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Welcome to the 2nd Annual ActLoCLE Online Juried Art Exhibition!

We’re thrilled to celebrate the incredible creativity and talent of Northeast Ohio’s artists, showcasing their best work across photography, sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, fiber arts, digital design, installation, and ceramics.

This year, we received an outstanding 211 submissions from 78 artists, a true testament to the vibrant and diverse art community that thrives in our region.

A heartfelt thank you to our amazing team for their dedication and care in bringing this exhibition to life. ActLoCLE is a labor of love powered entirely by volunteers, and we couldn’t do it without you.

Welcome, and enjoy the show!

Jurors // Curators: Maeve Billings, Janoi Daley, Melih Meriç
Lead Curator: Arron Foster
Exhibition Director: Josh Chefitz

Maeve Billings is an emerging painter from Cleveland (OH) with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art. They’ve been in several 2-person shows, including JXM: Paint Beyond Fear (with Jordi Rowe) in 2025 and Collective Spaces (with Bex Fuller) in 2019. Maeve has participated in group shows including Rotten Keepsakes, Are We There Yet?, and the Front International CAN Triennial: You Are Here. They have been in various other group shows in Illinois, Ohio, and Missouri. Maeve acted as the student committee chair for both the 74th and 75th Student Independent Exhibition. They have received awards including the First Agnes Gund Memorial Traveling Award, the Victoria Welling Award, Cleveland Institute of Art Gund Family Scholarship, the Governor’s Show Scholarship, the Ted Frost ‘88 Travel Scholarship, and the Cleveland Women’s Club Scholarship.

Janoi Daley is a Jamaican-American contemporary artist who completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Creative Writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Her work dances between the figurative and abstract, weaving together vibrant colors that pulse with life, love, and the complexities of Blackness. Through oil and acrylic, she creates immersive worlds where Black bodies exist in their fullness—free from the burdens imposed by societal expectations. In her paintings, Blackness is not defined by external forces, but celebrated in its own right, bold and unapologetic. Creating as a documentation of Daley’s own existence; speaking on identity, belongingness and otherness within the diaspora.

Daley has been a recipient of CIA Gund Family Scholarship, the Joseph McCullough ’48 Award, The Creativity works program and the CIA Presidential Traveling Scholarship. Daley was the Chair of the Student Independent Exhibition ‘78 at CIA where the committee hosted 4 contemporary artists to jury the show. Daley also had a solo exhibition entitled “Love, Death and God” at CIA spring 2024. Daley was featured in Canvas magazine “Who’s Next?” article in winter 2024.

Melih Meriç (b.1998) is a contemporary printmaker and educator. They explore a spiritual journey through Islamic geometric abstraction. Using printmaking as their main medium, they create works that talk about diaspora, assimilation and a combination of Middle Eastern traditional practices. Their works merge traditional pattern making and a contemporary way of creating editions of prints through innovative uses of technology. With a passion for pattern and paper, they use unconventional methods of printmaking and textile arts to create stitched editions and embossed works on paper.

They received their MFA in Print Media from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and BA from Bennington College in Printmaking. Their works have been exhibited in Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Vermont, Texas and internationally in Germany, Australia, Netherlands, Austria, and Turkey. Melih is the recipient of the 2025 Individual Excellence Award in Visual Arts by the Ohio Arts Council.

Arron Foster received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Art Education from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC, and his Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking and Book Arts from the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. His prints and installations have been in notable exhibitions at respected national and international galleries, museums, and art centers. He has mounted solo exhibitions at George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon, The Dayton Society of the Arts in Dayton, Ohio, The Akron Soul Train Gallery in Akron, Ohio, and Hiram University in Hiram, Ohio. He has also participated in the International Youth Printmaking Invitational Exhibition in Changsha, China, and the 11th Douro Biennial in Douro, Portugal. Foster has received competitive grants from the Ohio Arts Council, Kent State University, the University of Georgia, and the Southern Graphics Council International.

Josh Chefitz (b. 1977) is a multimedia artist based in Cleveland, Ohio, who aims to create pieces where the closer you look, the more you discover. Using handmade paper from the Morgan Conservatory, ink, gel, paint pens, acrylics, oil pastels, and spray paint, he reframes his childhood doodles as a commentary on memories, exploring the dissonance between those that are authentic and those we construct to help us move forward.

Chefitz, an award-winning self-taught artist, is also the driving force behind ActLoCLE, a web-based art hub that provides community and visibility for makers in Northeast Ohio.