Student Art Show and Haddad Merit Scholar
April 15–May 16, 2025
April 15–May 16, 2025
Bostwick Design Gallery 2729 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44115
In 2023, Cleveland State University’s Department of Art and Design received a transformational $3,000,000 endowed gift in honor of Gladys and Phillip Haddad, establishing the Haddad Art Initiative. This initiative supports student success through a range of programs designed to enhance the learning experience, including an entrepreneurial workshop in partnership with CSU’s Weston Ideation Lab, career and internship mentoring and Design Week — a summer enrichment camp for youth interested in design.
The largest portion of the Haddad Art Initiative funds scholarships for current and incoming Art and Design majors at all levels, from first-year students to seniors entering their final year. Each year, the department awards 20 half-tuition scholarships based on a competitive selection process with recipients chosen for the strength of their portfolios.
Each spring, the Department of Art and Design hosts two concurrent exhibitions showcasing student work. The juried Student Art Show is open to all CSU students, regardless of major. The Merit Scholar Exhibitions highlight the work of our Haddad Merit Scholars majoring in Studio Art (sophomores, juniors and seniors). Together these exhibitions celebrate the talent, dedication and creative achievements of CSU’s emerging artists and designers.
Studio Art Haddad Merit Scholars (exhibiting):
Emilie Bonsignore, Lauren Heier, Erin McHugh, Orianna Méndez, Paris Snyder
Freshman Studio Art Scholars:
Abby Ekstrand, Dye Hill, Erin Houghtling
Design Haddad Merit Scholars:
Dai’Quan-Tee' Glenn, Naliyah DeJesus, Michael Durkin, Matea Komljenovic, Charles Orians, Raquel Rosado Rosa, Julia Whitaker, Hannah Wolff
Art History Haddad Merit Scholars:
Kylee Herrick, Elise Provident, Katelyn Ramos, Wilder Rigel
I want to extend my sincere appreciation to all the students exhibiting in this year’s shows. Your dedication and creativity are evident in the work on display. These exhibitions are a testament to your talent and commitment, and we are proud to showcase your work. Congratulations on this achievement and thank you for sharing your vision with the CSU community.
Mark Slankard
Associate Professor and Chair Department of Art and Design
Welcome to the 53 rd Annual CSU Student Art Show and Haddad Merit Scholar Exhibitions . These annual exhibitions present an opportunity to celebrate our students' talents, skills and educational excellence as we showcase their artistic endeavors from the past year.
This year’s juried Student Art Show features 150 works by 79 student artists who impressed our judges and made the cut with their submissions. We invited three art professionals to jury the submissions — Lisa Austin is our 3-D judge, George Kozmon is our 2-D judge and Ben Rodriguez is our Design/AV judge. Their choices reflect their own professional experience, judgement and artistic taste. In addition to selecting the artworks to be included in the show, the judges also awarded over $2,000 in cash prizes for the following “Best-in” categories: video animation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, ceramics, painting, drawing, design and Project 60 students.
The Haddad Merit Scholar Exhibitions feature artwork by recipients of the Department of Art and Design’s Haddad Merit Scholarships. This year’s five exhibiting scholars are Emilie Bonsignore, Lauren Heier, Erin McHugh, Orianna Méndez and Paris Snyder. By exhibiting in this show, these scholars are fulfilling a scholarship requirement and learning valuable skills that will prepare them for life as professional artists after graduation.
A select group of students from these shows will be invited to enter their work in the prestigious 3 rd Annual CSU Office of the President Exhibition in June 2025.
Kendall Christian Director, The Galleries at CSU
My name is Emilie Bonsignore and I am currently a sophomore studying Studio Art at Cleveland State University. I work with traditional mediums such as acrylic paint, charcoal, wood and clay. My body of work this year combines traditional forms of art to investigate the themes of temptation, vice and hardship in the lives of young adults. I experiment with color and texture to produce compelling images that invite the viewer to contemplate the struggles of today’s youth.
These things — which are very prevalent for me and my colleagues — are issues that are easily glossed over in younger generations. In my own experience, and I am sure with many others, we feel pressured to give in to society’s status quo. Many of us struggle with vices such as negative self-image, excessive technology usage and over medication as we continue to grow and develop in the ever-changing modern day. I believe we rarely pause and consider the impact of our decisions, which either tempt us to conform to modern standards or rise above them.
By peering through the window of my work, these interior and exterior battles surface to the light and emphasize a deep need for change in mentality and attitude. As we all continue to write the unfinished chapters of our lives, we must acknowledge a need for self-growth that challenges the alluring medicine we so often feed ourselves.
Through my art, I explore human nature and the complexity of the human condition. My work is inspired by psychological and philosophical themes where what we think is understood often blurs with what is truly there. My work is also inspired by universal human feeling and experiences. By engaging these ideas of illusion, perception and humanity, I invite viewers into a space of uncertainty, where visual puzzles and paradoxes encourage them to question the nature of reality itself. My pieces play with concepts that aren't immediately apparent, leaving the viewer to look more deeply into the piece and also into themselves. Through manipulation of space and
perspective, I create visual contradictions to engage the viewer and make them wonder what they are truly seeing. I enjoy challenging the certainty of what the viewer observes, wanting them to reflect on the world and how we interpret it. I am interested in the elusive nature of understanding and love to explore ways in which I can transfer these themes and ideas into art.
I embrace opportunities to work across multiple mediums. By using different artistic tools, I can express my conceptual ideas through the specific qualities of the materials. Each medium allows a distinct range of characteristics that I can utilize for various wanted effects. Expanding my artistic skill is important to me and my process of creating art. By pushing the boundaries of my work and abilities, my artistic process has become more methodical and my skills continue to improve.
By challenging the certainty of perception and experience, I hope to encourage viewers to reflect on their reality and the ease at which illusions can be mistaken for truths.
ERIN M c HUGH
In this body of work, I examine the bedroom as both refuge and prison, an intimate space where comfort decays into paralysis. My bed becomes a stage for emotional stagnation, surrounded by the quiet chaos of daily neglect: laundry piles, dishes left undone and the weight of tasks too heavy to face. These elements create a looming environment, trapping me between inaction and inner conflicts of self-worth.
Much of my time in bed is spent scrolling, endlessly consuming media that reflects and reinforces impossible ideals of womanhood. Pornographic imagery, violent language and the sexualization of young girls are strewn across platforms, from social media to advertisements, shaping how I see myself and my body. The screen becomes another mess in the room, I rot in bed, and it feels easier to stay still, numbly scrolling through the same media that drains me. These cycles of comparison, desire and selfloathing blur the line between what is outside and what is within.
Throughout my work, I explore this ongoing sense of entrapment, whether confined to domestic interiors or cast into more treacherous, external environments, a body caught between comfort and danger, paralysis and the urge to
escape. Using figural self-portraiture and symbolic spaces, I show the conflict between the desire to protect myself and the weight of isolation. Reflecting on how media, self-perception and societal expectations invade even our most private moments, until our bedrooms, minds and worlds, all begin to feel like different versions of the same trap.
Orianna Méndez is a Puerto Rican sculptor and mixed media artist whose work blends her Latin heritage with introspective and universal experiences. Inspired by her surroundings and her own reflections, Orianna invites viewers to explore the complexities of relationships and the dynamic interplay between self and the world. Her art serves as a mirror, highlighting the emotional passions and relationships that connect us, encouraging deeper conversations about our shared humanity and existence.
Using a variety of materials, such as found objects and metals, clay, bronze, wood and linocut, Orianna primarily creates moderately sized sculptures that are rich in texture and meaning. By reimagining found items, she transforms the ordinary into something profound, emphasizing her belief that beauty can be found in unexpected places. This approach speaks to the layered experiences of life.
In her practice, Méndez uses art as a tool to navigate and articulate the intricacies of human existence. Her work stands as a testament to the emotional landscapes we traverse and the space for others to find resonance in their own narratives.
My name is Paris Snyder and I am a Cleveland-based artist. I am currently studying studio art at Cleveland State University as a Haddad Merit Scholar and Mandel Honors Student. My work is primarily in printmaking and sculpture. I enjoy creating prints and sculptures that act as a place for the viewer to pause and reflect on themselves through the lens of my artwork. This body of work showcases my feelings of outgrowing the past and dwelling on the future.
Change is a scary thing. I use my art to understand that I may not belong in the places I thought I once did. People grow up, people move on, people become individuals, yet, people are influenced by each other. With this body of work I am expressing my navigation of the ever-changing nature of what is happening in my own life. Though change is scary, it is the only way for growth to take place.
There is a delicate balance between gentleness and resilience that I explore in this body of work. Through printmaking and sculpture I have created intimate pieces to draw the viewer in. It is from this vulnerability that we can begin to connect and grow compassion for one another. I’ve developed the realization that not every space I’ve outgrown is meant to hold me anymore. In this space, we can reflect upon and be grateful for the challenges that bring transformation to our lives.
Lisa Austin earned degrees in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth and Yale universities. She taught courses in sculpture and related topics at the Suitland Center for the Arts in Maryland, at Virginia Commonwealth University and at PennWest Edinboro University, where she also ran the Bruce Gallery before her retirement in 2024. Twenty years earlier, Austin established the Civitas Collaborative to undertake “aesthetic and functional interventions in public space.” She gathered stakeholders to co-found organizations including: All Aboard Erie (transportation), Innovation Erie (product design), Made in Erie (design training and marketplace), Preservation Erie (adaptive reuse) and SculptureX (education). Other Civitas organizations (Re-think the McBride Viaduct, ErieCPR and Connect Urban Erie) have supported federal lawsuits.
The first legal challenge opposed the demolition of a pedestrian artery connecting some the nation’s most impoverished and diverse zip codes without first conducting the required National Environmental Policy Act Environmental Assessment (NEPA EA). The battle to save the McBride Viaduct was a front-page New York Times story by Michael Kimmelman. The second lawsuit, led by EarthJustice, challenged the lack of a NEPA EA before constructing an arterial highway along Lake Erie.
During her career, Austin has organized and co-organized over 100 panels, workshops and demonstrations with regional and national experts. She has authored and co-authored three dozen opinion pieces for the Erie Times-News and Erie Reader. Her community involvement led to service on the city’s Zoning Hearing Board, an appointment to Erie County’s Planning Commission and an invitation run for mayor in 2017. Though Austin lost the race, her campaign materials (including a billboard and yard signs) were included in subsequent juried shows. The last of her campaign’s up-cycled, silk-screened, “Elect an Artist” t-shirts were distributed to students attending the 2024 SculptureX symposium held at the Bruce Gallery in Doucette Hall at PennWest Edinboro University.
George Kozman is an internationally collected artist, best known for his monumental paintings which have been widely exhibited and critically acclaimed throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship and five Ohio Arts Council grants. His resume reflects over 30 solo exhibitions in commercial, academic and institutional venues, and over 100 two-person, invitational or group shows.
Kozmon’s work is represented in prestigious public and private collections including the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH), the Akron Art Museum (Akron, OH), Hyatt Regency (Cologne, Germany), IBM (Armonk, NY), the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH), Astor Residence Hotel (London, England) and the Progressive Collection (Cleveland, OH).
Commissioned projects include Halliburton Corporate Headquarters (Houston, TX), Key Corp. (Cleveland, OH), Turner Construction Co. (Columbus, OH), Ungerer GmbH (Pforzheim, Germany), the Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH), Marriott Corp. (Arlington, MD) and 12 large-scale works for the Ritz-Carlton, Abu Dhabi Grand Canal (Abu Dhabi, UAE). A notable endeavor was Cloudscape, an ambitious 8ft. x 80ft canvas commissioned by IngenuityFest, painted as a live on-site performance for the premier international art and technology event in Ohio.
When not creating art, Kozmon lectures at Case Western University and the Cleveland Institute of Art, writes articles focused on art and culture, and has ghost written weekly topical articles published for a corporate CEO. His interest in architecture has also allowed him to design and build a 4,000-squarefoot lodge in mid-state New York.
Ben Rodriguez joined Dix & Eaton in early 2018, where he is currently an art director. In this role, he serves the visual needs of clients across all industries. His talent with illustration and animation have led him into a pivotal role within the firm, specializing in video editing and motion graphics. Along with his team, he has worked on television spots for Union Home Mortgage, Cleveland Rape Crisis Center and the YMCA. He has also designed pieces for Cleveland-specific events, including the Cleveland Public Library’s 150th Anniversary and Destination Cleveland. Ben’s most recent projects involve creating video content for technology company clients, which often need to transform complex ideas into visually digestible content. Outside of work, Ben enjoys the local music scene, where he has contributed his artistic talent to work with musicians on filming, venue work, editing, animating music videos, creating a documentary, developing social media video assets and illustrative merchandise.
Rodriguez graduated cum laude from Cleveland State University in 2017, majoring in Visual Communication. He was awarded the CSU Merit Art Scholarship for four consecutive years. Although his studies focused on design, he remained true to the love of drawing, sculpture and film he cultivated prior to college. Rodriguez served as president of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) student chapter and worked alongside other active members to elevate the presence of art and design within the CSU art department and surrounding community.
Jim, a retired international business consultant, and Jean, a retired executive coach, have long supported Cleveland’s art and music institutions. With a deep interest in spatial art, Jim, encouraged by Jean, joined CSU’s Project 60 Sculpture program, beginning an inspiring artistic journey.
Guided by sculpture professor Irina Koukhanova, Jim explored various mediums and techniques, finding great fulfillment in CSU’s collaborative “oneroom schoolhouse” mentorship approach that fosters collaboration and creative growth among students at different skill levels. Jim finds it deeply fulfilling to witness their artistic development and the incredible sculptures they create.
In any learning environment, talent can emerge gradually or manifest early, much like a musical prodigy. Over the years, Jim and Jean Triner observed this trajectory among CSU’s sculpture students and were inspired to establish the Sculpture Student of the Year Award. Their multi-year contribution to the Department of Art and Design’s sculpture concentration ensures that this prestigious award will continue to recognize and celebrate outstanding student talent for years to come.
Collaboration — Naliyah DeJesus, Jackie Flanik, Daria Hordiushyna, Madelynn Madison, Rosalina Naida, Hollie Price and Ryan Zak , Gen Zine , Design, 2025 President's Award, Cash Prize $200
Best-in-Project 60
The Galleries at Cleveland State University wish to acknowledge the contributions of many individuals who made this exhibition possible.
First and foremost, we thank our CSU Haddad Merit Scholars and student artists. Five Merit Scholars and 79 student artists participated in these vibrant exhibitions.
We recognize the guidance and leadership of CSU studio art faculty. They encouraged their students to submit artwork, developed guidelines, recommended judges and took active roles in deciding award categories and cash amounts. Studio faculty worked closely with Merit Scholars to ensure exceptional Merit exhibitions.
Lisa Evans, Emma Cook and their colleagues in University Marketing, and Patrick Hughes and his team in Printing Services are responsible for the design and production of marketing and promotional materials as well as this catalog that accompanies the exhibition. Heather Patterson is responsible for the photography of student artwork used in this catalog.
Department of Art and Design Administrative Coordinator Catherine Busch has been invaluable to the planning, organizing and execution of these student shows and this catalog.
We are grateful to judges Lisa Austin, George Kozmon and Benjamin Rodriguez who had the challenging task of jurying this show and selecting award winners. We rely on their expertise to make tough decisions and present the best exhibition possible.
Award donors are Robert Spademan, Jim Triner and an anonymous community donor. This year’s awards are 100% funded by donations and are at a new historic high of more than $2,000.
Finally, we gratefully acknowledge funding from the CSU College of Arts and Sciences, the Ohio Arts Council and our anonymous donors.
Kendall Christian Director, The Galleries at CSU