By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Artist Sven duChoudry doesn’t want to talk about his life.
He’s not interested in fame or notoriety. He leaves social media to others.
His time on earth he says is limited. What is important is what he leaves behind —his oil paintings and multimedia works.
duChoudry’s work is now on exhibit at the Wood County Senior Center, 140 South Grove St., through Dec. 31.
Though duChoudry has been painting for decades this is his first actual solo exhibit.
His paintings were on display at the Waterville Library. That’s where Nancy Orel, a board member of the Wood County Committee on Aging, saw them. The display was not optimal for viewing, she said.
At the senior center, the paintings stretch down the hallway to the dining area, and then occupy walls around the tables. They can be seen during the senior center’s regular hours.
duChoudry eschews stylistic labels. The oil paintings evoke, not imitate, the work of Van Gogh not just because of the way the paint is thickly layered onto the canvas, but because of their emotional intensity. That’s true whether it’s a still life such as “Breakfast with Emily Dickinson” — poetry is another source of inspiration for duChoudry — or a landscape, such as “Sunset at Saint Patrick’s.”
He spoke about how low he was feeling one Christmas Eve. When he stepped out of his house to go to church, he was stunned by the beauty of the stars above.
That luminescence is captured in “Christmas Eve Sunset.”
“Faith is an utterly large light,” duChourdry said.
Yet the emotion never overwhelms the fine craftsmanship of the works. duChoudry arranges the details with a strong sense of geometric design.
The artist works in his studio on the Maumee River in Grand Rapids. The paintings capture his vision of the local scenery as well as memories, such as his mother’s garden.
That garden he told those gathered for the opening of the exhibit is gone but his mother surrounds him.
In his presentation, duChoudry was blunt in his desire to have people acquire the paintings. Those patrons, he said, will be the caretakers of these treasures in the future. duChoudry wants his the flock of crows, an extended family that annually visits the nearby farm field, to be immortal.
He finds transcendence in the manmade landscape as well — the Johns Manville plant and the lights of the interstate in the distance, they cast through duChoudry’s eye an other worldly glow.
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Penta student’s design added to Sculpture Walk
Earlier this month the Sculpture Walk at Woodlands Park in Perrysburg added a bit of circus to the year-long exhibit.
Robin Ballmer, who organizes the sculpture walk, reached out to Penta County Career Center to do a collaborative program.
Students in the Digital Arts program were asked to come up with a design for the base of Mike Sohikian’s “Balance 1.”
Ballmer worked with the students providing project guidelines and artistic direction.
For Penta student, Erik Baker, the connection to the circus was obvious. He designed a circus tent for the base.
His work was selected from 35 submissions.
Then he got the chance to install the design with Toledo artist Dean Davis.
Ballmer said the collaboration highlights the Sculpture Walk’s commitment to promoting local talent. It also offers students a chance to share their work in a public setting.
Davis helped Baker with the essential techniques of painting a mural — preparing the surface, measuring, masking, and then painting.
Davis said whenever he gets a chance to work with students, he “jumps at it.”
Art is a chance to experience life in a deeper way, he said.
For Davis art has long been a part of his life. It was during COVID that he decided he wanted it to be his career.
So after 16 years working as a railroad conductor, he quit.
Davis was the lead artist on the Glass City River Wall, the largest mural in the United States.
He’s been a full-time artist since then. The river mural “showed me I was capable of big projects,” he said. “Since then I’ve tackled everything littler than that.”
