As part of their new series highlighting emerging local artists, this month the Malton Gallery is featuring work by musician Spencer Van der Zee. A collection of pen and ink drawings, Van der Zee has assembled an interesting exhibition that affirms its status as, and admiration for, outsider art.

Former fashion illustrator turned fine artist Donna Talerico’s new paintings at the Greenwich House Gallery unabashedly trumpet their influences. Inspired by post impressionist attitudes, Talerico’s work is direct; filled with light, color, and a painterly approach to the canvas. Her choice of subject matter: landscapes, street scenes, solitary figures, and cafés filled with anonymous patrons hearken back to the days when France was the epicenter of innovative western art.

While the role of art and the visual artist in society have undergone dramatic shifts since the Quattrocento, the practice of drawing, and the special significance it holds as the exploratory medium for the development of thought and form is, for many contemporary artists, still as de rigueur as it was in Cennino’s time. This vision of drawing as daily affirmation is currently and elegantly stated by the work of two sculptors whose drawings are now on view as Nature’s Stain at Aisle.

Mark Patsfall is the go-to guy if you’re an artist and you have a difficult print job at hand. Patsfall also makes art, as can be seen right now in the Weston Art Gallery’s The House In My Head. His own quirky, idea-filled show, The Nature of Time, recently appeared at Aisle Gallery in West End.

Paul Coors’ new solo exhibition at Clay Street Press is something of two different worlds. Beneath the surface of a quintessential contemporary exhibition, Tell Me What Else You Need From Me reveals a multiplicity of approaches to conceiving of and executing visual art. Coors, a 2004 graduate of The Art Academy of Cincinnati and formerly of the now defunct and highly respected Publico, is one of Cincinnati’s most gifted designer/printmakers...