The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2025 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Jean Weigl
Artist; Instructor Firelands Association for the Visual Arts, OberlinOberlin Ohio 44074 United States Cell Phone: 4405741376 Website: website
Bio
Jean Kondo Weigl is a third-generation Japanese American artist who works in painting and drawing. She was born in Berkeley, California, a few years after her parents’ release from one of ten internment camps for persons of Japanese descent that were mandated by the US government during World War II. Weigl attended public schools in Berkeley and Oakland, participating seriously in competitive figure skating at the regional level throughout her middle school and high school years. She obtained a BA from Scripps College, Claremont, CA; an MA from Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, and an MFA from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Weigl’s work has been widely exhibited at regional and national venues such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Arkansas Arts Center, the AIR Gallery, NYC, and Gallery K, Washington, DC, and her one person shows include those at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Visual and Performing Arts Complex, Columbus, OH; the Zygote Gallery, Cleveland, and the Richard D. Baron Gallery, Oberlin College. An Archived Artist in the Artists Archive of the Western Reserve, Cleveland, Weigl has received grants from the Yaddo Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council and the Zygote Gallery and Press, and her experience includes teaching positions at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA; Oberlin College and Lorain County Community College, Elyria, OH. The artist has a son and daughter and three grandchildren and lives with her husband, poet Bruce Weigl, in Oberlin where she teaches classes for adults at the Firelands Association for the Visual Arts.
Artist Statement
My work is about a balance between formal and pictorial elements and the depiction of narratives that combine memory, imagination, allegory, authenticity and truth. The ancient role of the traveler plays a central part in my recent paintings, appearing in the form of human and animal figures who interact in relationships and settings that are imbued with a sense of whimsy as well as a feeling of tension or sadness. As travelers, the human and animal characters represent immigrants and fugitives, and the contrast between civilization and the natural order. With imagery ranging from litters, boats, vast bodies of water and distant mountains or cityscapes on the horizon, to stage curtains, theatrical costumes, statues of deities and ancient temples, the paintings portray scenes from the floating world of the traveler-entertainer, far removed from the familiarity of ordinary, everyday life, yet drawn close to the viewer by the color and rhythm of the shapes and marks made by the paint on the surface of the art work. My abiding influences include my Japanese-American identity rooted during the post-war era in the San Francisco Bay Area, my entire education and the extraordinary experiences of my parents, husband, son and daughter.