ART CRITIC CLOSE-UP: OWEN FINDSEN

went to Withrow High School and the University of Cincinnati, majoring in advertising design. I then worked as a package designer and graphic designer while studying painting with Paul Chidlaw, a longtime teacher at the Art Academy and Cincinnati's leading modernist, whose ties to the School of Paris in the 1920s gave me the opportunity to understand the true basis of modern art. I also have worked as a photographer and an architectural illustrator.

I came to the Enquirer in 1963 as a staff artist. We worked late, freeing my mornings for painting. I switched to writing in 1968. As a member of the features department, I mainly write about art and artists, architecture and Tristate history, but I write other kinds of feature stories as well. The diversity of assignments is a plus, helping to keep me from having too narrow a view of the art world. I often lecture on art and teach art history courses at local colleges. It helps me understand what people outside the art world want to know about art.

Philosophy: An art critic has to be prepared to have an open mind when approaching a work of art, whether it was made in China four hundred years ago or in a Cincinnati studio last spring.

Things change. Artists are often the ones who change things. If you approach a work of art burdened with your idea of what art should be, you could be blind to the message the artist wants to convey.

Many people seem to need someone to put art into words before they feel comfortable with it. This is where criticism, or at least commentary, comes in. A work of art should communicate to an audience. I stand in for the audience. I try to give them any preliminary information they might need to enjoy and understand, and I try to explain how the art makes me feel. Mostly, I try to make people feel comfortable in front of the art, so they can be free to enjoy or ignore it.

Pet peeves: People who do not treat art as a serious profession, and institutions, schools especially, that fail to understand the importance of visual education.

What I would like to see this year:

Art that I've never seen before, and art like I've never seen before, especially by young artists whose work may predict what the art of the next century will be like.