Jumping Off of Cliff: A Tribute to H.C. Westerman

IMPOSSIBLE DREAMER

HC Westermann was a grand materialist. He was a flagrant conceptualist and a storyteller. He lived an impossible life wedged between the authentic and the imaginary.

Andy Moerlein

Thirty-two artists from here and across the country will pay homage to 20th-century sculptor and printmaker H.C. Westermann in an exhibition opening Monday in the University of Southern Indiana, with a public reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Oct. 17.

"Jumping Off of Cliff: A Tribute to H.C. Westerman," set to run through Nov. 11 in USI's Kenneth P. McCutchan Art Center and Stephen and Palmina Pace Galleries, offers artistic tribute to Westermann, known to his friends as Cliff.

Westermann, an American sculptor and printmaker who served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and Korea, produced a body of sculptures and prints that have received critical acclaim in exhibits around the world.

Each participating artist has used Westermann's work "as a launching point for explorations of craft and conceptual depth, while also retaining honesty and humor, clear earmarks of Westermann's work," according the show's description.

The exhibition features work of Travis Townsend, Ava Larkin, Jerry Monteith, Tim Pe'we', Ramona Otto, Gerrit Van Ness, Steve Elliot, Mike McFalls, Dennis Salaty, Corey Stein, Bernard Klevickas, Christina Perri, Greely Myatt, John Roth, Jay Zeiger, Steven Bleicher, Tom Aprile, Bill Moll, Jim Coates, Stacy Latt-Savage, Janet Van Fleet, John Magnan, Ben Sutter, Nancy Raen-Mendez, Donna Dodson, John McNaughton, Andy Moerlein, Gary Keown, Jason Baldwin, Shane Savage-Rumbaugh, Heather DeLonga and Bill Vose.