August 2022 – Andrew Reach

I’m honored that I’ve been featured prominently in the article in the 2022 Fall Issue of Canvas Cleveland Magazine about the special exhibition W/O Limits: Art, Chronic Illness, and Disability beginning September 22, 2022 at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve.

An excerpt from the article reads:
Abstractly, his work reflects on experiences with chronic illness and physical pain. “I get to show it to the public, I get to express it, and I get to bring some joy and beauty into the world,” he says.

You can read the online version below.

Article begins on Page 14
Click on full screen icon on on bottom right to best view publication

Curated by Megan Alves, marketing and program manager at AAWR and Mindy Tousley, executive director and chief curator of AAWR, this exhibition is very special because it features, including me, 9 amazing artists with either chronic illness or disability: Sarah Brown, Kristi Copez, Chappelle Letman Jr., MANDEM, Meg Matko, Arabella Proffer, Nate Puppets and Kate Snow.

The following is an excerpt from the AAWR about the exhibition:
This September, the Artists Archives is proud to present W/O Limits, an exhibition which exclusively features the work of artists experiencing chronic illness and/or disability. Curated by Megan Alves and Mindy Tousley, the remarkable show emphasizes accessibility and raises awareness while inspiring visitors with the art that people with chronic illnesses and disabilities create.

Screenshot of article featuring my rendering of the tactile 3d Printed Hash Symbol I created specially for the exhibition to be accessible to the visually impaired.

Advertisement for exhibition in the magazine.
Pictured is my work OCTOLUX I.

The idea for this piece first began when I started creating artwork with the hash symbol. We all know this symbol from the earliest age when we start using the phone and where it resides in the lower left hand corner of the keypad. On the phone we refer to it as the pound sign. We also see this symbol when referencing a model number, case number etc. and is thus known in this context as the number sign. But now in our digital revolution, the symbol being used in the context of social media and platforms, the hash symbol, has been appropriated for use in hash tagging. In 2007, Chris Messina had the idea to start using hashtags on Twitter. They are now used by millions around the world.

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Paleoanthropologist Genevieve Von Petzinger studies the origins of graphic communications of early humans and in her TED Talk Why are these 32 symbols found in ancient caves all over Europe?, she explains the early human origins of symbols which include what we know today as the pound/number/hash symbols (see illustration above, top row third from the right).

Back to the artwork. After working in 2d with the hash symbol, I was asked if I wanted to make a 3d printed tactile sculpture for the visually impaired for the exhibition W/O Limits at the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve. What I created is a sculpture of the hash symbol comprised of 72 blocks each with a hash symbol carved into it in alternating negative and positive relief. To visualize it, I did multiple renders of the 3d model and I noticed the beauty of the variables at play; the different perspective angles it could be viewed from; the variation of lighting I could apply to get just the right shadows to reveal the forms. It occurred to me that I could capture the 3d form from these renders and turn it into a digital print. So from 3d, I’ve brought it into the realm of 2d as a bold print on acrylic, cut out on a router. Deeply cast shadows reveal the forms of the blocks while its perspective angle creates the optical illusion of it projecting off the wall.

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