Two for the Show
Contemporary Arts Center wraps up its 2025–2026 season with two solo shows by local artists Gee Horton and Michael Stillion
Curated by Maria Seda-Reeder, CAC’s adjunct curator, the exhibitions open to the public with a free opening reception at CAC, 44 E. Sixth St., on Friday, April 24, 7 to 9 p.m., with exclusive gallery access and a cash bar for the debut of these powerful new bodies of work.
Horton’s “Chapter 4, In Another Lifetime” unfolds across two galleries of CAC, marking a continued evolution of his narrative-driven practice. Working across large-scale photorealist drawing, photography, collage, video, and installation, Horton explores Black masculinity, generational memory, and the tension between safety and vulnerability.
In his preceding work, “Chapter 3: Be Home Before the Streetlights...” Horton examined the call to return home. “Chapter 4: In Another Lifetime” reflects on what we inherit once we arrive.
This narrative-driven exhibition features Horton’s loosely autobiographical account of the struggles of Freeman Little, a 37-year-old Black man living with Guent Bu Wa, a rare hereditary sleep disorder that causes vivid, prophetic dreams.
Gee Horton will hold an artist talk at The Mercantile Library on Saturday, June 20. More details and register.
The works in “Chapter 4,” show shifts in the scale and viewpoint of Horton’s artistic practice. Through immersive sculptural assemblages, symbolic iconography, and his beloved meticulously drawn figures, Horton weaves a dreamlike account of the consequences of intergenerational trauma, cultural legacy, and the rupture of colonial inheritance. The narrative unfolds within a cosmology where memory refuses erasure and the past presses insistently into the present.
Horton’s large-scale works employ photorealist graphite drawings with cyanotype (a blue-toned photographic printing process) to imagine absorbing visual imagery shaped by dream logic. In these new works, ruptured histories resurface and inheritance demands witness. Horton invites presence instead of closure, knowing some feelings are too big to explain away or resolve. They simply need holding.
Michael Stillion will will hold an artist talk at CAC on Saturday, Aug 1. Free for members, $5 for non-members.
Stillion’s work explores portraiture, symbolism, and the human condition through emotionally charged, visually layered compositions. In “And then it was flowers” Stillion presents recent paintings depicting stone and ceramic vessels with human features, paired with exaggerated poppy flowers, serving as metaphors for fragility and impermanence.
Stillion pulls from a wide variety of influences, including pop culture from his childhood in the 1980s and early 90s, particularly that of the iconic cartoon character Bart Simpson and Nike’s Jordan Jumpman shoes stylized after basketball superstar Michael Jordan. The artist also references rural Ohio landscapes and touchstones of art history.
These expressive containers rendered with skilled, illusionistic trompe-l’oeil techniques demonstrate processes of decay and in/visibility. Often paired with exaggerated poppy flowers and realistic flies, Stillion’s paintings serve as metaphors for fragility, impermanence, transition, and pollination. Stillion’s work explores the human condition through emotionally charged, visually layered compositions. In And then it was flowers Stillion presents recent paintings, works on paper, ceramic sculptures, and an animation, all which depict vessels with human-like features.
The works in “And then it was flowers” also speak to Stillion’s interest in the passage of time, which he compares to shifts that are slow and, “subtle enough that in the moment you don’t necessarily notice that it’s happening, but if you’re away from it long enough and you come back to it, you see it.”
Based in Cincinnati, Stillion holds an MFA from Indiana University and a BFA from the Columbus College of Art and Design. He is a visiting assistant professor at Miami University and a recipient of multiple Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in both public and private collections.
The exhibitions run through Aug. 30. For programs and information, visit https://www.cincycac.org
The presentation of “Gee Horton: Chapter 4, In Another Lifetime” at CAC is supported by Lauren + Tom Shafer, Jens Rosenkrantz + M. Katherine Hurley, Barbara A. Turner BT RISE, Inc., Barbara K. Meyers, Rozy Park + Chris Dendy, Bader + Simon, Sara + Michelle Vance Waddell, The Mayerson Foundation, Brian + Lisa Tent, Weekend Sea Fund, Northern Cincinnati Foundation, Bill + Kate Baumann, Eric + Jan-Michele Kearney, and Kristin Zelinskas. In-kind support provided by The Picture Frame Company, The Plant Trolley, Inc., The Mercantile Library, Habitat for Humanity, and Shay Nartker
The presentation of “Michael Stillion: And then it was flowers” at CAC is supported by Anonymous, Mr. Phillip J. Nuxhall, Bella, Sara + Michelle Vance Waddell, George + Linda Kurz, and Kristin Zelinskas. In-kind support provided by Matthew Board.