BridgeWorks project brings more public art to downtown Kent

A summer project through Main Street Kent features work from eight local artists across the W. Main St. bridge. The Portager is a proud sponsor of this project.

BridgeWorks will be in place through the end of the summer, and may become a rotating art project. Meet this season’s eight featured artists:

Andy Krebs

Andy Krebs was born in Stinson Beach, California and raised in Kent, Ohio. Most of her art experience is with figurative acrylic and oil painting, but she has recently been working with batik, block prints, collages, and natural dyes. To her, these mediums are attractive because of their tactile natures and unpredictability. Andy has exhibited works in Ohio and Florida and is currently illustrating a children’s book. In addition to making art, she loves being active outside, sunshine, gardening, really good conversations, and doing CrossFit with her friends.

Arch Budzar

Arch Budzar is a multimedia artist and poet raised in Kent, Ohio. Budzar primarily works in acrylic paints and applies knowledge of both illustration and creative writing techniques often to connect the visual and linguistic. Their style is distinctive, versatile, and bold. Budzar’s work is now recognized internationally. They are known best for their short form comics, as well as their art influenced by the natural world.  

Ian Marshall

Ian Marshall is a Kent, Ohio-based oil painter and photographer. His artwork consists of captivatingly colorful landscapes, radiant nightscapes, striking celestial phenomenon, and complex geometric paintings. “I view my oil paintings as abstracted blueprints for architectural elements. I piece together my compositions similarly to a puzzle; each work is composed of multiple photographs that have been fragmented into various layers which coalesce within one another. My goal throughout these paintings is to create beauty from generic aspects of architecture and structures – my personal form of architectural abstraction.” Throughout the year, he runs and manages a personal artistic business that focuses on the display and sale of a variety of his artwork across a vast array of local art shows and events. Ian graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine art painting from Kent State University in 2017.

Jenniffer Omaitz

(b. Cleveland, OH) lives in Kent, OH and works in Kent and Cleveland. She holds an M.F.A. in painting from Kent State University and a B.F.A (2009) in painting from the Cleveland Institute of Art (2002). Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at The Sculpture Center, Cleveland; SPACE Gallery, Denver; and Kent State University, Hinterland, Denver; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland. Her work was also featured at the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver, CAN Triennial in Cleveland 2018, recipient of a 2017 fellowship residency with the Akron Soul Train, a 2019 Ohio Arts Council grantee for an Individual Excellence Award and the 2023 recipient of the Paul and Norma Tikkanen Painting Prize for Abstraction. Omaitz is a part-time faculty member at Kent State University College of Architecture and Environmental Design.

Kristen Mimms Scavnicky

Kristen Mimms Scavnicky is an artist, designer at MISC Partners, and Assistant Professor in the Architecture Program at Kent State University. Her work moves fluidly between art and design, weaving abstraction, spatial storytelling, and cultural memory into her practice. She explores the intersections of painting, drawing, and spatial installation, using these mediums to illuminate the unspoken dynamics of space and identity. Rooted in resistance and resilience, her research examines how spatial conditions shape mental well-being, and how mindful design can reclaim presence and agency. Her teaching empowers students to engage design as both a cultural affirmation and a radical act of visibility.

Meaghan Reed

Meaghan Reed is an Ohio-based artist. She graduated from Kent State University with both her B.A. and M.F.A. in Fine Arts and Crafts. Her work is a compilation of painting and layered laser cut elements which she has designed and cut herself. Her work uses the play of positive and negative space to create depth and places that call for closer investigation. A common theme that runs through her work are the systems and structures found within the botanical world. Her work often depicts life cycles and narrative of the seasons.

Mickey Mencin

Mickey Mencin is an “old-school” printmaker creating hand-carved, hand-pulled and hand-painted Linoleum prints and patterns inspired by the natural world around her. Each pattern is as unique as the print that inspired it. Influenced by the works of Josef Frank, Charley Harper and others, she carves and designs prints in a modern Arts & Crafts style.

Nicole Reese

Nicole Reese is a recent graduate of Ohio University, where she was on staff as the Assistant Art Director to The Post, an independent student-run newspaper. With an undergraduate degree in Art Therapy, she is returning home with plans to pursue a master’s in counseling. She enjoys exploring the outdoors as well as hiking. In fact she someday hopes to visit all of Ohio’s State Parks. Nicole loves delving into different artistic mediums, including knitting, crochet, digital art, watercolor, and oil painting.