Ohio, it turns out, is a state best experienced by slowing down—whether you’re peering into the layered brushstrokes of a gallery wall or pausing on a moss-lined trail where the air smells like wet bark and renewal. With the opening of the Contemporary Arts Center’s (CAC) newest exhibition, “Ohio Now: State of Nature,” art and environment aren’t just linked—they’re in conversation. The show, which opens May 2 in Cincinnati in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, features 15 artists from across the state, each working at the intersection of ecology, personal history, and the increasingly urgent story of climate and conservation.

But State of Nature doesn’t end at the gallery door. The exhibition invites a larger question: What does it mean to explore nature in Ohio—not just with your eyes, but with your feet?

For those who feel stirred by the exhibition’s use of waterway pollutants as pigment or grass clippings as sculpture, Ohio offers real-world landscapes that echo the show’s central themes. Each of the state’s five regions is home to natural beauty that speaks to the same interconnectedness and fragility that the CAC’s artists capture so boldly.

So if you're inspired to venture beyond the gallery, consider this your guide. Here’s how to experience Ohio's State of Nature—in art and in the wild.

Northwest Ohio

Oak Openings Preserve Metropark — Swanton, OH

Begin in Ohio’s quiet corner, where rare oak savannas meet wetlands in the vast, breathtaking Oak Openings Preserve. Often called the most biologically diverse location in the state, this park feels like an artist’s dreamscape—where color, texture, and movement shift from dune to prairie, from pine grove to marsh.

Here, the concept of “circular economy” becomes real. Trails are lined with interpretive signs on pollinators and restoration efforts. The park’s Cannaley Treehouse Village even offers overnight stays in fully sustainable dwellings. It’s an immersive, three-dimensional expression of the same themes State of Nature artists are exploring: regeneration, coexistence, and conscious design.

Northeast Ohio

Cuyahoga Valley National Park — Between Cleveland and Akron

If Oak Openings feels like a whisper, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is a chorus. It’s Ohio’s only national park, but it delivers in scale what the CAC exhibit offers in depth. Artists in the show investigate how misinformation clouds climate dialogue—here, you can see how industry and nature clash and reconcile in real time.

The park is full of contradictions: The Towpath Trail winds past restored wetlands and remnants of Ohio’s canal era; Brandywine Falls gushes below cliffs once shaped by glaciers; and The Ledges Trail looks like a lost world of moss-draped rock cathedrals. It’s a place where history and topography are tangled in a way that mirrors the layered works hanging in the gallery back in Cincinnati.

Central Ohio

Hocking Hills State Park — Logan, OH

While technically hugging Southeast Ohio, Hocking Hills is an essential stop for Central Ohio adventurers—and perhaps the most photographed destination in the state. But its beauty isn’t just surface-level. With waterfalls that freeze into chandeliers in winter and caves that act as natural amphitheaters, this park is a master class in natural design.

Many of the artists in State of Nature work with reclaimed materials and natural pigments. You’ll feel the same spirit walking through Old Man’s Cave or Ash Cave, where mineral-streaked rock walls tell their own stories of erosion, time, and transformation. For a true extension of the exhibit’s themes, hike the Whispering Cave Trail, where the echo of your footsteps becomes its own kind of art.

Southwest Ohio

Clifton Gorge & John Bryan State Park — Yellow Springs, OH

Just an hour north of the CAC, the ancient geology of Clifton Gorge feels like an echo chamber for the exhibition's deeper concerns—erosion, permanence, the cycles we barely perceive. Hiking here, among roaring rapids and jagged dolomite cliffs, the earth feels anything but still.

Pair this with a visit to Yellow Springs, a town that feels like it was built by artists and idealists. Its local shops, environmental co-ops, and locally sourced cafés mirror the grassroots sustainability work featured in the show. And if you’re lucky enough to catch a weekend festival or farmers market, you’ll find that community-based practice isn’t just a gallery concept—it’s alive and thriving here.

Southeast Ohio

The Edge of Appalachia Preserve — Adams County, OH

If you want to truly disappear into nature—no noise, no artifice, just you and the wild—head to Buzzardroost Rock in the Edge of Appalachia Preserve. This rugged region is one of the most ecologically diverse in the Midwest, and its sweeping vistas feel almost prehistoric.

Artists in State of Nature reckon with what we’re losing—species, knowledge, landscapes—and this is a place where that loss is palpable. But it’s also a place of resilience. Conservation groups are actively restoring habitats here, and educational trails give visitors a deeper look at the biodiversity still hanging on.

Back Where It All Begins

After a road trip through the best of Ohio’s landscapes, return to where it started—Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. Seeing the exhibition after having walked through oak savannas and Appalachian ridges offers something profound: context. Suddenly, the works aren’t just about the environment. They are the environment—framed, deconstructed, reimagined.

Whether you view Ohio Now: State of Nature as a wake-up call, a love letter, or a map of where we’re headed, one thing’s certain: it reminds us that art and earth are not separate realms. They are mirrors. And sometimes, to see the clearest reflection, you just have to step outside.

“Ohio Now: State of Nature” opens Friday, May 2, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Cincinnati. Admission is free on opening night. More info at contemporaryartscenter.org

Where Art Meets Earth