The Art Academy of Cincinnati is pleased to present the fifth of six senior thesis exhibitions. “Bitmap Salsa” will feature the work of Andrea Baker, Natasha Hines, Leah Maurmeier, Erin Overmann and Tabitha Riethmiller. The exhibition will include silkscreen prints, sculpture, illustration, drawing and installation. Each senior will receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in May 2011.

Andrea Baker, of Edgewood, KY will graduate with a BFA in Sculpture. Since 2009, her work has been exhibited locally at Semantics Gallery and the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center. Baker's art is an investigation of different types of relationships people have with one another. She captivates the viewers by using a juxtaposition of found domestic and natural objects. In her work, Baker creates narratives about human relationships using handmade representational objects. Throughout Baker’s life, she has always been interested in “love.” The artist’s turbulent relationships and constant messages conveyed by the media have always confused her about what love is. In order to understand what “love” means, Baker says it is important for her to understand the types of relationships people have. Through her art, she attempts to show the viewer what she has experienced or learned in each relationship by creating a scene or an object that describes the relationship. She challenges herself with each piece by engaging with familiar found objects, rather than using the figure.

Natasha Hines was born and raised in Ashley, OH. She graduated from Buckeye Valley High School in 2007 and enrolled at the Art Academy of Cincinnati that Fall. In March of 2010, she exhibited work in the “Art of Food” exhibition at the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center in Northern Kentucky. Embracing the child-like side of ourselves relieves stress and momentarily reminds us of a time where our only responsibilities were to eat, sleep and play. Hines believes that allowing ourselves to play and to be child-like from time to time is good for our mental and emotional health. When we become stressed, unhappy and angry, at times we may feel that life has no point. Hines’ solution to relieve us of these feelings is just to play and to be carefree for a while. Hines will graduate with a BFA in Sculpture.

Leah Maurmeier is from Fairfield, OH.  She currently resides in Miamitown, OH with her fiancé, Ryan, a dog, a ferret and three cats. She will graduate with a major in Illustration and a minor in Drawing.  Having a passion for the dark and beautiful, Maurmeier loves to illustrate gruesome, yet lovely imagery with a twist of her dark humor in the mix.  Maurmeier has always had an affinity for dark, beautiful and haunting imagery. Utilizing her self-described sick sense of humor, this is the kind of artwork the artist strives to create. For her senior thesis exhibition, she has written and illustrated a sort of “anti-children’s” picture book. This book is a marriage of all of Maurmeier’s interests: morbid imagery, storybook illustration, meticulous and detailed rendering and a hilariously dark story to tie it all together.

Erin Overmann was born in Batavia, OH, where she resides with Maya, her African Gray Parrot, and Mose, her Australian Shepherd mix. Her recent narrative illustrations include storyboards and sumi ink conceptual art. She is also exploring 3D figure modeling and animation, which revolve around "Avaritia," Overmann’s story of working together to overcome evil forces of greed. The artist enjoys creating hybrid creatures from animals in nature, and through her love of animation, she hopes to help her viewers escape from the real world into a world of imagination and make-believe. The art of storytelling is her passion. She uses drawing, painting and many art forms as a language to tell her stories. Her work is organic, realistic and full of childlike wonder. She incorporates animals into many of her pieces and composes the characters so that they cause the viewer to believe a story is unfolding. What will happen next? What happened prior to this image? This amazing way of telling stories is known as narrative illustration. According to Overmann, the artwork and imagination through which the mind brings a story to life are the most important aspects of narrating. Overmann will graduate with a BFA in Illustration and a minor in Drawing and hopes to further her education and create animated films.

Tabitha Riethmiller was born in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and currently resides in Cincinnati, OH, where she will graduate with a BFA in Printmaking. Riethmiller's work focuses on the ideas of self-disclosure and revealing private information to the public. By re-contextualizing documents she comes across in her personal life and putting them on display, she forces herself to come to terms with the dilemmas presented within the documents. This allows the viewers to partake in an equally difficult experience of trying to determine whether the information is real, and if so, whether or not they should have this information.

Exhibition Dates: April 18 – 22, 2011
Closing Reception: Friday, April 22, 5:00 – 8:00 pm
Gallery Talks: April 18 & April 20 @ 12:30 pm