The Final Cut @ Ladybug Gallery Exhibit features the work of new CAID members at Southwest Detroit gallery
In the fall of 2009 the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit held its first annual members’ exhibition. The exhibition permitted all members to bring in work of any size, number or medium. There were no limits on where the work would be placed in the gallery and each member was responsible for installing their own work. Almost 30 artist members participated with most being new members to CAID. CAID’s Executive Director, Aaron Timlin, selected eight artists from the members show to be included in The Final Cut exhibition which opens at the Ladybug Gallery on February 13th. The artists are Brian Cronin (Detroit), Lloyd Eddy (Berkley), David Flaugher (Detroit), Michelle Hauske (Royal Oak), Jim Hittinger (Detroit), Melissa Jones (Franklin), Trever Long (Detroit), and Christopher Rainone (Royal Oak). The exhibition includes photography, paintings and mixed media art. There will be an opening reception to meet the artists on Saturday, February 13 from 6pm to 10pm. The opening reception is free and open to the public.
The Ladybug Gallery is located in Southwest Detroit at 1250 Hubbard, Detroit MI 48209. The entrance is on Porter Street in the subterranean level of the Whitdell Building, a historic affordable 32 unit apartment building for artists. The exhibition will run from February 13th through March 13th, 2010. Gallery hours are 12pm to 4pm on Saturdays or by appointment. Contact info@thecaid.org or (313) 899-2243 ext 151 for more information. To learn more about the artists and view images of their work visit www.thecaid.org.
The Final Cut Artists
Brian Cronin lives and works in Detroit. He earned his MFA from Wayne State University.
Lloyd Eddy graduated from Siena Heights University where he focused on drawing and painting during his undergraduate career. He earned his MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Currently, Lloyd teaches at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Troy and lives in Berkley, Michigan.
Having been raised in a factory-worker family and worked in numerous factories to put himself through school, Lloyd discovered a deep artistic connection to his blue-collar background while in graduate school. He used it to fuel art based on themes and stereotypes including creating a performance piece. During his performance, Lloyd’s “character” would participate in activities commonly associated with blue-collar workers. One such activity was completing paint-by-numbers artwork. Lloyd found himself enamored with the manufactured shapes that were deemed appropriate for the proper conveyance of anything from a masterpiece to a cute puppy. Created as a simplified way to convey color changes, these paint-by-number shapes were actually aesthetically interesting forms, once removed from their context.
In Lloyd’s current work, he takes images from various media sources, deconstructs them using this same method, and uses elements from those deconstructed pieces to create a composition. He appropriates images and manipulates them to suit his aesthetic goals. Sometimes, the only recognizable evidence of the subject used is a pureed amalgam of all of the victims named in the title. To Lloyd, it’s not important that the viewer recognize the subject visually, but that the viewer whimsically appraises them as a molested blend of pointless associations.
In the end, just as a curious child dismantles a toy, Lloyd takes apart images with brutal indifference, content in his disconnected associations and shallow scrutiny. [top]
David Flaugher recieved his BFA from the College for Creative Studies in 2008. He currently lives and works in Detroit Michigan where he is involved with the artist run exhibition space CAVE.
Michelle Hauske was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she demonstrated artistic ability at an early age and began exhibiting throughout the South Texas region. Her high school career culminated with her work being displayed in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. Michelle graduated Summa cum Laude from Texas State University in 2008, with a BFA in painting. She spent the summer of her junior year studying the culture, history, and artwork of Italy. Her experiences abroad and love of art history have dramatically influenced her work, which often allude to a particular movement in history. She currently works at the Detroit Institute of Arts and resides in Royal Oak, Michigan. [top]
Jim Hittinger was born in Chicago in 1990. His family moved to Colorado before settling in West Bloomfield, MI in 2001. Jim became serious about painting in high school, and after graduating in 2007, went to The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. After one semester, he felt the need to broaden his education to support his artistic ideas. He thought that going to a big university where he could study science, philosophy, and literature would better inform him as an artist than a setting where everyone is continuously wrapped up in their art practice, so he returned to the Detroit area and enrolled at Wayne State University. He currently lives in Detroit and is a junior at Wayne State, pursuing a BFA in painting with a minor in philosophy. [top]
Melissa Jones has exhibited her work at CAID, The Ladybug Gallery, The Scarab Club, the Detroit Artists Market, The Grosse Pointe Art Center, the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center and the Ann Arbor Art Center and The Gallery Project in Ann Arbor.
She has won numerous awards including Best Of Show in the Ann Arbor Art Center’s All Media Show last summer.
After earning her degree in Art Education (which she put to use teaching art in West Bloomfield for many years) from Wayne State University she returned to Wayne for a second helping and earned a Masters in Art Therapy.
One of Melissa’s happiest childhood memories of growing up in Detroit is of the time spent exploring the woods along the Rouge River in Heinz Park with her father. Perhaps this is where her love of nature began. Her fascination with trees, streams, rocks and leaves is evident in almost all her work. Her oil paintings, although of imagined and sometimes magical scenes, are painted in a realistic style. Her mixed media and encaustic pieces, although sometimes including recognizable imagery and sometimes not, always show her interest in the organic, in the textures of life and growth, death and decay.
When away from the studio she is busily raising two children, a cat, a rabbit, and three goldfish and working in her tree filled garden in Franklin. [top] Trever Long is a photographer working out of Detroit, MI, currently pursuing a BFA in photography at the College for Creative Studies. The content of his images ranges greatly from fine art work dealing with the self and memory, to more commercial portraiture that focuses greatly on the creative community of Detroit. Although these two main bodies of work strongly contrast each other stylistically, they are tied together by the artists interest in fabricating the scenes and subject matter that he photographs.
Christopher Rainone is a visual artist who uses photography as the basis for his imagery. His fine art has been shown in juried shows in Portland OR, group shows in both Los Angeles CA and the Detroit area.
In the work he exhibited in his solo shows in both Portland and Los Angeles he explored traditional as well as alternative photographic processes. He has been published nationally in Diffusion, Plazm, Venus and Women Who Rock.
His current work is a blend of film photography and digital processes, in which he questions the nature of the visual record as objective reality. The viewer is invited into landscapes that turn into dreams and half-remembered notions. This journey is rich with all of the mystery and allegory that nebulous state brings.
Christopher Rainone currently resides in Royal Oak, MI. [top]
"Love work, hate lordship, seek no intimacy with the ruling power."
-The Talmud
Live @ CAID
Dan Deacon
Mick Bassett & the Marthas
Project Trio
DUENDE!
Wildcatting
Established on Valentine's Day 1979, the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit is a community based non-profit organization. CAID fosters and promotes the essential link between contemporary arts and contemporary society through its exhibitions, performances, critical and public discourse, and the funding of contemporary arts and art related activities. top
In the fall of 2009 the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit held its first annual members’ exhibition. The exhibition permitted all members to bring in work of any size, number or medium. There were no limits on where the work would be placed in the gallery and each member was responsible for installing their own work. Almost 30 artist members participated with most being new members to CAID. CAID’s Executive Director, Aaron Timlin, selected eight artists from the members show to be included in The Final Cut exhibition which opens at the Ladybug Gallery on February 13th. The artists are Brian Cronin (Detroit), Lloyd Eddy (Berkley), David Flaugher (Detroit), Michelle Hauske (Royal Oak), Jim Hittinger (Detroit), Melissa Jones (Franklin), Trever Long (Detroit), and Christopher Rainone (Royal Oak). The exhibition includes photography, paintings and mixed media art. There will be an opening reception to meet the artists on Saturday, February 13 from 6pm to 10pm. The opening reception is free and open to the public. 
Lloyd Eddy graduated from Siena Heights University where he focused on drawing and painting during his undergraduate career. He earned his MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Currently, Lloyd teaches at the International Academy of Design and Technology in Troy and lives in Berkley, Michigan.
Melissa Jones has exhibited her work at CAID, The Ladybug Gallery, The Scarab Club, the Detroit Artists Market, The Grosse Pointe Art Center, the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center and the Ann Arbor Art Center and The Gallery Project in Ann Arbor. 
Christopher Rainone is a visual artist who uses photography as the basis for his imagery. His fine art has been shown in juried shows in Portland OR, group shows in both Los Angeles CA and the Detroit area. 
