Ros Casey gets deep at Chroma
It was only toward the end of painting her latest body of work that Ros Casey understood what it was all about: rising water.
The scenes in her series, “In Those Days There Was No River Here (A parable in 8 pictures),” on view at Chroma Projects gallery this month, are “cast into the future,” says Casey, into a post-disaster world in which humans and animals both wild and domesticated exist in close proximity with one another.
Each painting includes at least one animal, “which seems to feel that whatever has happened has been going on for a long time”; one child, “wanting reassurance of some kind”; and one adult, “implicated and exhausted, somewhat resigned” when faced with the reality of how, by not acknowledging or acting upon the threat of climate change and rising sea levels, he failed to secure a future for his children, says Casey.
The creatures’ expressions drive the series, and Casey chose to render their sadness in serene, undramatic fashion in order to better convey a sense of tragedy. “There’s something really powerful about a passive expression, because it provides a lot more ambiguity, in terms of the interpretation of the story,” she says. “And it contains so much turmoil.”
Casey painted with vivid hues like cadmium red and cobalt blue that create a sort of “irradiated light that feels kind of toxic and poisonous,” she says. The colors, like the world they shape on Casey’s canvases, are so intense that the witness cannot help but look, even though they’re almost too much to bear.
Says Casey, “I’m not so interested in the cataclysmic, movie version of these events as I was in the settling-in phase of the disaster, once it had already happened, and we’re there, and we’re just sort of used to this now.”
Openings May 3
The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. The Revel auction preview, featuring work by local artists Ryan Trott, Brian Knox, Jum Jirapan, Jesse Wells, Thomas Dean, Sahara Clemons, Allyson Mellberg Taylor, Jeremy Taylor, and others. 5:30pm.
Central Library 201 E. Market St. “The Art of Resilience and Recovery,” a show of hundreds of individually crafted banners showcasing journeys to wellness in the community. 5-7pm.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third Street SE. “In Those Days There Was No River Here (A parable in 8 pictures),” by Rosamond Casey. 5-7pm.
CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. Charlottesville City School’s ArtQuest student gallery exhibit. 5:30-7pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Magic of Fusion,” featuring works in fused glass by Mary Ellen Larkins. 6-8pm.
Dovetail Design & Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Fancy of Feast,” acrylic paintings on canvas by Robin Harris. 5-7pm.
Fellini’s 200 Market St. “Que Vivan Los Animales,” an exhibition of works in acrylic, pen, and watercolor by Natalie Reyes. 5:30-7pm.
The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Diaspora,” a series of paintings by Kathleen Free, inspired by people geographically displaced, and the objects and places left behind. 5-7pm.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. ArtIX, featuring 50 pieces of artwork created by 50 different local artists. 7:30pm-midnight.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Melting Point: Contemporary Encaustic Works,” a selection of pieces by mid-Atlantic artists who use encaustic in their work in dynamic ways; in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery, “Still,” oil paintings by Kelly Oakes; in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery, “unknown thoughts,” a Maddie Rhondeau-Rhodes’ show exploring memory as it slips between the real and the imagined; in the Upstairs North and South Hall Galleries, the annual local high school exhibition. 5:30-7:30pm.
Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. “The Long Table,” featuring John Borgquist’s photography of the Milli community. 7-10pm.
New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Art of Nina Thompson,” an exhibition of oil paintings. 5-7pm.
Peacock Auto Service 205 Meade Ave. “The Human Head,” studies in oil and charcoal by Vanthi Nguyen. 6-8pm.
Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of experimental works in oil, watercolor, and digital formats by Blake Hurt; and a show of dry pastels on sanded paper by Nancy Galloway. 5-7:30pm.
Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Land and Sea,” featuring small and large works by Abby Ober. 6-8pm.
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Turbulent Season,” painter Dave Moore’s exploration of springtime as a time of transition, growth, and rebirth. 5:30-7:30pm.
Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “May Flowers,” a show of Cary Oliva’s dream-like floral imagery created with Polaroid transfers. 5:30-7:30pm.
VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibition of drawings made by Melissa Goldman, Matt Johnson, Jack Hatcher, Matthew Gordon, and Michael Tucker, UVA’s architectural robotics research group. 5:30-7:30pm.
Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Garden Variety,” featuring acrylic works on vinyl by Lou Haney. 5-7:30pm.
WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. An exhibition of photography by David Cook. 5-7pm.
WVTF RadioIQ 216 W. Water St. “Sediment,” featuring a collection of Amanda Smith’s encaustic paintings and monotypes that evoke escape into tiny worlds. 5-7pm.
Other April shows
Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. A show of paintings by Jane Skafte and Sue DuFour.
Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “The Quiet of Nature,” oil paintings and intaglio prints by Tom Tartaglino. Opens May 11, 2-4pm.
Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Energized Spring,” featuring works in melton crayon by Sara Gondwe.
Carpediem Exhibit 1429 E. High St. A multimedia rotating, expanding exhibit of works by local, regional, and out-of-state artists.
The Center 491 Hillsdale Dr. “Being in the Moment,” a show of paintings by Judith Ely.
Commonwealth Restaurant 422 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Linear Motion,” featuring illustrations by Martin Phillips.
Connaughton Gallery McIntire School of Commerce at UVA. “Looking In and Looking Out,” featuring works in watercolor, pen, and ink on canvas by Kaki Dimock, and works in acrylic on canvas by Brittany Fan. Opens March 18.
Crozet Artisan Depot 571 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Being Outside,” a show of oil paintings by Linda Staiger.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. Vanessa German’s installation, “sometimes.we.cannot.be.with.our.bodies”; “The Print Series in Bruegel’s Netherlands: Dutch and Flemish Works from the Permanent Collection”; “Of Women, By Women,” an exhibition curated by the University’s museum interns that explores the power inherent in the act of taking a photograph; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.
Java Java 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. Acrylics and watercolors by Matalie Deane, and oils by Julia Kindred.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Simply: The Black Towns,” a series of images by Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist and political analyst for CBS News, of the remains of African American towns founded after Emancipation. Opens May 11, 6pm.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Kent Morris: Unvanished,” a series of digitally constructed photographs that explores the relationship between contemporary Indigenous Australian identity and the modern built environment, through May 5; “Shane Pickett: Djinong Djina Boodja (Look At the Land that I Have Traveled,” featuring work by one of Western Australia’s most significant contemporary Aboriginal artists, opening May 14; and “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States.”
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Places in Time,” new paintings inspired by Key West, Maine, and Staunton, Virginia, by Lincoln Perry; and “Interiors and Landscapes,” featuring oil and watercolor pieces by Kathryn Keller. Opens May 4, 4:30-6:30pm.
Live Arts 123 E. Water St. A show of light boxes by Bolanle Adeboye.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “OBJECTify,” a joint show of work by painters Michael Fitts and Megan Read; and in the Dové Gallery, “Michelle Gagliano: Murmurations,” an exhibition of paintings that also features sculpture by Robert Strini. Through May 17.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of mixed media, photography, and film by Staunton artist Angus Carter. Opens May 4, 5-7pm.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Painting to Heal the Soul,” featuring work by Marissa Minnerly.