, images, and more that he transferred to paper already rendered in India ink. Keen to create 100 different paintings of vases hosting bouquets rendered in cross-stitch, Baker used Midjourney AI art generator both to design the vases and to convert each bouquet into its cross-stitched analogue.
Although floral imagery appears to be what unites Douthat and Baker, floral imagery is rather a decoy. Far more prominent are the artists’ efforts to subvert technology. For Douthat, this takes the form of arranging vibrant compositions that change with every moment, whereas Baker exerts the upper hand by drawing with India ink and painting AI-derived imagery. Both have created complicated artworks that entail multi-layered, aleatory processes. While Douthat’s photographs are replete with illusionistic space, Baker’s off-kilter paintings exhibit what AI enthusiasts term hallucinations.
“Lilac Chaser” is presented by the Summit Hotel, and curated by Alternate Projects. The opening reception for this exhibition is Friday, November 15, from 5 to 8 pm. The reception is free and open to the public. Light bites and a cash bar will be provided and the artists will both be present. This exhibition runs through February 28, 2025. It can be viewed 24 hours a day except when the gallery is closed for a private event. For more information on this exhibition, contact info@alternateprojects.net or 859-653-8684. To confirm the gallery is open to the public, contact the Summit Hotel, 513-527-9900.
