As the title suggests, the artists have created a series of objects that are specifically designed to just barely achieve their singular functions, if at all. By recontextualizing everyday things, like a vending machine, a lamp, and a commercial, Medicus and Charlton reveal alternative functions for both the objects and the viewer in society. SubFunction questions the point of purpose, value in a throwaway culture, and the banality of the expectations that we surround each other with.

Artist Bios

Ella Medicus grew up in Kent, Ohio, and graduated with a BFA from Alfred University in 2015. Her work is inspired by everyday encounters with store products, advertising, trash, the street, labels, songs, illusions, and the internet, all of which inform the work and become mediums. Many projects reinterpret concepts of worth and worthlessness, trickery, misinterpretations, and visual assumptions. The materials and moods waver between comical and pessimistic, allowing for reflection on the everyday. She was selected for the Master Reviews & Collective Discussion with Allison Smith at The Sculpture Center, after which she began collaborating with Eric Charlton. She completed two solo shows in Cleveland in 2018, and her work has been included in group shows and projects at the Neon Heater Gallery, OH, The Morgan Conservatory, Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, and Field Projects, NY. She attended a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris this year.

Eric D. Charlton is an American Artist originally hailing from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Western Pennsylvania. Charlton’s work is exploring the desire for meaning and the lack of human understanding on a cosmic scale to the minutiae of everyday. He embraces an open studio practice that centers around a broad definition of objecthood and the absurd acts of humans trying to make sense of the world. He earned his MFA at Syracuse University. Charlton has been the recipient of residencies at Tuner Semester Residency in LA, Kimmel Harding Nelson, Nebraska City, NE, as well as Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts, Farmington, ME. He has exhibited internationally, including Das Giftraum, Berlin, Germany, Bratislava, Slovakia, CB1 Gallery Los Angeles, CA, ArtHelix in Bushwick, NY.  Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA, and Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA. Charlton currently works at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA.