Artist Roulette #1 - Josh Chaney, Devin Blaskovich, Ellery Ekleberry
The first in a series randomly selecting three artists from my bookmarks
When I left Instagram, I knew I would be needing to fill a void that is left from not seeing art as often each day. My bookshelf and newsletters I’m subscribed to can only do so much, and I had over 2,000 profiles in my following list. I chose to export that list of people I follow to then sift through them all to save portfolio websites, publishers, galleries, museums, organizations, and so on. Through this, I found very quickly that Instagram really does hide a lot of people from our feeds. People actively posting, sharing new work, publications, exhibitions, all of it left hiding behind an algorithm that only shows maybe 15% of who I follow. Granted, I also found that there are a lot of dormant profiles that hadn’t posted anything in over four, five, even six years. Alas, as I’ve been going through this, I have over 1200 sites saved from those categories, and I still have about 900 to go through. Some profiles have work I love but they may not necessarily have a website (yet). As there are many people who don’t have sites yet, I do plan on going back to check on their profiles to see if they’ve made a website live yet.
This is a bit of a trial run and first installment of this series where I randomly select one of the artists in my bookmarks folder within certain criteria. These sites are selected using an online roulette/wheel spin to keep it a proper RNG rather than being at the whims of the social media algorithm. The criteria are pretty simple:
They should be someone working in fine art (which is a bit of an amorphous term, so that’s flexible). I don’t want to only share work that is similar to mine or my interests, however these people are from the list of people I follow.
They should be someone who has made/published work relatively recently (within the last 5 to 10 years or so, also flexible). Anything that is published and still available to purchase will be linked in case you’d like to support them.
If it’s an artist I’ve already done, I will only share their work again if they have published new work (in this case, actually published, not just posted on their site)
Their website has to be functioning (there’s a few folks who have their domains but their platform subscription appears expired).
I may also take submissions of portfolio sites in time, but for now I’ll stick with the sites I have saved. Who knows, maybe I already have your site bookmarked!
The intros to each post won’t be this lengthy! I will be focusing on one project at a time unless another one is relevant to the main focus. This first one will set a tone and any feedback on what you would all like to see will help me in improving this.
Anyway, let’s get into today’s randomly selected artists…
Josh Chaney
https://www.joshchaneyphoto.com/
BIO: Josh Chaney (b. 2000) is a photographer living and working in Columbus, OH. Embracing the rhythmic overlaps of geography, history, culture, and spirituality, his work explores the layered connections between people and place. He makes work primarily in the regions that raised him: Appalachian Ohio and the Midwest.
Josh recently self-published his book Sassafras Ridge in 2024. While I have yet to get this book in my hands, seeing the work online really drew me in. This book being shared by a few folks on social media is what introduced me to his work. Being a fellow Midwesterner, I am immediately biased as I love seeing such wonderful work coming out of the region I hold dear.
This work is quiet and poetic, something often seen by artists coming from areas of vast expanses of farmland. As someone also from this kind of landscape, this common artistic approach is likely due to the nature (literally and figuratively) of being surrounded by “nothing” all the time. It leads us to find details in the land and people that would otherwise be missed in a denser landscape.
Josh made this work in the Appalachian foothills around where Ohio and West Virginia meet along the Ohio River. Despite the fact that this landscape is not quite the same as where I’m from in Central Illinois, the spirit of this work still holds the “accent” of many Midwestern artists.
This work is as much a portrait of this landscape bordering Ohio and West Virginia as it is a portrait of the greater Midwest. The textures of the land, the buildings, the people, the cars, all of it is seen in Josh’s work. Even though this is so far from my own hometown, it feels like home to me, it makes me feel just as comfortable and uneasy as the Midwest always has for me. It almost feels “stir-crazy” and meditative at the same time. Perhaps that’s what it feels like to be on the edge of the Appalachians, where you are both a Midwesterner and an Appalachian at once.
The work reminds me of Robert Adams and Walker Evans at times, I feel many of us Midwestern artists lean toward those two for aesthetic influence. But, given the images that lean more toward the mountains, it reminds me of Sally Mann’s A Thousand Crossings.
You can buy the book (if it’s still available) on Josh’s website: https://www.joshchaneyphoto.com/store/sassafras-ridge-preorder
Devin Blaskovich
https://www.devinblaskovich.com/
BIO: Devin Blaskovich is a Korean-American artist, living and working full-time on the road in the US.
Devin’s work is truly wonderful. Doubling-down on the poetry seen in Josh’s work above, Devin’s work is its own level of introspection. Devin received the Aperture Creator Labs Photo Fund grant for their work Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying, which they describe as “an exploration of the material symbols and environments associated with labor.” Devin had worked in construction and demolition giving a foundation to their understanding of these spaces seen in the work. The images feel soft despite their harsh environments, then some images break that feeling and scratch an itch that wasn’t even noticed until then.
Devin made an effort to focus only on the land, tools, and spaces they came across. It personifies these landscapes and details as separate from the workers that would normally be seen at labor. These places and spaces have the marks left by people that are modifying the land to suit the needs of the project. Devin’s camera pointed toward these scenes acts not only as an aesthetic interest but as a way to make these places that are in-between states of time seen for what lives below the infrastructure of our daily lives.
Ellery Ekleberry
https://www.elleryekleberry.com/
BIO: Ellery Ekleberry is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Portland with a focus on using tactile mediums empathetically. Her work revolves around an exploration of hard (ceramic, steel, wood) and soft (clay, stuffed, upholstered) materials with an interest in studying the interactions between them. Displaying her work primarily as installations full of vivid colors and bright patterns, Ekleberry responds to physical space and creates other-worldly atmospheres inspired by a desire to understand empathy. Ekleberry received her BFA in Studio Art from Albion College in 2018 and a Post-Bac Certificate in Ceramics from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2020.
It must also be noted that Ellery and I both went to UMass Dartmouth for our MFA’s, both of us graduating in 2023. It made me quite happy to see her work randomly selected for this first installment. She’s a wonderful artist and person and I hope you all feel the care in her work.
Ellery’s work focuses on empathy and care, often using her dog as a model for the forms that are seen in her installations. Yes, her dog! Any of us pet owners are aware of the liquid-like state that our pets can take on, their bodies melting into whatever shape is most comfortable in the moment. Ellery used this as a way to learn how to make shapes that conform to her and the viewer’s bodies. Often times, her installations are interactive, allowing viewers to sit in the Cuddle Corner or the chairs made of wire frame and soft cotton. All this to the dismay of gallery staff!
The blob-like forms seen sitting in various positions in her installations are not just pillows, but also ceramics. These two materials support each other, allowing the weight distribution to fall into place, literally and figuratively. She even had “beans,” small ceramic pieces about the size of a yellow potato that people were encouraged to carry around and “care for” while viewing the installation.
While Ellery had this work installed at UMass Dartmouth, it was always so heartwarming to see people making use of these furniture pieces. Ellery took great care in not only the construction of the objects to support any person, but also to ensure the objects looked welcoming and organically shaped. Her work has always had these kinds of shapes, leading her to expand on this for her MFA. With the help of her dog’s modeling, many of the larger pieces were also formed around Ellery’s body, certain pieces only really “fit” her.
Being an artist working within installation and multiplicity of form, her work often takes time to prepare. She has had work installed in the Ann Arbor Art Center and the NCECA Invitational in Richmond, VA since the MFA installation in 2023