Ron Copeland's Casual Recollections

On view August 5 - September 12, 2026

Burton D. Morgan Foundation Gallery, 2026 Artist In Residence

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Opening Celebration: Friday, August 7, 2026 from 5:00 - 7:30PM

 

Casual Recollections explores how memory becomes embedded in the visual language of everyday places. Through typography, signage, weathered surfaces, and found artifacts, Ron Copeland reflects on the evolving American landscape and the quiet histories held within its overlooked remnants.

 

Working across painting, photography, screen printing, sign painting, sculpture, and assemblage, Copeland transforms reclaimed materials—from faded storefront lettering and rusted metal to decommissioned signs and salvaged objects—into layered works that exist between documentation and imagination. Removed from their original contexts, these fragments become visual records of place, carrying traces of labor, commerce, community, and change.

 

Rather than presenting memory as fixed or complete, Casual Recollections embraces its layered and evolving nature. Obscured text, worn surfaces, and evidence of repair suggest that history is continually rewritten, revealing how personal and collective narratives accumulate over time. Each work invites viewers to pause, look closely, and consider what endures long after the original purpose of an object has faded.

At once nostalgic and contemporary, the exhibition honors the handmade, the weathered, and the repurposed while asking how the places we inhabit shape our identities. Through these poetic assemblages, Copeland transforms the familiar into an evolving archive of shared experience—one that encourages viewers to recognize their own memories reflected in the layered textures of the built environment.

 

About the Artist Ron Copeland:

Ron Copeland is a NE Ohio native, who spent a decade working in Pittsburgh, and has now relocated back to northeast Ohio. Copeland is an installation artist and sign painter who utilizes analog printing, sign painting techniques, and photography to create nostalgic works for gallery and museum display, commercial spaces, and art for private collectors. Copeland’s work focuses on aesthetics and concepts of the past filtered through a contemporary lens to create dreamlike, fragmented visual recollections of bygone eras. The scope of his themes range from the history of Jazz, the concept of “HOME”, general stores, railroad, and reusing disregarded materials. His work starts by gathering historic or relevant information and inspirational imagery from archives. His research driven creation has led to being hired to create works for clients and collectors focused on more narrow themes such as the history of a building, neighborhood, company or local signage. For nearly a decade Copeland worked with a client creating several signage assemblage murals in office spaces around the U.S. These murals focused on the local identities of each city they are installed in. After gathering keywords and themes, he researched the subjects looking for any aspects of visual content that could inspire his works, if there was no existing data to be found on a given topic Copeland would create a wholly new sign or graphic for the theme. The finished murals resemble a fragmented vintage collection of signs and adverts that reflect a local sense of pride in place.