Four exhibitions featuring eight artists open Friday at the McDonough Museum of Art.

According to Museum Director Claudia Berlinski, no underlying theme connects the four shows.

“Because we have four distinct galleries, sometimes we like to have really different shows in each of them, just to utilize them in a more efficient way so we can feature more artists per museum space,” she said.

The shows are “Matthew Kolodziej: Open Storage” “Piotr Szyhalski: COVID-19: Labor Camp Report,” “Donald Black Jr: A Day No One Will Remember” and an Emerging Artists Exhibition called “There are seams in purgatory” that includes the work of Sarah Bowling, Han Diaspora Group, Laura Hudspith, Rosabel Rosalind and Rebecca Shapass, all master’s students at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University

Kolodziej and Szyhalski were brought to Berlinski’s attention by colleagues from Youngstown State University. Artist and faculty member Dragana Crnjak recommended Kolodziej, who is a professor at the University of Akron. The pieces in “Open Storage” are described as “memory cabinets” that are interconnected and offer different bits of information as the scale and perspective changes.

“It’s an installation, not only the paintings that he has on the wall, but he did drawings on sticky-back material so they could be put on the walls and look like drawings right on the wall,” Berlinski said. “And there are scrolls that hang from the ceiling creating this space.”

Kolodziej draws on his background working on archaeological sites for the art. Kolodziej has been exhibiting his work since the mid 1980s. Recent solo exhibitions include the Carl Solway Gallery and The Painting Center in New York City, and he’s been featured in group shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Rockford Art Museum, Akron Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.

Michelle Nelson, a graphic design professor at YSU recommended the work of Szyhalski, who created art every day from March 24, 2020, at the start of the pandemic until the 2020 election on Nov. 3. The Minneapolis artist shared the 225 works on his Instagram account.

“They are reminiscent of vintage labor posters,” Berlinski said.

Berlinski originally wanted to to display about a dozen of the posters in a large-scale format, about 6 feet tall. Szyhalski usually requests that all 225 pieces be displayed. To accommodate both idea, Szyhalski reduced the scale so all 225 works could be displayed on one wall, but he also created about eight large-scale pieces that will be part of the show.

“You can see how he also picks up on things that are not COVID related, like Black Lives Matter, that we all encountered during the pandemic,” Berlinski said.

Szyhalski’s work has been exhibited worldwide at such venues as the International Center of Photography, the New York Expo Film Festival, ISEA Paris and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. He is a professor of media arts at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Black, a Cleveland photographer is someone whose work Berlinski has wanted to show at the McDonough for a long time. “A Day No One Will Remember” focuses on everyday scenes involving children.

“He really shoots photographs from his community,” she said. “He’s embedded in this community in Cleveland, and it’s important for him to communicate what that is like and to elevate the black community, to show that these are people with struggles like everyone else and that there is a whole array of beauty within their community.”

The Emerging Artists Exhibition includes sculpture, drawing, painting, installation and performance.

An opening reception is planned from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the McDonough, and the work will be displayed through March 5. Kolodziej will give an artist talk at 5:10 p.m. Jan. 27, and Black will give an artist talk at 5:10 p.m. Feb. 23. Admission for the exhibition and the talks is free.