Biography
Bridget Ginley ( b.1970 ) is a true Cleveland visual artist. She grew up, was educated and has spent her career in Northern Ohio. Ms. Ginley works in several mediums including drawing, printmaking, collage and ceramics but painting is her first love. It is there that her unique form of midwestern expressionism is most articulated.
The subject matter of her work is often grounded in contour drawings and anatomy renderings. Her biomorphic forms swirl with motion and energy with careful attention to color theory and balance of composition. The procedural aspect of her paintings plays an important role as well. Layers of drawing and painting are applied and sanded repeatedly to add depth and complexity to the final image. The end result may take weeks of application and removal until the final composition emerges. This suits her subject matter well as Ms. Ginley's paintings also deal with the psychology of sexuality. There is a sensual tension that unifies her work and invites the viewer to delve deeper. The many layers on the canvas mirror the complex psychology that obscures our own universal desires. Her imagery is not explicit in nature but rather left ambiguous in order that the viewer may draw his or her own conclusions. The pieces are derived from a more impulsive and emotional reaction to the body, its possibilities and taboos.
Her additional work as a ceramics assistant, mural painter and other odd jobs have lead to large commissions and public projects in the Cleveland area with her more primitive decorative style. The Rock Hall of Fame, Cain Park, Diamondback Brewery and many other Cleveland renewal projects in the late nineties included mural works by Ginley.
Bridget Ginley received her BFA in painting from the Kent State University School of Art in 1993. While at KSU, she served as the president of the Organization for Student Artists, providing funding for the film department, studio space for undergraduates and coordinating KSU's guest artist lecture series. After graduation she returned to Cleveland to work and exhibit. Her professional experience includes working as an animator for Knock Knock Cartoons, a regional admissions counselor for the School of Visual Arts in New York and the regional curator for the Progressive collection. She has furthered her education with post-graduate seminars at the Cleveland Institute of Art for professional practices, ceramics instruction at Cuyahoga Community College and by returning to Kent State University to pursue a graduate degree in the early part of 2000.
Ms. Ginley has also been active in the local arts community. She has shown her work throughout the Midwest in various group and solo exhibitions. However, her most important contribution has been engendering community involvement in the arts as a whole. She opened her first gallery (Studio 615) in 1997 where local and regional emerging artists were shown. After two years she joined with artist Colin Toke to form another emerging artist space (Buzz) as part of the Artcade Project to revitalize downtown's empty retail spaces. After a successful year lending a strong arm to the Artcade gallery development, the space transformed into a co-op of several artists and moved to West 25th Street in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood to exhibit local and regional work from emerging artists for two years. Buzz closed in 2005.
Upon the last gallery closing, Ginley has focused on her own work instead of a space. In 2007, the artist participated in two exhibits in the downtown area at the new Level Three Gallery and in Convivium 33 Gallery as a member in an Artspace group exhibit showing new works.
Currently, she works out of her loft in the Arts Quarter in Cleveland Ohio in a unique live/work space downtown. She curates a small non-profit gallery located within the Neighborhood Housing Service of Greater Cleveland where on a bi-monthly basis local artists can exhibit their work while contributing to the fabric of the urban community. This mission statement drives the artist to not only create but to contribute while building culture in a challenged region