ActLocle

Curators: Josh Chefitz // Nick Lee // Jordi Rowe // Anna Young
Jurors: Nick Lee // Jordi Rowe // Anna Young

Nick Lee (b. 1996) is a painter and 2021 Kent State University graduate. Lee lives and works in Akron, Ohio. Lee’s work is inspired by the diversity of the human experience. As a Japanese-American, Lee’s visual art strives to better represent minorities like himself in American portraiture and western art. Another motivation for Lee is self discovery. Lee uses symbolic Japanese objects in his paintings to connect with a culture that was never taught to him growing up. Lee is the 2023 recipient of the Distinguished Citizen for Art Education for the Northeast Ohio region by the OAEA. Lee is also the recipient of the 2024 Arts Alive Emerging Artist award by Summit Artspace.

Jordi Rowe is a painter, pathologist, and parent who spends her time between parenting, practicing medicine and art. Her work primarily focuses on light, sky and water, creating spaces focusing on the sublime. Throughout her work, she often integrates elements of growing up in the Canadian Rockies and Big Sky Country. She is a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she majored in painting. Her work has been exhibited in the CAN Triennial in Cleveland, Ohio, and in solo exhibitions at Waterloo Arts Gallery, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the Valley Art Center in Chagrin Falls, and Studio M at the Massillon Museum.

Anna E. Young is a fine art photographer and arts advocate. She holds an M.F.A. in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a B.F.A. from the University of Akron, with minors in Printmaking, Art History, and Professional Photography. Young works full-time at the Massillon Museum as administrative assistant and social media manager and is the MassMusings podcast producer. She is also an assistant lecturer at the University of Akron, Myers School of Art in the 2D Design department. In her free time, she creates photographs, prints, and silicone sculptures revolving around contemporary social issues, body dysmorphia, and mortality.