Denison student art to be displayed in empty storefront of Granville Village Hall
An empty former storefront now has new life along Granville's East Broadway.
The artwork of Denison University junior Renai Heath is now filling the windows of 143 E. Broadway, the former retail space inside the Granville Village Hall building.
For Heath, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, this is one of her first opportunities to showcase her work outside of Denison. Heath said she's used her art as gifts, and it usually caters to her family or her personally. It's also been featured in shows on the Denison campus. But showing off seven of her pieces to the Granville community will be a new experience for her, she said.
"The fact that it's going down to a larger audience is an exciting opportunity for me," said Heath, who is majoring in fine arts. "I'm so happy to see the reviews and see how much it impacts just Granville as a whole."
Heath's art focuses on Black culture, and with February being Black History Month, she said it's a wonderful time to make sure her culture is represented beyond Denison's campus.
In an artist statement that's displayed alongside her work, Heath writes, "The primary objective of my art is to communicate and nurture positive and personal storytelling as well as empowering relational expressions of the Black experience. I am particularly interested in depicting Black women in positive, peaceful, and resilient roles while still affected by trauma and shared experiences. I seek to create an arts advocacy that stimulates cultural enrichment with creativity and personal expression."
Heath is the first artist to have her work featured, and likely other art work from her and other Denison students will rotate in the coming months.
The art will be there temporarily, as the village prepares to expand the Granville Police Department, which is based in the backside of the building, into the former retail space. Plans for that expansion are still being solidified, Police Chief Bill Caskey said.
A resident expressed dismay over the paper that had been covering the windows and wanted to see something else instead, Caskey said. Village council members discussed featuring art, and Caskey reached out to Micaela Vivero, a sculpture professor and chair of studio art at Denison, to find a future professional artist who might be interested.
"Anytime you have an opportunity to view and appreciate a genuine work of art, that's a good thing," Caskey said. "This allows us not only to do it, but to share with the rest of the village."
Vivero said she didn't have to look far. Heath is an acclaimed artist at Denison, and anyone who comes to the building knows her work.
"She is unstoppable. She makes artwork constantly," Vivero said. "She's a very committed student, very serious, very talented student and we're very proud of her."
mdevito@gannett.com
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Twitter: @MariaDeVito13
This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Denison student art to be displayed in empty storefront of village hall
