The Coburn Art Gallery opened their exhibition, “Figura(tive)” on Aug. 30.

Director of the Coburn Art Gallery and professional instructor, Cynthia Petry says that the exhibition will show a lot of skill sets from different artists.

“The exhibition is called Figura(tive). It is based on works that curated from artists in Ohio, and also one artist from New York,” Petry said. “The works were selected on the nature of their subjects. Being figurative, we’re talking about level of realism, technical virtuosity, something if you see it immediately, you see the skill set that goes in the work, but then you also begin to see the content.”

Judy Takacs, one of the featured artists in this exhibition, has showed her work in many places, including Butler Institute of American Art, Lakeland Community College and Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C).

“I am always trying to promote figurative art because figurative has gotten kind of swept to the side over the past 75, 80, 100 years, and I think it’s making a resurgence.,” Takacs said. “I feel like the more figurative shows there are, in prominent places like this [the Coburn Art Gallery] and the more really good figurative artists who are more out there showing stuff, it helps us all.”

Senior Fine Arts and Graphic Design Major, Kiana Ziegler, attended the exhibition to see what was going on.

“It’s always good to see what other artists have done,” Ziegler said. “Maybe I have an idea, or have had an idea, and I didn’t really know how I was going to go about doing that but maybe seeing some of their work I can be like ‘oh, that’s how they do it,’ or maybe it just gives other ideas for painting.”

Petry was very thorough in picking the artists for this exhibition.

“I wanted to pick works that fell into this idea of realism where you’re representing something that looks like what it is, but the rest of it is very straight-forward with the subject,” Petry said. “I think sometimes those works get dismissed because it’s ‘only a portrait.’ No, it’s not just a physical portrait of someone. There’s a lot of psychology going into that portrait.”

Takacs showed three pieces from her series Chicks with Balls in which she depicts strong women throughout history. Joe called attention to the people he specifically picked for portraits and Benjy’s work is nature-based.

“There was someone from Wisconsin and they weren’t going to be here this week when the show opened, and I agreed to come over and open it for them,” Petry said. “The woman was crying. She was that touched by Judy’s work and also Joe’s work, just how they were able to capture the human form and tell us so much about them in this vehicle of paint.”

The exhibition is open free and open to the public weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and noon to 4 p.m. on weekends. It will close Sept. 28.

“I hope that a lot of students will come see this show because it’s still fairly uncommon to have figurative art shows, especially in the midwest,” Takacs said. “On the coasts, they’re more present. I think it’s good for art students and regular people to come see this show. Get here before Sept. 28.”