Justin Cooper – Yard Works: Geometric Botanical Studies at CAMi

Daisies (detail), Justin Cooper

The Transcendental Art of Justin Cooper.

Justin Cooper is currently showing his most recent artworks at the CAMi Main building in the Sutphin Gallery. The exhibition, Yard Works: Geometrical Botanical Studies contains wood panel artworks, many in pairs or larger groupings, and a selection of smaller graphite drawings. There is truth in advertising to Cooper's title for this show, as his subject matter consists of detailed, almost scientifically-executed, portraits of many different plant and flower varieties.

The overall look and presentation of Cooper's specimens echo the work of pioneering nature artists such as John James Audubon with his birds of North America, and lesser known names in the botanical field such as Pierre-Joseph Redoute and Priscilla Susan Bury. 

The detailed individual subjects depicted by these artists in their volumes of collected specimens, whether bird or plant kingdom, are made  monumental and sculptural by the center placement on the negative space of the non-distracting backgrounds of their pages. And there is an acknowledgment of the poetry of the natural world by these artists shown by the careful observation and meticulous rendering of their subjects. 

As individuals, the artists seemed infatuated to the point of obsession with the microcosm of the universe that they chose to capture in their portfolio collections.

Justin Cooper, with his latest exhibition, displays work of a similar transcendental mindset, one uniting individual spirit, nature and the divine. 

And there is something of the yellowed age and faded colors of old book plates that we also associate with them that seem present in Cooper's works via his choice of materials and technique. He achieves a warm and worn antiquity though the use of a the birch wood surface that forms the negative space around the plants he describes, and with the thin viscosity of his colors which mimic a sun-faded or time-bleached effect.  

Siberian Iris Tiles (detail), Justin Cooper

Cooper's technique, when speaking of the panels, is not just paint on wood, but rather pyrography, or 'writing with fire,' a traditional craft of creating designs with controlled burn marks.     

The exhibition manifest that accompanies the show explains that Cooper's works are a continuation of geometric botanical studies of plants in and around his Garfield Park home, with his latest emphasis on native Indiana wildflowers. 

The series and groupings seen in the current show, the multiples of a single variety, are inspired by the subtle changes he has observed in the individual plant varieties over successive growing seasons. 

The dark linearity of the underlying burn marks together with the thin oil glazes of his built-up colors, as explained in the artist statement, “are meant to evoke stained glass, ceramic tile, and wood inlay – art forms that have long inspired the development of this series.”

Origin of Materials and Methods. 

Evocations of stain glass, mosaics and wood inlay, perhaps even crochet knitting and fresco painting, are seen in Justin Cooper's work as early as his show Zero at Galerie Penumbra in the Murphy Art Center in 2006. Cooper's work in that show consisted of mixed media on thick wood panels with built-up glazes of color and gold leaf flourishes. 

His many various panels displayed in that show were like the opulent opening pages of Medieval manuscripts with their symbolic figures, complex gleaming decoration and the nebulous code of the parables suggested by their alchemic cast of characters and objects.    

Zero, Justin Cooper, 2006
postcard from the exhibition by the same name

Julianna Thibodeaux, writing for NUVO Newsweekly, reviewed the show in a September 2006 edition,

“What to make of such deliciously perfected images of owls, bats, bees, lilies, roosters, spiders, rabbits and the like? Even these, richly suggestive, do not stand alone; some surround like a halo the symbolic image of the feminine, a perfectly proportioned female figure, hand open, the divine receptive vehicle. But Cooper throws in smaller, more enigmatic symbols, like spaces on a game of Zen Monopoly: we see an Rx symbol, an umbrella, a devil's pitchfork, the chemical formula for water, the nuclear symbol, a car battery a pair of dice, a seashell. Profane and sacred, human and divine, and points of grey in between.” 

In an evolution of his imagery, but a continuation of his techniques and materials, Cooper presented new works in 2011 in Indianapolis at a show called Missed the Boat.  The exhibition was also reviewed in NUVO, this time by Charles Fox, on October 10, 2011,

“Justin Cooper fills Primary Gallery with a fresh, engaging  and witty group of paintings depicting various animals in the face of impending environmental catastrophe. Drawing on influences including Aesop's Fables and 18th - 19th century Japanese printmaker and painter Katsushika Hokusai...

He keeps his color palette limited to mostly blues and whites, aside from the colors used for the animals and gold leaf, which he uses effectively to render halos around the animals and embellish decorative details of the paintings.” 

The same writer also covers a following show by Cooper, Spark Fishing, in the March 18, 2013 issue

of NUVO,

“As thoughtful and realized a show as one has come to expect from Justin Cooper who typically builds his shows around a single idea – and in this case, it's about the attempt to harness energy...

The reintroduction of humans into his art is welcome; female figures are prominent within the body of work (with especially stunning impact in Collector). Despite depicting the search for energy, the net effect of Spark Fishing is to leave the viewer with a feeling of peace.” 

The article contained the image of Cooper's Wave Length from the show, which is an interesting mash-up of a decorative foreground element reminiscent of Maya glyphs, an art nouveau woman in profile at the center, and surrounding, Japanese print-style clouds or energy fields that billow and swirl. 

Over the course of these shows and the years, Cooper would establish his favored materials – wood panels, thin and translucent layers of paint and the decorative embellish of gold leaf – that he continues to utilize in his current geometric botanicals. 

Toward an Infinitude of Flowers.

The transcendental movement was birthed in opposition to the prior poetic indulgences of the romantic era. 

Of several main and related practitioners, Ralph Waldo Emerson preferred essay to fiction, and observation to ecstasy.  Henry David Thoreau lived in a cabin in solitude for two years and made a careful chronicle of his simplified life. Emily Dickinson was to ponder a vast and eternal universe from the seclusion of a room in her father's home. 

There is something analogous to the transcendental approach in Cooper's latest art.  

He has traveled from the conceptual, symbolic and surrealistic narrative of his earlier paintings to the refined decorative simplification and distilled perfection of the current pieces we see in Yard Works.   

Zinnias (detail, central panel), Justin Cooper

The gallery is filled with a wide selection of flower varieties, including specific examples such as Eden Climbing Rose, Dandelions, Black-Eyed Susans and Daisies.

Cooper creates his wildflowers as if assembling Legos. In a method described in his artist statement as first interpreting the various parts of the plant – flowers, buds and leaves – and then rendering them “as discrete  shapes and components,” which are then assembled as parts into the compositions. 

It is a process for creating believable 3D images out of nothing more than lines and planes, not unlike object modeling for video game environments, but with a hand-made analog touch.

The wood burnt drawing and geometry of design are apparent in the finished product. In them, Cooper achieves a result somewhere between Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto 6, that is to say, not clunky, not hyperreal –  but a harmonious in-between –  a  balance of mathematical schematics paired with the colored washes of his flowers on the wood. 

There is something old and something new in them.  Cooper's work would hang as comfortably in a cottage on Walden Pond or a bungalow in Garfield Park.  Or perhaps even a 3D-printed house anywhere in the future. 

For now, they hang in a beautiful display at the newest art museum in Indianapolis, CAMi.

Justin Cooper – Yard Works: Geometric Botanical Studies continues through September 20.

Mark Diekhoff, August 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

New Paintings by Israel Solomon at Harrison Center

Penelope Waiting by Israel Solomon

A Spot in the Desert Night.

In the many words that could be used to describe nature and a place in the world, oasis is a rare word for a rare spot of water and growth in a place lacking both and covered in sand. It is a word that suggests a tiny spot of refreshment surrounded on all sides by desert. And with the thought of such a spot of almost unbelievable uniqueness surrounded by unforgiving wilderness, the joy and relief of finding water, of sustenance, in the starving brittle of such a place. 

An oasis in a desert is what makes it rare.  A pond in a land of lakes is no so special, but an oasis in a desert –  that is altogether the difference between growth and mere survival, between life and death. 

Israel Solomon presents an incredible exhibition of the life and growth side of things in his current show of paintings, Oasis, at Harrison Center.

Through his works, which portray a journey through a strange but beautiful world of night and color, he invites the viewer to seek out an Oasis all their own – and perhaps even find it – as he has, in this show, one painting at a time. 

Landscapes, still lifes, and figures are all represented in the variety of themes that Solomon thoroughly explores. Mythologies, religions traditions and personal discoveries are all depicted along the way of the artist's dreamlike journey filled with dark wonder and vibrant visions. 

I Felt a Comforting Warmth from the Sky... by Israel Solomon

Solomon's paintings range from small to large, and are composed from ever-changing perspectives.  They are  shaped variously, mostly rectangles and squares, but also circles and the diamond shape created by tilting a square 45 degrees. 

To Simplify and Emphasize.

Several months ago, it was a piece from Solomon's Origami series hanging in the halls of Harrison Center that first introduced my eyes to this artist. 

By folding paper in simple line and angles, a world of endless animals and shapes can appear. Solomon's painting was simple folded strips of color, bent across each other, set against a plain background of white. 

a painting by Israel Solomon from his Origami series

The hard edge abstraction of the piece invited a  personal interpretation, almost as if a Rorschach test. 

One strip, of changing color, turns and twists upon itself.  The resulting lines and strips of color cross and dominate and layer upon the other. 

The jumble of crossing paths and tangled highways, could hint at a confusing and complex modern world.  But any unease from the clash of the lines and planes upon each other are overwhelmed by Solomon's use of bright colors that create a mood of joy and celebration, not strife.

Origami, like Oasis, is a thought-provoking word. Like haiku maybe, a simple mode perhaps, but one that can reveal more complex things. We get the impression that Solomon is delving deeply in his choice of such themes.

In Oasis, Solomon limits his palette to recurring combinations of pure-feeling colors. His selections have a dynamic and explosive effect, mainly in the crossing of blue and orange.  Other primary and complimentary colors are used and are present to a lesser degree – red and yellow, green and a rare use of purple.  In addition are brown, pink and white, and black in the deepest shadows of the works.  

Blue Midnight Still by Israel Solomon

The heat of orange is balanced by the cool of the blue in most all of the works. This interaction provides the dynamic engine that fires the emotive impact of the show.

Solomon has a particularly effective way of using the straight and curved lines to delineate his subjects in his spaces. His paintings are both cubist in design and expressionist in effect.

He has a way of creating real volume in space, not by using finely gradated colors, but rather with  a juxtaposition of organic and irregularly shaped fields of subtle colors aside each other.  

Volume is not only effectively suggested, but it reforms and dissipates in the three-dimensional space that inhabits his pictures.   

Themes of the Dream.

A journey of incremental discovery is implied not only in Solomon's imagery, but in his titles, such as I Moved Toward a Large Lake..., As I Walked Forward, I Found Water..., I Walked Around a Green Island... and I Saw Planets Among The Floating Vessels.

I Moved Toward a Large Lake... by Israel Solomon

I Moved Toward a Large Lake... is perhaps the painting of deepest night in the show. Cascades of blue hues dominate the painting of sky and lake. A strip of distant hills in shades of green, yellow and brown are brightened by a full moon overhead. The jagged hills either protect are an obstacle to overcome, depending on the further direction of the journey.

The mystery and revelation of night is thoroughly explored in series of related works such as Midnight Still (Nos. 1 – 8) and Desert Night Still (Nos. 1-3), and also in works such as Blue Midnight Still and I began to Fall Asleep in a Cool Room... 

Mythological, Religious and Sociological themes are explored in works such as Penelope Waiting, The Samaritan Picked Up The Battered, Prayer for Rain and We Listened to Them Play... 

These pictures all portray Solomon's mystical nocturnal landscape. Night as nightmare and reprieve. Droughts and sins, music and prayer. Good and evil working dusk through dawn.     

The three circular pieces all are have long titles, Bible verses, that all amplify and reverberate themes of deliverance, protection and nourishment, such as in Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.

Ensemble of Vessels in Green by Israel Solomon

That prepared table, and at times sumptuous feast, is depicted in paintings such as Seven Vessels underneath the Midnight Sky, Bouquet, Honey Dew, and Mango and in two large and elaborate still lifes; Ensemble of Vessels in Red and Ensemble of Vessels in Green. 

Finally, a sense of journey's end, of personal realization, even enlightenment or salvation, seems the subject of portrayal among several works, including The Night God Stopped Bleeding..., The Oasis Began to Slowly Fade..., All I Need Is You and They Walked Toward The Sun...

They Walked Toward the Sun... by Israel Solomon

In They Walked Toward The Sun..., the desert night has given way to dawn. The sterile sand, by morning, is revealed as a lush green lawn and a forest of trees. The burning orange is softened to pink and yellow.  A couple and a child face a future bathed in light –  deliverance to an oasis everywhere.  

Mark Diekhoff, August 2026

See Also -  Oasis by Israel Solomon at Harrison Center

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

Indiana State Fair Arts Competition 2026

Best of Show painting by Todd Prince
2026 Indiana State Fair Professional Fine Arts Division Exhibition

The First Regional Show of the Season.

A show of professional visual arts is among the many arts and crafts categories showcased in the Arts Building at the fairground's location on 38th Street in Indianapolis every August. The annual event has hosted a who's who of well-known Indiana, Indianapolis and Irvington artists since its inception more than one hundred years ago. 

Overall, the artwork has been and continues to be predominately representational, with a heavy emphasis on landscape, nature and human figures, although in an exhibit containing so many works, and open to all entries, a wide range of styles, techniques and subject matter can be seen. 

The Indiana State Fair art show also begins the season of historic statewide and regional art shows  held every year in the Central Indiana region. 

During the waning days of the fair, and immediately following, in mid-August, the 102nd Hoosier Art Salon Exhibition at the Indiana State Museum and the 82nd Wabash Valley Exhibition at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute. And in two months, the 128th Annual Exhibit of Indiana and Ohio Artists will be at the Richmond Art Museum beginning in November.  

(Prior Hoosier Salon exhibits have been covered in prior blogs here; the 85th and 101st. Last year's Exhibit of Indiana and Ohio Artists was also observed in a prior blog here.)

Honorable Mention painting by Sharon Jiskra Brooks, 

Bustling Sensations of Almost Overload.

Walking the pedestrian promenades packed with people and colorful food carts, leading to the Arts Building, your sense of smell is overwhelmed by the sizzling meat of pork chops and various farm-raised meats and deep-fried everything under the sun. Once inside the building, sight quickly becomes the sensation of the moment, and one's eyes are filled to the brim and overflowing, almost strained, by the handicrafts and artworks at every turn and angle, around every corner and up and down every stair. 

In the main floor central hall, beautiful quilts hang in a long splendid row overhead. In a fleeting thought, it is interesting to ponder such beautiful variety in the restricted parameters of a quilt – a rectangle of sewn cloth, designed to keep warm and to decorate. 

Descending a ramp down from the entry hall, you are surrounded on both sides by all the former queens of the fair. They are preserved smiling and aglow in rows of large photographs, dressed in regal white gowns, across all the decades. 

One cannot help, without blinders on, to immediately pinpoint the young ladies from one's own style of youth. That ideal of beauty that is unique to the few years' span of everyone's coming of age.  

At the bottom of the slight ramp, the professional visual arts division fills several large adjacent rooms.  The central room of paintings is stacked three and four high, from below your waist to well above your head, truly a visual overload. 

Who knew you'd need a submarine and a periscope for an adequate view of all the pictures? It is not surprising that many of the art works that have sold hang at about eye level. 

2nd Place painting by Donna Shortt

The food and the art at the fair are presented as a buffet of countless offerings, with a selection as wide as Walmart but as gee-whiz fun as Buc-ees. It is impossible to sample the art in its entirety, and is best enjoyed on a eye-budget and ingested a nibble at a time.

Favorite Flavors at the Fair.

Each year the fair rolls out a new combinations of fried Oreos and Cheetos, many of which become the favorites of the season. But also, there are popular flavors from the past, back to the time of our grandparents' youth – treats that are more perennial, that persist – such as lemon shake ups and elephant ears.

Perhaps art is subject to whims and echoes of time as well – it is up to each viewer to decide.

3rd Place watercolor by Kyle Ragsdale

Big winners across multiple divisions of the arts competition this year were Donna Shortt and Kyle Ragsdale. They were not alone in their several entries across different categories as it seems many multifaceted artists are represented in the show.

The artworks are listed by artist only, no titles to the pieces are provided. It matters not one iota to the appreciation of an artwork. But it does make it difficult to discuss the specific works by artists, many of whom have multiple entries within and among the categories. 

In the Painting division, Shortt wins two awards on one work, a 2nd Place and an Excellence in Painting for an impressionist streetscape. She also won a 1st Place and an Honorable Mention in the Pastel division and a 2nd Place in Watercolor for a late fall landscape with a stream.

Ragsdale, while currently on a summer painting trip to New York State, is omni-present here at home in this show. He wins a 1st Place in the Drawings division for a charcoal in his signature style of whimsical figuration, a 3rd Place in Prints for one of three similar prints that were hanging together, presented as a triptych, a 3rd in Watercolor for his loose fluid work showing a Colonial gentleman amid flamingos, and an Honorable Mention in Ceramics. He also had a number of paintings to view. 

When viewing the show, one of a group of young ladies in the ceramics area could be heard to exclaim  'Kyle, we know Kyle!' upon seeing his winning work in the display case. Such is the notoriety of the vacationing artist – out-of-state is not out-of-mind for the Ragsdale fan.

Rounding out the awards, in painting, 3rd Place went to Steve Warner for his light but sure touch and handling of a house in a sunlit landscape (image below).

1st Place watercolor by Emily Wingate (detail)

In the Watercolor category, 1st Place went to the pink and pretty monumental floral by Emily Wingate. 

The Excellence in Watercolor award went to J. Anna Roberts for her unusually cropped equestrian piece whose jarring perspective creates a dynamic and abstracting effect.

In Pastels, Vivian Gladden took 1st Place for a winter snow scene study in blue and Melinda Spear-Huff took 3rd Place. 

1st Place print by Jody Bruns (detail)

In Prints, Jody Bruns won both the 1st Place  and 2nd Place awards. The first place work in simple shades of black, brown, pink and cream is an overhead look at an a seated orchestra, its members radiating outward in a semi-circle from the conductor at their center.

In Drawings, Melinda Spear-Huff took 2nd Place for  graphite  image of  tree, and 3rd Place was awarded to Cara Jean Wahlers.  

Mixed Media 1st Place was awarded to Randall Harden, 2nd to Melinda Spear-Huff and 3rd to Indre Pralataviciute-Mineikiene.

Ceramics awarded 1st Place to Christine Davis, 2nd Place to Enola Delaney and 3rd to Chris Deprez.  

Honorable Mention painting by Victoria Williams Steen

Numerous Honorable Mentions were awarded across the many categories,  including multiple awards by a few artists, such as two by Justine Vining in Painting, two by Carrie Wild in Prints, two by J. Anna Roberts in Watercolor, two by Nancy Keating in Mixed Media and two by Jacob Abshire in Drawing. Cory Wright was awarded Honorable Mention in both Drawing and Painting. 

Honorable Mention painting by Justin Vining

Just a few of the many honorable mentions in Painting by artists include a symbolic figural composition of barely hinted colors by Victoria Williams Steen, a hyper-realist memento mori (and possible reflected self portrait) by David Cunningham. 

Honorable Mention painting by Tasha Beckwith
(detail of circular artwork)

Also a circular portrait with a colorful and geometric design by Tasha Beckwith, a bright and simplified landscape with houses and a tow truck by William Lawson, and a fauvist chicken painted in almost neon shades of pink and blue by Sharon Jiskra Brooks (image above).

Honorable Mention painting by David Cunningham

The entries across the many categories are too numerous to take in all at once and mention in the limited space here. 

Noel Calero painting

A few more that caught notice due to their relatively unusual subject, viewpoint or style include Noel Calero's simplified and symbolic mother and child in gold and orange, a Mark Millis winter pastel that is jolting in its composition and the contrast of black and white shadows in the snow, and Robert Hunt's unique shady backyard scene with overgrown lawn and rusting metal chairs. 

Robert Hunt painting

And in the Mixed Media division, the painted collage of a child peering through a monocular looking glass demands a peek back.   

3rd Place painting by Steve Warner

The Nostalgia of Now

The Best of Show and 1st Place in Painting both went to Todd Prince for his multi-figure picture, amazingly executed and realized. It portrays the essence of the Indiana State Fair itself  – family and too much fun (see image top of page).

The painting is of an exhausted family, nearly passed out on a bench, after a day at the fair. Not much is left to the imagination in this masterpiece of thorough narrative illustration in the Normal Rockwell style of sentimentality. Prince's winning piece could be an advertisement for the fair, so on-the-nose is its storytelling.   

Four members of a family –  father, mother, son and daughter – slumped together, arms loosely embracing, or heads resting on each other. They are composed in a marvelous pyramidal composition that invokes religious paintings of Renaissance times. They are worn-out to the point of deep sleep. Behind and around them are posters and tote bags that declare the fun of the Indiana State Fair. 

The drowsy boy dreams of a John Deere tractor at his fingertips. Mom, the ultimate balancer of things, even while asleep and conked-out, holds a large lemon shake-up tumbler firmly, upright and un-spilling, on her thigh. 

The quintessential dad, in ball cap, open Hawaiian shirt and white T-shirt, old-fashioned with his retro film camera around his neck, is leaned on by everyone else in the family, all except the newest addition – the plush toy cow his daughter holds, even in sleep, as a prize. 

Whether a staged American dream or a figment of imagination, Prince's tableau presents a rosy ideal. 

It is only the furry toy animal, with eyes wide open that exudes a bit of menace in the otherwise heart-warming scene. It glares back at the viewer, a bit wild-eyed, as if in a challenge to the fuzzy nostalgia and the promise of good times. 

All the while, the camera lens peers forward, awaiting an awakened click of the finger, to collect the next passing moment of the whole fun filled fair happening around them as they sleep.

Mark Diekhoff, August 2026

The material used in this article is being used under the fair use provisions of copyright law. The content is being used for educational purposes only, and all rights to the original content are held by their respective copyright owners. We do not claim ownership of any copyrighted material used in this work.

CAMi – An Exciting Expansion and Evolution of Indianapolis Art

The Church (detail) from Kept Secrets: Open Code by Cory Robinson
at Tube Gallery, CAMi

The Doors Open at CAMi

The Contemporary Art Museum of Indianapolis (CAMi) has opened this summer with a broad range of art exhibits in its new building and the adjoining campus facilities.

The debut of the newly expanded and extensively renovated Big Car Collaborative campus in its Garfield Park neighborhood, just blocks south of Fountain Square, was previewed in the Indianapolis Business Journal, the (Franklin) Daily Journal, and The Indianapolis Star earlier this year. 

The entire 5-acre campus, that includes the recently opened 40,000 square-foot CAMi Main building, the adjacent Tube Factory art space (Tube) and Guichelaar Gallery, is tucked on Cruft Street east of Shelby and north of the south boundary of Bean Creek. 

The beautifully designed and landscaped exterior spaces include features and attractions like the Chicken Chapel of Love, Indianapolis Bee Sanctuary and Bean Creek Overlook. Also on that block of Cruft, north of Bean Creek and the art buildings, are 18 affordable-living homes for artists. 

Areas to stroll, relax and explore confront the visitor at every turn on the campus, inside and out.

CAMi Main is home to a range of galleries, activity spaces, artist studios and storefront shops. Unique features of the building's configuration and spaces, some of which has been retained from its original industrial layout, include the large Basile Hall performing arts room, the corner nook for the Big Car Colaborative's WGRT radio station and the O.P.T.I.O.N.A.L space, the quirky cube of an island office of the former building supervisors that has been repurposed as what exactly?  It is an individual surprise for the CAMi visitor to discover.

Sold Ya, Samuel Levi Jones
in the Katharine B Sutphin Gallery in CAMi Main

Many separate gallery rooms, from intimate to large, are contained within CAMI Main and Tube. So numerous one is likely to miss something on a single visit. 

The ambitious, and one assumes, tireless and arduous efforts of Big Car founding collaborators, Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh, along with innumerable fellow travelers, sponsors and donors have resulting in a stunning, diverse and almost hyper multi-purpose venue for the offering and appreciation of arts in the city.    

In experiencing the first iterations of exhibitions, CAMi's unique, cutting-edge was on full display. 

A Sample of the Shows.

As mentioned, there is almost too much to see and do at CAMi to take it all in at once. But you can try.

In CAMi Main's central Jeremy Efroymson Gallery, as covered in an earlier blog here, is the interactive Ivelisse Jimenez installation, Campo de Resonancia.

Nearby is Kept Secrets: Open Code, an exhibition in three parts by Cory Robinson that can be seen in Tube Gallery, located in an adjacent building with Normal Cafe. 

With Kept Secrets, the visitor first encounters The Garden, a series of carved redwood sculptures and light elements in organic shapes that suggest plants and leaves. The interplay of positive and negative space and play of light and shadow create a depth to the  frieze-like presentation of the plants against a green wall. 

The Garden from Kept Secrets: Open Code by Cory Robinson

Across from this sculpture garden, and on either side of the main gallery entrance in The Court sit a pair of throne-like chairs.  With their unusual circular design overall, the beginning glyphs of the artist's CODEX vocabulary are revealed. In the tile work component of the chairs, circles and curving lines repeat asymmetrically, although in a graceful and flowing way.  One throne has predominately pink tile offset with brown, and the other predominately brown offset with pink – together, providing a sort of yin yang balance between the two.

Walking past the thrones and into The Church, in the ambiance and quiet of a darkened room, the visitor will encounter a mixed-media installation comprised of five large, free-hanging, panels of textile artwork. The exhibit manifest that accompanies the display provides some rudimentary explanation for an artwork difficult to explain,

“The Church features five large, tufted rugs installed in a continuous curved sequence, evoking the apse of a cathedral...the designs translate the flat graphic language of the CODEX Series into textile compositions – digitally precise in conception yet softened and humanized  in their yarn-rendered finish.”

Within each large and roughly square ivory-colored rug, a sculptural formation of the artist's CODEX components are distributed each to its own (image top of page). They appear as metallic widgets, even when composed of shag rug. The nameless deities are copper colored and presumably shiny, circular and disc shaped variously like cymbals, hockey pucks, stacked flat plates or vessels. 

In the future we will all be famous for fifteen minutes, as Andy Warhol predicted way before the age of social media. Robinson's CODEX deities seem to allude to as many different religions as there are individual people, as there are combinations of widgets. As many as the combinations of numbers in data centers, in our not too distant future. Metallic godheads, warm and fuzzy, for the depopulated factories of AI. 

Back in CAMi Main, perhaps the most traditional of the contemporary art exhibited in the inaugural shows is From the Collection Of... in the Katharine B Sutphin Gallery. 

Mostly two-dimensional art hanging from the walls make up the eleven works borrowed from the collections of various CAMi donors. 

Bestiary, Katharine B. Sutphin

Two oil on canvas paintings by gallery namesake Katharine B. Sutphin are included, both neo-expressionist in style; Bestiary and Subway Solitude. A modern chaos seems more to be enjoyed than feared in her paintings which possess vibrant color and spontaneous energy.

Sold Ya by Samuel Levi Jones is described as a color flatbite and aquatint on paper (image above). An austere and minimal effect is achieved by the artist with greens and tans and the rectangular formations of regimental and recurring shapes that make up the work.

Additional works in a variety of media including an Untitled hanging fabric, black and thinly vertical by Jesse Robinson.  This piece goes well with the monochrome or minimally colored works in the room; Bigfoot, a cyanotype by Casey Roberts, Venice Notebook, 2001 #8 a lithograph by Richard Serra and Looking for Elsewhere VII, graphite and spray paint on paper by Barb Bondy. 

After Party, Grace by Eunshin Kim

After Party, an oil on canvas painting by Grace Eunshin Kim, Ancestral Spirit Dance #281 by Willis 'Bing' Davis and To See Her Smile a mixed media assemblage by Samuel E. Vazquez round out the artists represented in the show.

Sights and Songs and Place.

Sounds accompany the sights of many of the inaugural exhibits at CAMi, including the video art pieces You're Standing Inside the Instrument: A Score for 19 Buildings, Untitled (m.j. The symptom), and Drafts. 

You're Standing Inside the Instrument is a collaborative piece that paired twenty architects and designers with an equal number of artists. According the exhibit manifest that accompanied the work, the architects each chose a favorite Indianapolis building and from there, the artist would take over, and play some “aspect or aspects of the building as sort of instruments to create  a part of a combined soundscape or sort of a song.”

In CAMi Main's Listen Hear Gallery, a dark room ideal for the presentation of audio-video work, the visitor is surrounded by stationary, restful video images of the chosen buildings, each on a video flatscreen. 

The buildings are mostly familiar icons of the Indianapolis architectural landscape, although a handful are more seldom seen. 

still image from You're Standing Inside the Instrument
by a collaboration of architects and artists

Standing in the dark space of glowing screens, one is also in a surround of soft noises. A lush mix of minimal, industrial and urban sounds. It is not really unease or anxiety that the broadcast layer of music creates. Maybe a slight Kafka-esque  confusion when trying to unravel a bureaucratic babble and make sense of what is being heard. 

Percussive sounds and whistles. Footsteps tap with hammering beats amid a muffled flow of traffic. A vestige of a human parade echoing atop the distant screech of trolley wheels. Plane sound and birds chirping, soft and deep, within the hum.

It is not a happy sound of ribbon-cutting fanfare, rather the ghosts and spirits of the buildings stirring restlessly within stone and steel.  And no words.

There is a sweet spot at the back of the gallery where seemingly all is heard, both close to the ear and buried in the distance – a comforting white noise of societal static – at least for city dwellers.

In that spot it all comes together, each individual note is subsumed into the larger score. It's bricks and mortar breathing. 

In Drafts by Jess Dunn and Sylvia Thomas, another collaboration, but of just two. 

The video piece is a looping cycle through time, a barrage of nostalgia and vintage charm with ever changing images and sounds. A one-way primordial travelogue from eden to pioneer, to civilized, to mechanized, to industrialized, to post whatever we call the present now.

Dunn and Thomas acted as joint researchers, film editors, animators and music composers in the complex assembly of the chronological and captivating video work. The multi-screen projection shows a time compressed history of the vicinity and location of CAMi today. 

A viewer can enter at any moment in the timeline, and if patient, await the work's eventual fulfillment and repeat. 

I was reminded of the iconic short film Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.  But whereas that film was a picnic blanket romp through macro and then micro space, Drafts is a time-bending stationary hitchhike atop a singular plot of dirt just north of a creek where the viewer is actually standing at that moment.

No spoiler descriptions of the many cascading images and sounds contained in the video will be commented on here. The video work is best experienced by the viewer within the room. 

Both Drafts and You're Standing Inside the Instrument, despite their many and mesmerizing multi-facets, are really quite simple. They invite you into the experience, the history and the song, of the place where you actually are. 

Mark Diekhoff, August 2026

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