Gaynelle Sloman’s work on view at Ohio Art League

• Gaynelle Sloman’s painting “Some Place in Time” is featured in the Ohio Art League’s “Mindful: The Art of Love & Loss” exhibition.
• Sloman, a multimedia artist with a background in graphic design and advertising, also has experience in filmmaking and acting.
• Sloman’s artwork has been displayed in various venues, including Bryn Du Mansion and the Ohio State Fair.

Gaynelle Sloman is an award-winning artist whose painting, “Some Place in Time” (acrylic on canvas 2023, reworked 2025), is on view in the Ohio Art League show, “Mindful: The Art of Love & Loss,” featuring the works of 31 artists.

The painting is a “moody, misty” look at the life cycle of a woman from infant to elder and ends with a tombstone. It invites an esoteric interpretation. Sloman is a multimedia artist who describes her work as abstract expressionistic.

Born and raised in Charleston, West Virginia, Sloman describes herself as a “natural artist.” Her introduction to art was painting “music pictures” in elementary school when her teacher would play classical music and encouraged the children to interpret what they had heard in the music with crayons on paper.

She studied art at West Virginia University and transferred to the Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD), ultimately taking a degree in art and psychology.

While at CCAD, she created a collage which was selected for the juried show, “Art in the Embassies.” The collage was exhibited in Haiti and Ceylon, renamed Sri Lanka in 1972.

After graduation, Sloman went into graphic design and became art director of the West Virginia advertising office in the department of commerce. In that role, Sloman became acquainted with Senator (then Governor) John Davidson “Jay” Rockefeller IV and his wife, Sharon Percy, who asked Sloman to design the brochure for the governor’s mansion and create their Christmas card. She did so for eight years.

From there, Sloman started her own ad agency, Gaynelle Sloman Advertising and Design. Sloman and her husband, Steve, made the move to Columbus when he was offered a job in the city.

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Sloman had hoped the move would offer her a break from business to get back to painting and practicing yoga. However, the demand for advertising expertise in Columbus kept her in business; she maintained an office in Muirfield Village for several years and won an American Advertising (Addy) Award.

Having written, directed, produced and bought airtime for over 30 commercials, Sloman decided to try her hand at writing a screenplay, but by then, the Ohio State University Department of Film had closed.

So, Sloman traveled to Los Angeles to take a workshop on screenwriting at UCLA’s extension film school. This led to another screenwriting class, where she ran into her previous screenwriting instructor.

She took him up on the offer to be executive producer of his next film and began raising money for the project, “Hungry Hearts,” starring Susan Blakely and Pauley Perrette. The film was screened in 10 festivals in the United States and in 10 foreign-film festivals and won a Hollywood Discovery Award.

Then, the team ran into a snag with distribution and the film has been languishing in a vault ever since. Her dream is to finish editing and make the film available for audiences worldwide.

Back in Columbus, she took acting classes from Kevin McClatchey, an Ohio State University professor who has been named Artist Laureate 2024-25. Sloman began acting in commercials, represented by Heyman Talent Agency.

Earning a place in juried shows and receiving compliments such as, “Your (painting) makes me happy,” have inspired Sloman to paint regularly and attend workshops.

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Her work has been shown in large-scale exhibitions at Bryn Du Mansion in Granville, the Ohio State Fair, the Loft Gallery, the Cultural Arts Center, the Dublin Community Recreation Center and other Ohio Art League shows.

All of the artwork shown in the Ohio Art League exhibition can be viewed on its website, oal.org/OAL-at-broad-street-presbyterian.

Amy Drake, M.A., M.S. MCM, is a Telly Award-winning filmmaker, playwright and actor. She can be reached at draketheatrical@gmail.com.

At a glance

The Ohio Art League was formed in 1909 by a group of 40 artists from the Columbus Art School, now the Columbus College of Art & Design.

The current exhibition, “Mindful: The Art of Love & Loss,” the first in a four-part series of art exhibitions, is on view now through mid-July at Palmer Hall in the Broad Street Presbyterian Church, 760 E. Broad St.

The exhibition is free, but you must sign in to view the artwork. For more information, email OAL@OAL.org or call 614-556-5431.