Common Currents: How artists are connecting Cleveland and Buffalo

Midwest cities like Cleveland and Buffalo are shedding their old industrial skins and flexing some serious creative muscle. A new collaborative exhibition, Common Currents, is out to prove these towns are anything but stuck in the past.

Common Currents is a collaborative exhibition between the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) in Cleveland and the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. The exhibition features 23 contemporary artists from Northeast Ohio and Western New York, exploring themes of transformation, renewal, and the interplay between past and present. The Cleveland show ends its run on June 21, 2025, followed by the Buffalo exhibition from July 11 to November 2, 2025. 

The brainchild of Cleveland artist and AAWR board member John A. Sargent III and Buffalo artist Gary Wolfe, Common Currents was conceived to provide artists with exposure beyond their local scenes. Their collaboration began around 2020, driven by a shared desire to connect artists across regional lines. 

Grace Chin, executive director of The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, selected artists from Western New York, while Kyle Butler, assistant professor of Fine Art at Villa Maria College in Buffalo, curated the Northeast Ohio artists. This approach provided a fresh perspective and avoided hometown favoritism. The curators weren’t chosen to rep their own cities, they swapped. This flipped structure was meant to remove bias and create a bridge between the communities. 

“I didn’t have much connection to the Cleveland scene before this,” Butler says. “But what I saw in those submissions and then during studio visits was something that felt so parallel to Buffalo. These cities have their own flavor, but they move with similar rhythms.” 

Both curators started with an open call, no entry fees, no gatekeeping and let the work speak first. Only after reviewing submissions did they identify the exhibition’s themes: revitalization, innovation and fresh creative approaches from artists working in places too often overlooked. 

“It wasn’t about pushing a specific theme,” Butler explains. “We built the language of the show from what the artists were already doing.” 

And the artists? All over the map, in the best way. Painters, sculptors, tech-driven installation folks, mixed-media wizards, you name it. Every artist was chosen with intention, but the show itself had an open-call energy. The only real rule was: bring your truest work. 

Artists Featured 

Western New York Artists: 

* Dennis Bertram 

* Lydia Boddie-Rice 

* Chantal Calato 

* Frani Evedon

* Bob Fleming 

* Robert Hirsch 

* Sun Young Kang 

* Matt Kenyon 

* Robert Pitts 

* Paris Roselli 

* Mizin Shin 

* Jeffrey Vincent 

Northeast Ohio Artists: 

* Timothy Callaghan 

* Nicole Condon-Shih 

* Susan Danko 

* Jen P. Harris 

* Chauncey Hay 

* Michael Hornyak 

* R Kauff 

* Mark Keffer 

* Sarah Paul 

* Katy Richards 

* Jean Weigl 

Sargent adds that the name Common Currents itself reflects the deeper goal: “It’s a manifestation of partnership, yes, but also a recognition that there’s a current running through these cities. Artists here are not isolated. They’re part of a larger story that connects us all.” It’s not just a show. It’s a model. A working prototype for what Midwest cities can do when they collaborate. 

“There’s only so far you can go doing it alone,” Sargent says. “Only by aggregating our collective intelligence and brilliance will the public begin to understand who we are.” 

Butler echoes that sentiment,“There’s only benefit in connecting these mid-sized cities. We’re all fighting for visibility, and there’s power in looking across state lines to say, ‘You too? Let’s build together.’”