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.
Natalie Petrosky
Bio
Natalie Petrosky (b.1989, Akron, OH) received her MFA in Painting & Drawing at the University of Tennessee and her BFA in Painting with an Honors Thesis in Glass from the School of Art at Kent State University in Kent, OH. Her work includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, videos, and glass.
Petrosky has exhibited nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include New Work by Natalie Petrosky, Abattoir | Quarter, Cleveland, OH; bones, stones, and seeds, Goodall Gallery, Columbia College, Columbia, SC; sticks, rocks, leaves, Kent State Downtown Gallery, Kent, OH; and Something About Windows, The Suburban, Milwaukee, WI.
Notable group exhibitions include Laughing Through Your Window, Curve Line Space, Los Angeles, CA; Wild Bunch, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA; The Regional, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO; Watching the Seasons Change, Museum of the White Mountains, Plymouth, NH; and Over the Structures, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea.
Natalie lives and works in Cleveland, OH and teaches part-time at Kent State University in Kent, OH.
Artist Statement
My occupation as a gardener is heavily influencing my current work. I am often engaged in the meditative
process of collecting sticks, rocks, and leaves which is reflected in the little bits of fabric that I collect and
compose to form pictorial spaces. I employ the imagery of windows and fences in my paintings as frames
for overgrown plants escaping and reclaiming their environments. The question of viewership is also
addressed as we can peer through frames and windows, and occasionally the paintings and the natural
world seem to perceive us back.
The bones, stones, and seeds that comprise a natural environment can be combined into something
greater than the sum of their parts. They contain many lives and possibilities and their appreciation often
depends on the empty space between them. The negative space in my paintings gives the impression of
a mosaic or stained glass windows but also of a forest canopy, the shattering of rocks, and the magical
intermixing of all of nature’s elements.
My work offers up occasional Rorschach-like compositions that suggest nature’s symmetries, geometry,
mysteries, seeming perfection, subtle irregularities, frayed edges, and unexpected mutations. I organize
botanical specimens and floral compositions that exist in conversation with their environments and not in
precious bud vases. The gates and manmade structures that appear attempt to enclose, protect and
contain nature. These are ultimately futile attempts at preserving plants, gardens, and ourselves from the
ravages of time, theft, vandalism, predators, the elements, and other forces of the natural world.
