Keny Galleries opens winter ‘Holiday Treats’ art exhibition

Laura Smith
Fri, 11 Dec 2020 02:45:38 +0000
Arts & Life, Events, Fine Arts, Gallery, Instagram Page, News, art, art exhibition, art gallery, contemporary art, events, exhibit, exhibition, gallery, german village, historical art, history, Holiday Treats, James Keny, keny galleries, Lowell Tolstedt, Ohio, ohio state, ohio state university, osu, Tim Keny

“Glass Bowl With Wrapped Candy” by Lowell Tolstedt will be featured in “Holiday Treats.” Credit: Courtesy of Keny Galleries

Treat your eyes this holiday season with Keny Galleries’ latest exhibition.

The German Village gallery opened “Holiday Treats” Monday and will run through Jan. 8, 2021, featuring a mixture of art from both contemporary and historical artists, according to Keny Galleries’ website.

The exhibition will feature different kinds of art, such as pastels and watercolors. Tim Keny, co-owner of the gallery alongside his brother, James, said the focus for both the exhibition and the gallery as a whole is not on the specific medium of work, but the quality of the art.

Although the exhibition may be called “Holiday Treats” and the featured image on most of its promotional materials is a drawing of candy in a glass bowl by artist Lowell Tolstedt, Tim Keny said there is not any sort of particular theme around sweet treats; instead, the name is more of a metaphor.

“Quality is always extremely important to us, but also the notion that this is the time of the year when people are gifting each other treats in various forms. And rather than saying something like ‘Holiday Treasures’ — sounds a bit stilted, a little too formal — we felt that treats would capture it, as well as also the essence of a lot of the drawings by Lowell Tolstedt,” Keny said.

Keny said the exhibition will showcase work from a wide array of artists, but there is particular attention given to Tolstedt, who has worked with Keny Galleries for 35 years. Tolstedt said his seven pieces on display in the exhibition range from the late 1980s to 2019.

“They’re just kind of showing the technical skill of the stuff from before and then the most recent, so there’s a real extreme difference of works that are from all those years,” Tolstedt said.

Keny Galleries is known for its showing of historical works of art, but the gallery also does a lot of work with contemporary pieces and Keny said he hopes this exhibition will be a chance to showcase the gallery’s range.

“It gives you the opportunity to get a feel for the broad range of works by artists that we represent. Not only living artists, but historic artists. And so it’s an opportunity to get a snapshot, if you will, of sort of what we do as a gallery,” Keny said. “Many people like to separate contemporary art from historic art, and really it’s all part of a continuum.”?

“Holiday Treats” will run through Jan. 8, 2021, at Keny Galleries, located at 300 E. Beck St. The exhibition is free to visit, but only by scheduled appointment. Most of the art, both contemporary and historic, is for sale, and the prices for the contemporary pieces can be found on Keny Galleries’ website.