Video and motion graphic artists will soon have venue to show works: Convention Center

If you’re a video or motion graphics artist in Columbus, you’ll have a hard time finding a place to show your works outside of a commercial application.

That’s about to change. In late June, Reese Brothers Productions, the curator of the Franklin County Convention Facilities Authority’s art collection, will issue a call for art on behalf of the CFA, which just so happens to own a 60-foot long, 7-foot high LED video wall at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.  The focus will be on both experienced and new video and motion graphic artists.

While the LED video wall is a space to promote events within the building and in the surrounding neighborhood, it also is a place to bring visitors face to face with Columbus history through videos and graphics.

“We’re going to open it up to all video and motion graphic artists to showcase their digital art,” said the Reese Brothers’ Jim Reese. “We’re getting feedback from artists that there’s no other place in central Ohio that gives them the opportunity to showcase their work.”

Reese already is working in partnership with university students, faculty, digital software experts and others to understand the requirements for art that would appear on the video wall and to test initial concepts.

Collaborations include students and faculty in the film studies program at The Ohio State University and initial works by Greater Columbus Arts Council Media Arts Fellows. Other initial test content is being produced by students and faculty at Columbus State Community College and Columbus College of Art and Design.

Works that appear permanently on the video wall will need to be “creative, visually stunning and historically-related,” Reese says. “I think this is going to be the tip of the iceberg in terms of creativity and wow.”

Meanwhile, the CFA continues to add to its existing art collection, already the largest accumulation of local art in Franklin County. A new tile mural by G. Josey Joseph now adorns the stairwell leading from the South Garage into the Convention Center. Joseph’s work is a colorful abstract that resembles a tightly knit weave of doodles. The original work, converted to tiles for the stairwell, hangs in the D pod in the North building.

In the South Atrium, visitors also can now enjoy 29 life masks fashioned by artist Emma Haase. The masks, all impressions of family members, are made of glass; the artist calls attention to family similarities by highlighting those features in copper.