MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release
January 2025
Contact: Arleigh Savage – programs@heightsarts.org

Heights Arts presents Consider Fires and Spotlight: Josh Chefitz, two new exhibitions exploring transformation, memory, and healing

Cleveland Heights, OH — Heights Arts launches its first paired exhibitions of 2026 with Consider Fires, a compelling group exhibition, alongside a Spotlight exhibition featuring artist Josh Chefitz. Together, the shows examine fire as both metaphor and material, while exploring themes of transformation, along with resilience, memory, and healing in the Chefitz show.

Curated by multidisciplinary artist Gina Washington, a member of Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb’s Transformative Arts Team, Consider Fires brings together Northeast Ohio-based artists whose works illuminate the tension between destruction and possibility. “For this exhibition,” Washington says, “I gathered an eclectic group of artists to explore the balance in what is commonly considered destructive—fire.”

A hallmark of Heights Arts’ mission, participating artists are locally based in Northeast Ohio. They include Cleveland Arts Prize Verge Fellowship winner, Photographer McKinley Wiley, contributing CLE Delicious, a black-and-white medium-format portrait that aligns with his practice of documenting joy, vulnerability, and community. World traveler and Cleveland Institute of Art graduate, Jeanetta Ho contributes an ink jet print called, Book of Fire, which asks urgent, existential questions. Fire, she suggests, can catalyze profound transformation—if we dare to confront what must burn away. Seeking to find a spark in the darkness, Falon Walker’s, Black Goth, a digital-brush piece, is a celebration of human resilience and tenderness.

The exhibition also includes some conceptual art pieces such as Tanya Kaiser’s Music Toy Bunny (Crystalized Innocence). Known for blending ceramics, sculpture, and installation, Kaiser’s piece offers a charged contrast between childhood symbolism and hardened form, prompting viewers to ponder the cultural fires that calcify innocence. Another piece is Chester Hopkins-Bey’s Everybody Plays, an acrylic-and-collage piece shaped by experiences of being “under fire” in the most literal and emotional sense, tending to those in crisis, witnessing trauma, and offering hope where it is nearly extinguished. He says of the exhibition, “I think that [it] will encourage people to find their inner fire and use it for good.” Rounding out the group are Aja Joi Grant, exhibiting works of photography, printmaking, and fiber, painting and ceramic sculpture artist Yasmeen Kwan, mixed media artist James Negron, ceramics, photography, and fiber artist Kole Robinson Brooks, acrylic paint artist Mario Tripp, drawing artist Ellis Walker, multidisciplinary artist Lolita Wilson, and collage artist Leah Wood.

Artist Josh Chefitz is featured in the accompanying Spotlight show, with an exhibition showcasing layered ink, paint, and mixed media works which explore memory as an evolving narrative, reshaping the past in order to heal, transform, and move forward.  Chefitz says, “As the Director of the Student Care at Ruffing Montessori School, I spend a lot of time encouraging students to embrace a growth mindset—to try new things, [and] take risks, but for much of my own life I didn’t apply that mindset to myself…I now speak with my students about how we come to believe certain stories…about who we are and what we can or can’t do. Maybe this exhibition can be the quiet encouragement someone else needs right now.”

Both exhibitions run through March 15th, 2026, with an Opening Reception on Friday, January 16th, from 5:00-8:00pm, and a “Last Look” event on March 13th. On Thursday, February 19th at 7:00pm, the artists will return to Heights Arts for a special evening of conversation and performance, joined by Heights Poet Laureate Michelle R. Smith and guest poets Jennifer Hallaman, Jeweled Justice, and Sujata Lakhe, presenting original poems inspired by exhibited art.

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Founded in 2000, Heights Arts (www.heightsarts.org) is a nonprofit, multi-disciplinary arts organization whose mission is to cultivate a strong, diverse, and collaborative arts community by inspiring people of all ages to engage in the arts; supporting the arts through education; providing exhibition and performance opportunities; and fostering public appreciation for the arts.

Heights Arts is generously supported by funding from individuals, businesses, and organizations, including: City of Cleveland Heights; City of University Heights; Cuyahoga Arts & Culture; Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation; Ohio Arts Council; The Arthur E, Elsie G, and Betty M Kranz Family Foundation; The Jean, Harry, and Brenda Fuchs Family Foundation; The Peggy and John Garson Family Foundation; The William Bingham foundation; and WWMR Foundation. Winter Season Sponsor: No Exit New Music Ensemble.