2017 Student Independent Exhibition

Cleveland Institute of Art's annual Student Independent Exhibition (SIE) will be on view from February 17 through March 19. Now in its 71st year, SIE is an honored tradition that’s never conventional. Organized entirely by students, who choose the jurors and mount the exhibition, SIE offers fresh, and sometimes surprising approaches to contemporary art. An opening reception will be held in CIA's Reinberger Gallery on Friday, February 17 from 6-9pm.

This year's distinguished judges include:

Shawn Coss is an environmental artist, character designer, writer, voice actor, and convention-sketching nomad for Cyanide & Happiness. Known for its irreverent and often random humor, Cyanide & Happiness has developed quite the following since the site began back in 2004 . Now the site has grown to include comics, animated shorts, and currently in season three of the Cyanide & Happiness show on NBC's streaming service, SeeSo!

With his own sense of macabre humor, his art has been featured recently in Stephen King's film adaptation of Cell, as well as various album covers for bands of all genres. In his spare time Shawn co-owns and designs for his clothing line AMN Clothing and recently added author to his list with his scary stories book, Kindergarten. Shawn has been a professional artist for over eight years and, pending a cardiac arrest, doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

After receiving a BFA in Glass from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Adam Holtzinger moved to Brooklyn, NY to pursue a career in glass blowing. Once in NYC, Adam began designing and fabricating work for designers and artists, as well as other glassmakers. Since 2003, Adam has taught, lectured and demonstrated glass blowing nationally and internationally at Pilchuck Glass School, Penland School of Crafts, Urban Glass, Brooklyn Glass, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Corning Museum of Glass & GlassLab, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point, NOCA, 141 Penn Studios, Ohio State University, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Osaka Art University in Osaka Japan and Tama Glass School in Tokyo Japan.

Adam currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where he makes custom work for various clients and in 2015 founded KEEP lighting company with partner Susan Spiranovich.

Julie Schenkelberg was born in Cleveland, Ohio and splits her time between the midwest, Detroit and New York. She received a BA in art history at the College of Wooster, in Ohio, and an MFA in Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts. She is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York, and her large-scale installations have been displayed in solo exhibitions at The Sculpture Center, The Mattress Factory, Untitled Art Fair in Miami, SiTE:LAB in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and many more. She has received numerous grants from institutions including the Harpo Foundation, the $25,000 Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship 2016, the Frey Foundation, Art Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2014, she was awarded the $20,000 Jury Prize for Installation art at SiTE:LAB. She has been an artist in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, The Mattress Factory, the Myers School of Art at the University of Akron, and Ox-Bow. She has been visiting faculty at a number institutions, including Rutgers University, Kendall College of Art and Design, the University of Akron, Indiana University, and is the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Coming up in 2017, she will have solo exhibitions at Prosjektrom Normans in Norway, and Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York.

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