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| Photo By Matt Borgerding |
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Fusion Gallery's (L-R) Laura Popham, David O'Hara and Cyndi Grammel
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Despite the bright blue door, the storefront might be easy to miss. The sidewalk's a construction zone -- orange cones blocking pedestrians, jackhammers disheartening the ambiance of the café next door. But if you can find your way inside Fusion Gallery (305 Fairfield Ave., Bellevue), you'll be rewarded, and probably not for the reasons you'd expect.
The gallery itself is tiny but fat with art. David O'Hara, the director of the space, shows a lot of his own work. In fact, half the gallery is dedicated to his large-scale, figurative oil paintings.
O'Hara doesn't see this as a conflict. Rather, just as the beginning of the space's story.
O'Hara moved from New York State to Cincinnati to work in the industrial construction trade. In 2000, he gave it up to commit himself to his art. Wandering the city, he found the storefront in Bellevue, the Northern Kentucky neighbor of Newport, with a "For Rent" sign. He made a phone call to the then-owner of the building, James O'Hara -- "no relation," says O'Hara the artist, "just kismet."
As an exchange, the two O'Haras decided that James would let David use the space to hang his paintings without charging rent, as long as David promised to rehab the storefront, which was, like the rest of Bellevue, a few decades past its prime.
The deal was made. David went to work. The storefront became his own, a place to paint -- his technique a tactile experience, slopping blobs of paint onto a canvas and letting his fingers create the forms.
Of course, his works are far too figurative to be finger paintings. No, they're elaborate scenes of socialites, May/December affairs, girls drinking wine and smoking. In many ways the paintings are reminiscent of John Currin, the hottest New York artist of 2002. Currin's works, though, explore a dark side of our contemporary, media-blasted, bored-to-hell magazine culture. O'Hara's work is far more gentle and lacks the disturbing element.
O'Hara gestures around the gallery and says that he's "staying away from the typical flowers-in-a-vase and landscape scenes." This aversion is hard to see. His other choices -- mostly painters and photographers from the Pendleton Art Center in Over-the-Rhine, but a few regional (and impressive) glass artists, too -- certainly look a lot like florals and landscapes. And the photographs are shots of anything looking vaguely nostalgic, the kind of art that sells quickly and without much thought.
What's impressive about the space wasn't the gallery -- it was the building, the neighborhood and the excellent and dedicated people I met there. In 2004, Cyndi Grammel purchased the building from the no-relation O'Hara. Along with a new partner, Laura Popham, the three friends have decided to rebuild this historic edifice.
Popham took me on a tour through three stories of walls being torn down, florescent lights being ripped out, floors being sanded and tiled, ceilings reconstructed. The third floor is the owner's apartment, and it's gorgeous: a fabulous mix of contemporary furnishings, artwork, old-fashioned wood moldings, high ceilings and 100-year-old fireplaces.
The work continues in the building as well as on the streets. When all is said and done, the building that houses Fusion Gallery will also house three live-in tenants, a parlor-shop entryway and antique wood staircases decorated with hand-painted murals.
Later this summer, Fairfield Avenue's repairs will be finished. New art deco street lamps will replace those horrid things from the 1980s. The Bellevue Café will serve its delicious sandwiches and coffee without the banging and clanging and dust. The town, as David O'Hara promised me, will be the new "Mount Adams South."
Fusion Gallery is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Thursday and noon-7 p.m. Friday-Saturday.
