Greg Martin is a Cleveland-based artist who incorporates a wide variety of mediums in the creation of 2D and 3D works. He explores the unique polarities found in the natural world, industrial history, and the digital age with a focus on the seen and the unseen. 

A Cleveland Institute of Art graduate, Martin has exhibited in duo and group exhibitions, and in solo exhibitions at Fabrica de Arte Cubano in Havana, Cuba, as well as SHED Projects and the Cleveland Foundation, both in Cleveland, Ohio. Greg is a three-time recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, most recently in January of 2025, as well as numerous other awards and grants. His artwork is housed in a wide variety of public and private collections

His exhibition is a reflection on the impermanence of life, a reminder of the transitory nature of mortality and its role in society. This artwork is a meditation on the fleeting nature of not just our mortal selves, but of literally everything that makes up life.

Greg’s exhibition "Memento Mori" will be on display in Studio M August 16, through September 28, 2025.

Maxmillian Peralta is a painter from Cleveland, Ohio. In his most recent artwork, he alludes to an atmosphere of tension, insecurity, and fear experienced personally, but also collectively by his generation. The artwork takes the form of highly exacting acrylic renderings of spaces, both tense domestic spaces and impossible exterior spaces.

Peralta received his bachelor of fine art in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 2021. In 2022, Massillon Museum selected him as a Collective Artist Network Triennial award exhibition winner. Peralta’s honors include a National American Visions Medal and the Anne Gund President’s Traveling Scholarship. Peralta was also commissioned by LeBron James to paint the cover of the inaugural issue of his magazine, The Program, in 2022. Peralta currently resides and works in Cleveland.

His Studio M exhibition Flat Affect is on display through August 3, 2025

Tom Bartel spoke with MassMu staff recently. His exhibit "Figure as Memento: New Ceramic and Mixed Media Artwork" is on display through June 8, 2025.

Tom Bartel has exhibited his ceramics internationally in more than 375 solo, group, juried, and invitational shows. He maintains a studio in Athens, Ohio, where he is a professor and the ceramics chair at Ohio University. Bartel’s artworks are constructed to refer to both the body and charged, stylized, surrogates for the body such as dolls, toys, and figurines.

Learn more about Tom Bartel's exhibit on our website:

https://www.massillonmuseum.org/home/exhibits/detailpage/figure-as-memento-new-ceramic-and-mixed-media-artwork-by-tom-bartel

MassMu staff sat down with Emily Olszewski before her exhibition was installed to talk about her studio practice.  Her Studio M exhibit "Playdates," is on view through April 13, 2025.

Olszewski is a figurative painter based in Akron, Ohio. She earned her bachelor of fine art in painting from The University of Akron in 2019 and her master of fine art from Kent State University in 2024. Her artwork draws from pop culture and themes of feminine communication and community. She has had solo exhibitions in the Akron and Cleveland areas, and recently she participated in the SPRING/Break Art Show in New York City.

Today, we have a conversation with Mario Arteaga, our current Studio M artist.  His exhibition is titled Heated, and it is displayed through March 9th. Mario has a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising with a minor in Accessories. In 2024, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Jewelry, Metals, and Enameling from Kent State University, and currently teaches in that department. He also works as a CNC (computer numerical control) machinist apprentice at Kennametal in Solon, Ohio. In the exhibition Heated, Mario relays the emotional connections between his family, fear, and his own world view.

The Massillon Museum appreciates operating support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark, marketing support from Visit Canton, and the support of the citizens of Massillon. This exhibition is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Views and opinions expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the museum.

On today’s episode of MassMusings, we interview current Studio M artists Grant Ederer and Stephen Tornero about their exhibition A Fair Trade, which is on view through January 5, 2025.

A Fair Trade features ceramics by Grant Ederer, and weaving by Stephen Tornero. To create the exhibition, the artists traded artwork over several years to inspire one another. The result is like an elegant improvised duet expressed through repeated shapes, textures, and colors in the gallery space. Learn more about the artists below, or click here for further exhibit information.

Grant Ederer is a ceramicist living and working in Akron, Ohio. He studied industrial design at Pratt Institute (2016), which cultivated his interest in functional, sculptural, and tactile characteristics of clay. He uses a wide variety of techniques in his studio practice including wheel throwing, hand building, mold making, and slip casting. He is inspired by biomorphic forms and how they interact with architectural lines and elements.

Stephen Tornero is a textile artist and art teacher from Canton, Ohio. His weavings focus on using color with dye and resist techniques to create patterns on the surface of the cloth. Using a mixture of traditional techniques with nontraditional methods, he creates artwork that pushes textiles as an art form while maintaining their connection to the past. Stephen teaches art to middle school students and art education courses at Kent State University.

The Massillon Museum appreciates operating support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark, marketing support from Visit Canton, and the support of the citizens of Massillon. This exhibition is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Views and opinions expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the museum.

Through the Looking Glass is an exhibition of porcelain sculpture by Ohio-based artist Kimberly Chapman.

Chapman works through a female lens, exploring the lives of fiercely independent women who lived on the fringes of respectable society. Tiger trainer Mabel Stark and sideshow performers Myrtle Corbin and Kittie Smith are among the women portrayed in the Studio M exhibition.

Chapman focuses on what women endure, shedding light on dark subjects, including insane asylums, silencing women, the worldwide refugee crisis, and domestic violence. Her creamy white objects force the viewer to contemplate universal cruelty and injustice through the female lens.

“It’s in my DNA to heavily research past and present offenses and find creative ways to make something solid that says, 'This really happened and is still happening today,’” Chapman explains. “I like to think that I’ve joined the ranks of feminist artists that stepped beyond their comfort zone and used art to amplify women’s issues.”

She employs hand-building, slip-casting, and press-molding techniques. She stretches the clay to create an “otherworldly” appearance, using clear glaze and luster to avoid obscuring the essence of the clay’s natural beauty.  

Since her 2017 graduation from the Cleveland Institute of Arts, where she won the school’s most prestigious award, Chapman's work has been featured in more than 50 solo and group exhibitions in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Before that, she used her marketing degrees from Cleveland State University and Ashland University during three decades of marketing corporations and colleges.

The artist’s article “Out of the White Cube” was published in Ceramic Monthly in October 2022. Other feature stories include: The Cleveland Arts Network Journal, March 2021, Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader, February 2020, Northeast Ohio’s Canvas, Spring 2019, and Ceramics Monthly, December 2018.

A member of numerous arts organizations, Chapman serves as co-chair of the Cleveland Institute of Art Advisory Council and is a member of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Women’s Council.

Massillon-based artist Emily Bartolone explores, through her artworks, the intersection of shape and color and how those elements can express human experiences and relationships encountered in daily life.  

Emily Bartolone obtained her BFA from the University of Dayton, and her MFA from Kent State University.  Her artwork has been shown at Project Gallery V, New York; the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati); Abattoir Gallery(Cleveland); the Galleri Urbane (Dallas); the Oceanside Museum of Art (San Diego); and the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, among other venues.  Her paintings have been featured in publications such as Art Hole (London) and Okay Cool Magazine (New York).  Bartolone was awarded first place in the 2024 Miami University Young Painters Competition for the William and Dorothy Yeck Award. 

Raw Material is a solo exhibition by Katie Davis that explores themes of feminism and domesticity.  Davis is a mixed media painter and installation artist.  Her color choices and visual language have a direct relationship with her materials, which are sourced from retro interior design trends and textiles.  The artwork uses formalism and abstraction, held in tension with whimsy and playfulness.  Her rich surfaces combine layers of paint, lace, buttons, old curtains, or clothing.  Davis is the recipient of numerous awards, and her artwork has been published in New American Paintings, Archer Magazine, and INPA 10, among other publications.  She is represented by Sarah Gormley Gallery, and is also a faculty member at Columbus College of Art & Design.

On view in Studio M from April 6–May 19, 2024

Portrait of US  is an evolving audiovisual archive of intimate stories told by ordinary people. The artists Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher create the audiovisual portraits in their Nomadic Photo Ark, a roaming black-and-white darkroom and art studio, as they weave across the United States.

Frisell and Scher visited Massillon with the Nomadic Photo Ark from September 25 through October 6, 2023.  Their Studio M exhibition will include audiovisual portraits of Stark County residents whom they interviewed, along with other portraits from the project.