As the Circle City Industrial Complex (CCIC) follows state and county regulations, masks are no longer required for vaccinated visitors but are highly encouraged, and individual artist studios may continue to require masks within their space. The CCIC is a 500,000 square foot building, making social distancing somewhat easier than other venues, but the smaller studios may also maintain limitations on visitor numbers at times.
Open Studios and Galleries
Several studios and gallery spaces will be open throughout the building. This list is not all-encompassing; some artists may decide to open that night based on current information and comfort levels. The Schwitzer Gallery, located on the second floor of the North Studios, will present Escape Artists—Departures from Everyday Life through Imagination, Color, and Light, by artist duo Sarah Love and Sylvia Gray. They will combine paintings and wearable art for an escape from the chaotic and stressful. Gray creates her paintings on silk or canvas, letting the medium speak to her. “Creating art is my happy place so my subject matter is full of bright color and happiness,” Gray said. Love is a painter inspired by nature’s color, light, and infinite beauty. She finds painting to be a challenge that is rewarded with awareness.
Stokol Gallery
Multidisciplinary artist Jessy Fearnow presents Internalized, a show intending to create a feeling of uncomfortableness with the grotesquely beautiful internal landscape. “It is my way of exploring the connections with our bodies and the structures that inhabit us, while simultaneously squeezing the bloody tangle that is our biological experience,” Fearnow said. Fearnow primarily focuses on fiber, along with found objects, wood and steel, and paint with some photography. The Stokol Gallery is located on the first floor of the North Studios.
Arts & Images by Anthony Armstrong
Anthony Armstrong presents a new array of large scale photographs. These images depicting everyday life and simplicity of still life, people and places. Displayed in mostly black and white to allow the viewer to see the texture and movements of the images. Multi-talented, Armstrong also presents a blend of new abstract painting highlighting bold colors and deep texture. Armstrong is a self-taught abstract painter and photographer. “Often times, we are moving through the day so quickly, we forget to look at our surroundings and how every beat creates the pulse of the city,” Armstrong said. Anthony Armstrong is located in the South Studios.
Roberta Avidor
Roberta Avidor, a representative painter in oils and watercolor, brings her intrigue with local Indianapolis scenes to canvas and paper. Sometimes, though, she will go off on a completely different tangent to explore other intriguing subjects. Roberta Avidor is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Taylor Bamgbose
Taylor Bamgbose is a self-taught visual artist, working primarily with oils and acrylics on canvas. Also a certified life coach, she works at the intersection of art and mental health. Her vibrant figurative paintings take the audience on a journey of guided self-reflection, inviting the viewer to explore how their thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors are working under the surface to shape their lived experience. Taylor Bamgbose is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Bebito Toys
In the Bebito Studio, you’ll find unique and adorable plush toys created from mostly repurposed and up-cycled materials. They are cute, cuddly and eco-friendly. This small but welcoming space is loaded with quirky stuffed toys, hand-dyed fabric, and other charming artifacts by Rachel Hedges. No two are exactly alike, but they will all make you smile. Dolores and all the Bebito Toys are looking forward to seeing you again at the Bebito Studio. Bebito Toys is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
David Bower
David Bower’s philocalist approach to photography blends aspects of street, landscape, and documentary images into everyday aesthetic storytelling. Often raw, and sometimes droll, his still-life vignettes refuse to overlook life’s quiet curiosities. “This collection of Indianapolis street scenes is an account of my journey to reacquaint with a city that has changed considerably since I left for college in the late 90s,” Bower said. “Returning to my hometown, and settling into the Near Eastside, I’ve used photography as a means to explore, adapt, and appreciate the surroundings.” David Bower is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Circle City Metalworks
Circle City Metal works is helmed by Dan Jones, who will be displaying a small sampling of products for sale from their large product line. “We offer over 300 different unique and artistic items on our website. We also do design and custom work. If you can dream it we can make it,” Jones said. Circle City Metalworks is located in the back corridor, near the South Studios.
Daily Epiphany Studio: Michele Burns and Kurt Kriese
Daily Epiphany Studio will present work by Michele Burns featuring a lot of greens, golds, and copper by day, with super-bright green blue and aqua glow by night. Burns’ art draws from diverse inspirations. She features recurring elements of pattern and tessellation, texture, added objects, delicious colors, organic abstraction, mandalas, art deco motifs, and naturally photo-luminescent minerals that create a “Nightlight Art” second composition when the lights go out. She makes these luminous paints herself with minerals that are 30 times brighter than ceiling stars and glow for 10-20 hours after any light exposure. Daily Epiphany is located in the South Studios.
Taylor Figg/Oliver Upside Down
Taylor Figg, of Oliver Upside Down, specializes in digital, cat-themed art, and also creates catnip-filled cat toys. An Indianapolis native with a degree in Media Arts and Sciences at IUPUI, Figg has a passion for helping animals in general. “I utilize my design ability to generate funds for rescues. I donate a portion of all of my profits to various cat organizations and rescues and wildlife rehabilitators,” Figg said. Taylor Figg is located on the second floor of the North Studios, sharing a space with Rachel Hicks.
Full Circle Nine Gallery
The Full Circle Nine Gallery will feature Tatjana Gordon with Nature: Brush, Color, and Play, a collection of mixed media and mixed-style work. Gordon, often an acrylic painter, ventures into and explores watercolor and combines it into mixed media collage, in an effort to challenge herself. Gordon feels mixing it up will keep it interesting and push away from complacency, and allow her to loosen up. “I get disinterested in repetitive technique and media, and I’m learning that’s okay,” Gordon said. “While a watercolor requires a certain amount of planning and thinking, my current acrylics are more about quick observation and then a quick brush stroke, color relationships, and overall mood. They are also about having fun through the process, using a different motor pattern, and pushing myself to grow as an artist.” Full Circle Nine Gallery is located on the first floor of the South Studios.
Glass Arts Indiana, Inc.
Glass Arts Indiana creates a collaborative glass community to support emerging and established artists, host fun, interesting and educational events, increase appreciation and understanding of the glass arts, and promote glass-related opportunities in Indiana and the U.S. Finished works are available and visitors will get to see glass-blowing in action. Glass Arts Indiana, Inc. is located on the first floor, in the corridor.
Matt Hurdle
Matt Hurdle is an intuitive painter of contemporary landscapes and abstract paintings. His landscapes create a feeling of calm and peacefulness through his use of color palette and hazy, blending technique. His abstracts are brighter and energetic through shape, color and movement. Matt Hurdle Fine Art is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Larry Lad, LadArt
Larry Lad is a self-taught painter experimenting with a variety of media and surfaces, such as cigar boxes, recycled material, and unique surfaces. “While I start with a general idea of what I would like to create, I am learning to listen, to see, and to let the art tell me where to go next,” Lad said. “With COVID, we have been given the gift of time. It has allowed us to produce some new art and new poetry. It has also taught us patience.” Larry Lad, LadArt is located in the corridor on the first floor.
Wendell Lowe Fine Art
Wendell Lowe has a unique style of abstract expressionism finger painting. Since being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2009, Lowe’s style has evolved from detailed chalk pastel landscapes and photography to his current work. His work evolves from deep in his soul and documents his Parkinson’s journey. “My finger paintings deal with my Parkinson’s and my Parkinson’s Psychosis,” Lowe said of his work that sometimes combines his finger painting techniques with prints of his own photography. Wendell Lowe Fine Art is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Grace Marshall, Grace M Design
Grace M Design is an Indianapolis-based custom jewelry/fashion shop owned and managed by Grace Marshall, a certified jeweler and gemologist from the Gemological Institute of America. Grace Marshall has always had a passion for using her hands to create beautiful and functional designs. “Making unique jewelry with precious metals and gemstones has been both a challenging and rewarding career choice,” Marshall said. Marshall is constantly exploring new techniques and learning new approaches to metalsmithing and jewelry making and is now offering Infinity/Permanent jewelry. Grace M Design is located on the first floor of the North Studios.
Katrina J. Murray Studio and Gallery
Katrina J. Murray is a conceptual based artist and curator, currently working in ceramics and oil paint. She also will host fine artist and high school art teacher Margo Simms-Wallace, who works in the painstaking medium of graphite on paper. Simms-Wallace’s unique approach to drawing captures fleeting moments of consciousness in the slow process of drawing. Simms-Wallace’s pencil drawings are a direct focus on perception of the world around her shown through repetition, and the feeling of physical and mental disconnection. She looks for commonly experienced moments, tension, and structure. Katrina J. Murray Studio and Gallery is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
Shaun M. Niles
Shaun M. Niles works with large format analog photography and other historical processes, bringing a contemporary perspective to photographic techniques of an era gone by. Niles has refreshed his gallery with work from the Beneath It All project exhibiting some newer work, alongside pieces that haven’t been seen in a while. Shaun M. Niles is located on the second floor of the North Studios.
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The CCIC is also open during regular business hours, with the Schwitzer Gallery accessible throughout the week. Several artists and galleries will remain open for their regular ‘retail’ hours, usually on weekends, and posted on their own websites and social media. Some studios will also be open by appointment.
The Circle City Industrial Complex has become a destination for art appreciators and supporters of local work, with the total number of artists working within the CCIC topping 100. Just northeast of the Mass Ave. Art and Theatre Cultural District, at 1125 Brookside Ave., the CCIC Artists First Friday programming is a must-see stop, while events and viewable hours continue throughout the month.
The Main Entrance of the building (identified by its black marble façade) provides easy access to both the South Studios and the North Studios (with a wheelchair accessible ramp and elevator). Maps of the building are also available in several locations to help visitors find all that the building has to offer.
For more listings and event updates please visit https://ccicindyartists.wordpress.com, or the CCIC Artists Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ccicartists.
About the Circle City Industrial Complex Artists
The Circle City Industrial Complex (CCIC) is a nearly half-million square foot industrial building, located at 1125 Brookside Ave., and was formerly home to the Schwitzer automotive company. Its industrial appeal remains and artists and artisans have made the space their home, carving cozy studio, work, and show spaces from the concrete and steel structure, and the CCIC Artists have grown in number to over 50 galleries, individual artists and artisans. The main artist entries are the North Studios entrance and the South Studios entrance, each marked with signage along Brookside Avenue. The CCIC provides free parking in a large lot, and is accessible by the Pogue’s Run Trail, connecting to the Monon Trail and the downtown Cultural Trail system. The complex also offers other art-supporting destinations such as the Centerpoint Brewery, Eighth Day Distillery and The Fowling Warehouse.
For more information on the building, please visit: http://circlecityind.com
For more information on the artists please visit: https://ccicindyartists.wordpress.com/
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