Tag: Art gallery

Categories
Culture

Shared experience: Second Street launches new web gallery with ‘Bond/Bound’

"Dreams" by Netherlandish artist Frijke Couman is one of the pieces featured in Second Street Gallery's "Bond/Bound," which address the complicated experience of adjusting to life during a pandemic. Image courtesy the artist

Throughout the month of March, sad email after sad email landed in Kristen Chiacchia’s inbox. Art fairs postponed, gallery shows canceled, museums closed to the public—and then there were the news reports.

The Second Street Gallery executive director and chief curator decided to close her gallery on March 13, but she didn’t want to contribute to the deluge of despair if she didn’t have to.

Instead of focusing on what SSG couldn’t do for patrons and artists at this time (they’ve had to postpone four exhibitions at this point), Chiacchia and Outreach and Events Coordinator Lou Haney decided to put expertly curated exhibitions online.

They immediately created virtual tours of “By the Strength of Their Skin” by Aboriginal Australian artists Nonggirrnga Marawili, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, and Mabel Juli, and “Nature Tells its Own Story” by Pakistani artist Tanya Minhas. 

And on Wednesday, April 15, the gallery launched “Bond/Bound,” on a new site, virtualssg.org. The exhibit, which takes stock of the complex, complicated experience of adjusting to life during a pandemic, is the first show the gallery has curated specifically for the web.

Haney had the idea for “Bond/Bound” as she started contemplating the dichotomy of bonding with other people—either those we’re already physically and emotionally close to, or the millions of complete strangers suddenly sharing our experience—during a time when we are bound to our homes.

One-hundred-and-eleven artists from around the world submitted work, and SSG accepted a little less than half for the exhibition, which covers a variety of media, from sculpture to collage to video. Viewers can click on individual images for a closer look, and to read the artists’ statements.

“‘Dreams’ visualizes the feeling of self isolation for me. The desire for being close to other human beings,” explains Netherlandish artist Frijke Coumans of her photograph, in which a man lies sleeping on a bed in a pair of boxer-briefs, mannequin arms draped over his body. “Seeing videos of hugging friends and people being close to each other almost starts to feel unreal,” she writes.

Hanna Washburn, based in Beacon, New York, thought a lot about the term “shelter in place” as she created “Hive,” a soft sculpture hanging in a tree that “emulated a home, and [is] constructed from the materials of home,” including her old backpack, a rug from her childhood, two of her T-shirts, and a work blouse from her mom, all in hues of pink, red, and white. 

Other statements explain how the pandemic has affected artists’ creative processes. “The gloom hanging over our global heads has filtered into my work,” writes Chris Gregson, a Fredericksburg, Virginia, artist whose black-and-blue sumi ink grid of shapes on paper is a stark departure from his usual work, which he describes as “life-confirming abstract oil paintings rooted in the joys of spring.” 

“Fairies always did admire the crocodiles,” by Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes. Image courtesy of the artist

Charlottesville artist Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes submitted “Fairies always did admire the crocodiles,” a collage in which a human-rabbit figure, wearing moth wings both on its back and as clothing, carries a crocodile away from a house, against a purple-red-blue sky. “The pandemic has forced me to further retreat into my own imagination,” Rhondeau-Rhodes writes.

It’s unusual for artist statements to play such a prominent role in an exhibition, but for “Bond/Bound,” “in some cases, the statement was just as important as the work,” says Chiacchia.

Take Penny Chang’s 38-second movement piece, “If You Came This Way,” presented in black-and-white video. The camera focuses on Chang’s open palm as she spins around her bedroom, then wraps herself in an embrace, and holds her own hand. Chang’s statement deepens the viewer’s understanding of the piece: For the past 10 months, she’s been home alone, recovering from a traumatic brain injury sustained after a tree branch fell on her head in New York City’s Washington Square Park. Even before the pandemic, she knew the difficulty of isolation.

Chiacchia anticipates that COVID-19 will change the way we look at, and interact with, art. “We’ve taken for granted being able to just pop into a gallery on a Saturday afternoon, or go to a museum,” she says. And though she hopes people will once again fill those spaces when it’s safe to do so, she plans to continue adapting SSG’s exhibits for the web. SSG may even hold more online-only exhibitions.

At this point, it’s cliché to declare that a lot of great art will come out of this period in history; artists always create work as a response to the world around and within them, and the coronavirus pandemic will be no different. “Bond/Bound” offers an early look at some of this work, and how it will evolve from here. Whether some of these images become tropes of this period in time, or stand as original reactions, is impossible to tell, says Haney. But in this moment, they’re evidence of the ties that bind us.

View “Bond/Bound” here.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: September 7

Tim O’Kane has made a career as a figurative painter, an artist capturing people napping on couches, teacups sitting on countertops, and bowls brimming with eggplants, all in a hyperrealistic style.

But viewers of “One Intention in a Troubled World,” O’Kane’s September show at Chroma Projects will see a different facet of the artist’s work. The series features objects wrapped in paper and sitting in boxes, variously concealed and revealed; it explores in O’Kane’s signature style the abstract subject matter of dreams and dreaming.

O’Kane says the series developed intuitively between 2008 and now, and while it’s hard for him to discern exactly when he had the idea, he says it could have started in New York, with the purchase of an assortment of objects in a Chinese store. O’Kane noticed how the cashier carefully wrapped each individual object in newspaper covered in Chinese characters that reminded him of the lines on some stones he found in Sicily.

Back in his studio, he arranged objects in paper (some is printed with Japanese translations of his own poetry) and in boxes. He says that as the series of enigmatic still lifes progressed over the decade, the concept became more abstracted, more surreal, an exercise in discerning “significant meaning that’s outside the idea of figurative work.”

In “Night Yields,” a box floats above a sheet of creased, dark blue paper that’s been folded and unfolded, like the night. The box, which O’Kane calls “a tangle of things” presents to the viewer a mystery: What’s inside? But, because the box is a painting, there’s no way to open it.

For O’Kane, wondering what’s inside the box is a mystery akin to waking up knowing that you’ve dreamed. Perhaps parts of the dream linger and you try to make sense of it as it sticks with you throughout the day, in good ways or in bad. The dream is both real and not real, it means something and yet nothing at all. It’s a significance that, even when we think we can see it clearly, we can never truly possess.

Next Week

There’ll be lots to see when C-VILLE looks at art from inside the gallery. What do curators consider when filling local walls? Who decided to place that sculpture in that corner? What are we not seeing in local art?

FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Out of Season,” featuring Mae Read’s oil painting meditations on permanence/impermanence, perceptions of beauty, and solitude. 5:30-7:30pm.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by William Van Doren and Erica Lohan, focusing on distant and intimate points of nature. Opens Sept. 8.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A show of Frederick Nichols’ four decades of work, all concerned with beauty and picturesque landscape. Opens Sept. 8.

Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business. “Luna Moth,” a mural by Christy Baker; and “Small Graces,” an exhibition of photography by Bill Mauzy. Opens Sept. 12.

FF The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. Artists Jum Jirapan, Karina Monroy, and Aidyn Mills have put down the ocular lens and taken up the heart, the mind, and the body to create and celebrate art in this joint exhibition of the work that they’ve developed in The Bridge’s collaborative residency. 5:30pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Buddha Cat and More: Mixed-Media Drawings and Book” by Susan McCulley.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “One Intention in a Troubled World,” featuring a collection of paintings by Tim O’Kane that centers on around the wrapping of things. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibition featuring work from VSA Art artists. 5:30-7:30pm.

Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies, 700 Harris St. “The Livestock Marker Show Continues,” an exhibition of Kathy Kuhlman’s work made from phototransfer and livestock markers on paper or clayboard.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Crystals, Textures, and Flowing Gazes,” featuring pottery by Leah Olivier. Opens Sept. 8.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Passion for Purpose,” an exhibition of pottery by Nan Rothwell. 6-8pm.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. Featuring Brian Geiger’s resin-poured works exploring the boundaries between fluid and solid. 5-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “In My Room: Artists Paint the Interior 1950-Now”; “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “Hole in the Wall,” a one-night-only popup exhibition featuring large-scale abstract works from Chattanooga, Tennessee, artist Addie Chapin. 5:30-7:30pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time; and “Experimental Beds,” in which Judy Watson removes the whitewash from concealed histories.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Out of the Light Into the Light,” an exhibition of still-life paintings by art historian, critic, philosopher, and painter David Summers.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Verisimilitude,” a selection of abstract works on canvas by J.M. Henry that echo ghosts, flags, and shields, in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; and the 27th consecutive Central Virginia Watercolor Guild annual juried exhibition. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. “Braveheart,” featuring acrylic paintings on canvas by Kaitlin Jungles. 7-10pm.

FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of paintings by Uzo Njoku. 5-7pm.

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Fragile Eden,” a photography show by Gary Powell.

FF Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of work by Sara Gondwe, who uses melted crayons and metallic fabric paint to create abstracts, trees, florals, fish, and more. 5-7:30pm.

FF The Salad Maker 300 E. Market St. A show of digital art by J. Perry Fitzhugh, an artist making full use of current technology without succumbing to it. 6-7:30pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “water. poison. drink. dive.,” an exhibition of paintings, works on paper, and puppets by Lana Guerra; in the Dové Gallery, the “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” group show featuring small-scale works in a variety of media by more than 70 artists. 5:30-7:30pm.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. An exhibition of five landscape paintings by impressionist artist Lee Nixon.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. Featuring work from the BozART collective. Opens Sept. 8.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. Original acrylic paintings and giclée on canvas prints by Jack Graves III. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Don’ttalk to strangers,” a series of portraits of artist Richard Needham’s fellow humans, captured with a Pentax 67 medium-format camera. 5-8pm.

The Great Frame Up 1860 Rio Hill Ctr. Entries in a photography contest to benefit the Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Abstract Meditation on Geology,” featuring paintings by Shirley Paul. Opens Sept. 9.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Main Street: Two Artists’ Viewpoints,” a show of photography by Vicenzo Lupinetti and Steve Wilcox. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “An Artist’s Process,” a show of mixed media work by Sri Kodakalla. 5:30-7:30.

The Wayne Theatre 521 W. Main St., Waynesboro. “13 Perspectives,” an exhibition of contemporary fibert art by members of the Washington, D.C.-area group New Image.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “She Said, He Said,” featuring Valencia Robin’s vibrant, lyrical paintings and Matt Smithson’s bold, surreal illustrations. 5-7:30pm.

FF WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Abstract by Intuition,” acrylic and multi-media works by Philip Martin. 5-7pm.

Woodberry Forest School, 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry. “Coming Together,” a show of large oil paintings by Richard Wyvill and a composite piece of unique canvases by the Firnew Farm Artists’ Circle.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: July 6

Rich Tarbell photographed more than 100 local musicians, including Lance Brenner of absurdist rock band The Falsies (pictured here), in their creative spaces for an upcoming book on Charlottesville music. Preview some of the book’s images this month at Studio IX. Courtesy artist

About a decade ago, Rich Tarbell sold a guitar to pay for his first camera.

Frustrated with his own music, Tarbell decided instead to document local music on film. And while live concert photography is fun, it all starts to look the same after a while, says Tarbell, who likes the behind-the-scenes stuff that most of us don’t get to see.

Last fall, in the middle of a creative slump, Tarbell decided to work on a project that would celebrate the local music scene in a new way. Instead of choosing his own subjects, Tarbell asked the musicians themselves who he should photograph. He started with Terri Allard and Jamie Dyer (the matriarch and patriarch of local music, according to Tarbell) as well as Sally Rose Monnes and Koda Kerl, asking each of them to pick two artists he should shoot next.

He photographed the musicians in their creative spaces—for many, it was a studio, a bedroom or basement practice room. For others, it was the steps outside the old Prism Coffeehouse, a rock near the river, or, in one case, wearing a chicken costume and standing at a desk in the river.

Tarbell soon realized that the photo shoots led to valuable discussions of Charlottesville music past and present, so he started recording the conversations. Together, the photographs of more than 100 local musicians, plus the oral histories, make up re: Charlottesville Music, Tarbell’s printed-and-bound ode to the local music scene, to be released later this year.

Until then, about 20 of the book’s photographs will be on display at Studio IX in July. “It’s worth documenting,” Tarbell says of the stories contained in the book, “to celebrate what we have, and have had, here.”—Erin O’Hare

First Fridays: July 6

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of industrial and marine wooden sculpture by Alex Gould; and a show of work from more than 25 artists, including Donna Ernest and Barbara Venerus.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “SUMMER018,” collage by William H. Atwood. Opens July 14.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Synonyms & Antonyms,” gestural drawings by Nym Pedersen; and “Personal Truths,” lithographs and mixed-media sculptures by Akemi Ohira and Chuxin Zhang. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Eclectic, Clever, Composed & Collective,” a photography exhibit. 5:30-7:30pm.

Common House 206 W. Market St. “Motherland,” a pop-up exhibition of paintings by Jum Jirapan. 4-8pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Useful by Design” pottery by Nan Rothwell. Opens July 14.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Virginia’s Best—Retro Style Posters,” featuring graphic designs by Barbara Shenefield. 6-8pm.

FF Dovetail Design & Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. Alaina Clarke displays her metalsmith with original jewelry pieces. 5-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “In My Room: Artists Paint the Interior 1950-Now”; “20th Century Still Lifes from the Permanent Collection,”  featuring the work of Picasso, Braque and Carrie Mae Weems, among others; “The Art of Protest”; “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “Learn how to farm, the end is near,” an exhibition of walnut ink and pigment paintings from Allyson Mellberg-Taylor and Jeremy Taylor. 5:30-7:30pm.

Java Java 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. Kris Bowmaster exhibits a new, five- panel work.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. An exhibition of new work by Frank Walker that addresses the notion that black bodies are disposable and easily erased.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Beyond Dreaming: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States”; and “Ngunguni: Old Techniques Remain Strong,” an exhibition of paintings on eucalyptus bark from northern Australia.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “The Livestock Marker Show,” featuring paintings by Gwyn Kohr, Kathy Kuhlmann and Russ Warren that use livestock markers as the medium.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Gaean Reveries,” a multimedia, surrealistic exhibition from Sam Gray, in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “McGuffey Members’ Summer Group Show,” colorful multimedia works from members of the gallery, in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery and Upstairs North and South Hall Galleries; and Heather Owens’ “Safety” in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. “The Sea Change Series,” an exhibition from Tina Curtis. 6-8pm.

FF Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. “Women in Color,” a mixed-media exhibition from Sri Kodakalla. 5-7pm.

FF Roy Wheeler Downtown Office 404 Eighth St. NE. Ceramic arts exhibition from Angela Gleeson. 5-7pm.

FF The Salad Maker 300 E. Market St. “Exploring the Bounds of Digital Art,” an exhibition of richly colored work by Martin Phillips. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Ngerringkrrety: One Voice, Many Stories,” an exhibition of paintings and weaving by Australian Aboriginal artist Regina Pilawuk Wilson; and in the backroom, a mixed-media exhibition by Sahara Clemons. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. A members’ anniversary show judged by Leah Stoddard.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Scrapes,” an exhibition of oil paintings by Lizzie Dudley. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “re: Charlottesville Music,” an exhibition of photographs taken by Rich Tarbell related to the local music scene. 5-8pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibition of oil paintings by Bettie Dexter. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: June 1

Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s paintings, prints and one weaving are on view in “Ngerringkrrety: One Voice, Many Stories” at Second Street Gallery through July 27. Additionally, she and her son co-curated a current exhibition at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, “Ngunguni: Old Techniques Remain Strong,” and her work is part of “Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia,” at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., through September. Photo by Cassie de Collinge

The inspiration for many of Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s paintings lies in another art form: weaving.

At a roundtable discussion at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, Wilson explains that her people, the Ngangikurrungurr, who are indigenous to Australia’s Daly River region, had passed on fishnet stitches from generation to generation, each community having its own special stitch. But over time, as whites colonized the land and forced the Aboriginal people to live on reserves and missions (similar to Native American reservations) with strict rules that in many cases aimed to dissolve indigenous cultures and traditions, many of those fishnet stitches were lost.

In the early 1970s, Wilson and her husband started Peppimenarti, a community for the Ngangikurrungurr people, with little more than a tent. They had to leave the mission in order to practice their culture, their art, their language, says Wilson.

Wilson, a master weaver, sought to revive the fishnet stitches her ancestors used. Carrying a photograph of her mother with a piece of fishnet her grandfather had stitched, Wilson searched for someone who could teach her that particular stitch. She visited many “very old” women before finding one who remembered the stitch. Wilson then painted the stitch onto canvas, brushstroke by brushstroke, ensuring that it would be visible and not lost again.

“It’s like a story that’s been there forever,” says Wilson’s granddaughter, Leaya. “It’s like putting a culture in a canvas, a painting—it’s strong.”

Regina Pilawuk Wilson’s work showcasing her Australian Aboriginal ancestors’ fishnet stitches is on display at Second Street Gallery. Courtesy artist

Second Street Gallery curator Kristen Chiacchia says that when most people think of contemporary art, they think of it in the Western tradition—abstract paintings, severe sculpture—but there’s more to it. Contemporary art “is art of our time, not art of a place,” says Chiacchia. It’s why she wanted to give Wilson’s work a solo show at Second Street Gallery and give Charlottesville the chance to see contemporary art that will challenge expectations.

Wilson’s work remembers the past in order to understand the present and a promise of the future. It’s there in the title of show, “Ngerringkrrety” which, Wilson explains, means, “from our ancestors, we hold it very strong.”—Erin O’Hare

First Fridays: June 1

Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Striation Series: Brazilian Tides & North Shore Waters,” featuring intimate drawings and mosaic mirrors by Eileen Butler.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by Brigitte Turquois Freeman, Hannah Huthwaite, Mary Jane Zander, Carol Barber and Ted Asnis, through June 14. Beginning June 19, Alex Gould exhibits industrial and marine wooden sculpture.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Where We Belong,” featuring work by Judith Ely. Open June 9.

FF The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Redefining the Family Photo,” a group exhibition of photography that shows how the definition of family has emerged and morphed in our local experience of celebration, grief and protest. 5-8pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church. 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Welcome Spring!,” a multimedia group show of work by Buck Mountain Episcopal Church artists.

FF The Charlottesville Women’s Initiative 1101 E. High St. “Halcyon Explored,” featuring works from the Fiber and Stitch Collective artists. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “An Exaltation of Larks,” a group show including work by Cynthia Burke, Kai Lawson, Kathryn Henry Choisser, Aggie Zed and others. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. Third-graders share artwork, poems and writing on local change-makers. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “The Magic of Polymer Clay” featuring work by Judith N. Ligon inspired by the colors, textures and patterns of nature. Opens June 9.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Virginia’s Wild Things” featuring pyrogravure on leather from Genevieve Story. 6-8pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “In My Room: Artists Paint the Interior 1950-Now”; “20th Century Still Lifes from the Permanent Collection,”  featuring the work of Picasso, Braque and Carrie Mae Weems, among others; “The Art of Protest”; “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “This is Charlottesville,” featuring new work from Sarah Cramer Shields’ photography and story project. 5:30-7:30pm.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. An exhibition of new work by Frank Walker that addresses the notion that black bodies are disposable and easily erased.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Beyond Dreaming: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States”; and “Ngunguni: Old Techniques Remain Strong,” an exhibition of paintings on eucalyptus bark from northern Australia.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “The Livestock Marker Show,” featuring paintings by Gwyn Kohr, Kathy Kuhlmann and Russ Warren that use livestock markers as the medium. Opens June 9.

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Conversations in Wood & Paint,” featuring new work from sculptor Alan Box Levine and painter Jennifer Esser. Through June 8.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Wax, Fire & Fungi,” a four-artist show featuring work made from transformed natural materials, in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Instinct” by Nancy Galloway and Joshua Galloway in the Lower Hall North Gallery; “Where We Live,” an exhibition of work about climate change by Jane Skafte in the Lower Hall South Gallery; “Little Creatures of the Mystery Woods and Other Works in Progress,” macro panoramic photographs by Aaron Farrington in the Upper Hall South Gallery; and Nathan Motley’s “George Harrison and Death Circa 1999-2010” in the Upper Hall North Gallery. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of acrylic paintings by Janet Pearlman. 5-7:30pm.

Noon Whistle Pottery 328 Main St., Stanardsville. “Color Concerto,” featuring the paintings of Diane Velasco and Jane Angelhart. Opens June 2.

FF Roy Wheeler Downtown Office 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of work from Kailey and Melissa Reid. 5-7pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Ngerringkrrety: One Voice, Many Stories,” an exhibition of paintings and weaving by Australian Aboriginal artist Regina Pilawuk Wilson. In The Backroom @SSG, a show of mixed media pieces by Sahara Clemons. 5:30-7:30pm.

Sidetracks Music 310 Second St. SE. “Bossa Nova,” featuring paintings by Jum Jirapan. June 2, 2-5pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. A members’ anniversary show judged by Leah Stoddard. June 2, 5-7pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Growers,” a show of collaborative works by Jeremy and Allyson Taylor that examines how humans interact with the natural world. 5-8pm.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “In the Land Where Poppies Bloom,” an exhibition by Golara Haghtalab featuring acrylic, spray paint and watercolor works on canvas that explore feelings of childhood nostalgia. 6-9pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibition of work by multimedia artist Emmaline Thacker. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “TRIO,” featuring three visually different, but thematically connected, bodies of work by Abby Kasonik. 5-7:30pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: May 4

A selected collection of Dave Moore’s enamel, acrylic and mixed-media paintings are on view at the Music Resource Center through May. Courtesy artist

Dave Moore believes in the sensuality of painting.

“I want my paintings to look like paintings,” he says. “I am not trying
to fool anyone into believing that an object is on the canvas. The painting is the object and the experience, whatever the subject may be.”

A self-described “art history nut” who loves “all styles, time periods, cultures, movements,” and the fact that it’s all still ongoing, Moore particularly loves experimenting with materials, seeing what paint can do in a certain environment.

Through the month of May, a series of enamel, acrylic and mixed-media paintings on wood panel that Moore has made over the last decade will be on view at the Music Resource Center, including “Current” (pictured), which Moore says is the result of “paint sliding around and drying weirdly in really cold temperatures.”

From that sensual starting point, the rest of the art-making process “becomes a process of editing and problem-solving to finish the painting…it’s like a game or a puzzle,” he says. “But of course, there is always nature, landscape, myth, love, music, everything—to get inspired by.”

Moore is currently reworking some of the very large paintings that he made during the same time period, ones that won’t be included in this particular show, which he thinks of as a preview of what’s to come. It’s “like a period on a sentence,” he says. “Then I can start the next paragraph.” 

First Fridays: May 4

FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Striation Series: Brazilian Tides & North Shore Waters,” featuring intimate drawings and mosaic mirrors by Eileen Butler. 5:30-7:30pm.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by Brigitte Turquois Freeman, Hannah Huthwaite, Mary Jane Zander, Carol Barber and Ted Asnis. Through June 14.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Nesting In II,” featuring mixed-media works of bird nests by Nancy Spahr. Opens May 12.

FF The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “For Sale: An Auction to Benefit The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative,” featuring work by Jeremy Taylor, Lana Lambert, Marie Landragin, Brielle DuFlon, Annie Temmink, Jesse Wells, VM Fisk, Bolanle Adeboye and many others. 5:30-9:30pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Welcome Spring!,” a multimedia group show of work by Buck Mountain Episcopal Church artists. Opens April 11.

The Charlottesville Women’s Initiative 1101 E. High St. “Halcyon Explored,” featuring works from the Fiber and Stitch Collective artists. Opens April 8.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Fluid Passages,” featuring Scott Smith’s black and white and subtly pigmented photographs that are an homage to the phenomena of the physical world. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. Featuring two exhibitions, Charlottesville City Schools’ ARTQUEST and the Bluebird Project auction. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “The Blue Ridge and Beyond,” featuring posters of Virginia locations by graphic designer and illustrator Barbara Shenefield. Opens May 12.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Joy of Color and Light,” featuring functional glass art by Norma Geddes. 6-8pm.

FF C’ville Coffee 1301 Harris St. An exhibition of oil paintings by Caroline Planting. 4:30-6pm.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. An exploration of art with L. Michelle Geiger. 5-7pm.

FF Fellini’s 200 E. Market St. “Pets and Wildlife,” a show of works in charcoal, conte, graphite and pastel by Sabrina Acton and Emily Gordon. 5:30-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “The Art of Protest,” an exhibition highlighting the ways in which artists have both documented and participated in the protests of the 20th century; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “Scaffold,” a group show curated by Matt Kleberg featuring work by artists who approach image-making in a manner either directly or indirectly related to architecture. 5:30-7:30pm.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. An exhibition of new work by Frank Walker that addresses the notion that black bodies are disposable and easily erased. 5-7pm. Opens May 5.

FF Joseph Joseph & Joseph Antiques 134 10th St. NW. A show of paintings from Edward Thomas, dating from 1998 to the present. 5-7pm.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “The Funny Farm,” featuring paintings by Sarah Sweet. 5-7pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Beyond Dreaming: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time; and “Repositories of Recognition,” an installation by Carol McGregor constructed from linen tea towels and natural possum skins.

FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. An exhibition of Jessie Coles’ latest still-life paintings that are anything but still. 1-5pm.

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Conversations in Wood & Paint,” featuring new work from sculptor Alan Box Levine and painter Jennifer Esser.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Recent Works in Oil,” paintings by Megan Elizabeth Read that explore vulnerability, solitude and paralysis in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Traces from Nature,” featuring prints on fiber and paper by Lotta Helleberg and drawings on clayboard by Erica Lohan, in the Lower Hall North; “Faces and Figures: Life Studies in the Studio,” an exhibition of works by Kerney Rhoden in the Lower Hall South Gallery; and in the Upper Hall North and South Galleries, an eclectic mixed-media show of art by students from local area high schools. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. “Sacred Lamentations,” featuring lino block prints by Toby Westberry that attempt to provoke thought on the complexities of human ethics. 6-8pm.

Moon Maiden’s Delights 112 W. Main St. “Moths: From the Archives” by Maryanna Williams, featuring slightly fantastical renderings of moths.

FF Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. An exhibition of Dave Moore’s enamel, acrylic and mixed-media paintings on wood panel. 5-7pm.

FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of watercolor paintings by Leenie Black. 5-7:30pm.

Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building 501 College Dr. An exhibition of graphic design, ceramics, sculpture, painting and more by PVCC students.

Robertson Hall John P. and Stephanie F. Connaughton Gallery, UVA. “Scene and Unseen,” featuring oil paintings by Harry Miller and watermedia works by Karen Rosasco.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Monument,” an exhibition of landscape/cityscape paint collages by Erik Benson; in the Dové Gallery, “Mom Brain,” featuring graphite paintings by Melissa Cooke Benson; and in The Backroom @SSG, a show of sculpture by Lily Erb. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Nostalgia,” a show of acrylic paintings by Joan Menard that evoke sentimental memories. Opens May 5.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Mother Mother,” a group show in which 14 female artists explore the idea of “mother” through photography, collage, installation, sound, video, painting, illustration, performance, sculpture and book art. 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. An exhibition of abstract paintings by Karen Conners.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “In the Land Where Poppies Bloom,” an exhibition by Golara Haghtalab featuring acrylic, spray paint and watercolor works on canvas that explore feelings of childhood nostalgia. 6-9pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Visit The City Zoo at VMDO,” an exhibition of mixed-media makerspace projects by Venable Elementary School third-graders. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “In the Homeland We’ve Never Seen,” featuring paintings on paper and hand-colored multi-plate etchings by Murad Khan Mumtaz. 5-7:30pm.

Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge 250 Pantops Mountain Rd. “The Skies Have It: Sunrises and Sunsets of Virginia,” featuring work by Randy Baskerville.

FF Yellow Cardinal Gallery 301 E. Market St. “Color into Spring,” an exhibition of work celebrating spring after a long winter. 4-7pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: April 6

“Visage,” on view at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery this month, features the work of portrait artists Frank Walker and his nephew Jae Jae Johnson. Photo by Eze Amos

“Nobody understands an artist like another artist,” says local portrait artist Frank Walker.

And so Walker, who has drawn all his life—first imitating the figures in Sgt. Rock comic books and later working in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers graphics department, earning a BFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University and working for a number of years as a medical illustrator at the University of Virginia Hospital—loves to talk art with other artists.

“People relate to artists as being quirky or crazy, but we’re not,” says Walker. “We just think in other dimensions.”

Walker had talked art with his late sculptor brother, so when Walker’s wife introduced him to her nephew, self-taught portrait artist Jae Jae Johnson, he found a new confidant in art.

For the last decade or so, Walker and Johnson have shared the ideas and techniques that shape their distinct portraiture styles. Walker works mostly with pencils and graphite, whereas Johnson uses copic markers to create grayscale-with-pops-of-color portraits that viewers often mistake for watercolor paintings.

“Visage,” on view at New City Arts Welcome Gallery this month, is their first joint show, and Johnson’s first public show.

While their styles are different, both are drawn to portraiture for similar reasons. Johnson says that for him it requires a certain sense of caring, love and attention for the subject, to the point where it’s often difficult to part with his drawings.

According to Walker, “People’s faces, and their eyes, especially, tell a story. I’ve always believed that they eyes are the window to the soul. So when I look at people, and I look in their eyes, I [see] their character.”—Erin O’Hare

First Fridays: April 6

FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Striation Series: Brazilian Tides & North Shore Waters,” featuring intimate drawings and mosaic mirrors by Eileen Butler. 5:30-7:30pm.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by Morganne Ashlie, Jennie Carr, Susan Graeber, Louise Greer and Valerie Sargent. Through April 8.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “The Delight is in the Surprise,” featuring paintings of White Hall landscapes and animals by Christen Yates. Opens April 14.

FF The Bridge PAI 2019 Monticello Rd. “Who Is Your RGB Self?,” an exhibition by Golara Haghtalab that uses paintings, poems, sculpture and interactive installations to create a fresh perspective on visual self-recognition. 5:30-9:30pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Welcome Spring!,” a multimedia group show of work by Buck Mountain Episcopal Church artists. Opens April 11.

Charlottesville Senior Center 491 Hillsdale Dr. “Local Scenes,” a multimedia group show featuring the work of the BozART Fine Art Collective.

The Charlottesville Women’s Initiative 1101 E. High St. “Halcyon Explored,” featuring works from the Fiber and Stitch Collective artists. Opens April 8.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Submerged,” a visual and auditory sub-aquatic collaboration between photo- grapher Alexandria Searls and sound designer Morgan McLeod. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Our Town, Our Eyes: McGuffey Artists Consider Charlottesville,” featuring work about Charlottesville from the perspective of 10 McGuffey Art Center member artists. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “A Mighty Little Town,” featuring Oana Moore’s photographs of Crozet and the Western Albemarle area. Opens April 14.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Finding Time,” an exhibition of work by tinkering guru and clockmaker Allan Young. 6-8pm.

FF C’ville Coffee 1301 Harris St. An exhibition of oil paintings by Caroline Planting. 4:30-6pm.

Darden Art Gallery Alumni Lounge UVA Darden School of Business Camp Library, 100 Darden Blvd. “Lexicon of Landscapes,” featuring work from Michelle Gagliano’s VMFA fellowship exhibition.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. An exhibition of gold and black abstract paintings by Juan Manuel Granados. 5-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Feminine Likeness: Portraits of Women by American Artists, 1809-1950,” featuring works from The Fralin Museum of Art collection; “A Painter’s Hand: The Monotypes of Adolph Gottlieb,” an exhibit of works from one of the original Abstract Expressionists; “From the Grounds Up: Thomas Jefferson’s Architecture and Design”; “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. An exhibition of posters on public art and community submitted by 80 artists from 10 countries for the 2018 Bushman Dreyfus Architects Prize. 5-7pm.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “Creatures and Creation: A Passage Around Saint Soleil,” an exhibition of oil and acrylic works on canvas by Eriveau Prospere, Mackenly Darius, Marshal Edward and Richard Nesly. 6-9pm.

FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Expressions in Black and White,” featuring work by Suzanne Tanner Chitwood, David Hawkins, Ivy Naté and Nick Watson. 1-5pm.

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Conversations in Wood & Paint,” featuring new work from sculptor Alan Box Levine and painter Jennifer Esser. Opens April 14.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Playing with Light,” paintings by Nan Rothwell and Junko Ono Rothwell in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Even Odds and Ends,” featuring wall reliefs constructed from clay by Scott Supraner, in the Lower Hall South Gallery; “Gathering,” a selection of old and new paintings by Cynthia Burke, in the Lower Hall North Gallery; “Free Pile,” works of art made from the materials in McGuffey’s free pile that once had other lives and uses, in the Upper Hall North and South Galleries. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. #150. An exhibition of mixed-media works by Peter Sacco. 6-8pm.

FF Moon Maiden’s Delights 112 W. Main St. “Moths: From the Archives” by Maryanna Williams, featuring slightly fantastical renderings of moths. 5-7pm.

FF Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. “New Works,” a collection of paintings by Kevin Miller. 5-7pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Art of Ken Nagakui,” featuring oil paintings and wood-fired stoneware by Ken Nagakui. 5-7:30pm.

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Perspectives in Black and White,” featuring six photographic images by Seth Silverstein.

Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building 501 College Dr. An exhibition of graphic design, ceramics, sculpture, painting and more by PVCC students. Opens April 20.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Monument,” an exhibition of landscape/cityscape paint collages by Erik Benson; in the Dové Gallery, “Mom Brain,” featuring graphite paintings by Melissa Cooke Benson. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of work by landscape artist Kevin H. Adams. Opens April 7.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Colors and Shapes,” featuring works in acrylic by Chris Lombard. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “How Did I Get Here?,” Ada Trillo’s photographic portrait series documenting the exploitation of women in the prostitution industry. 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Mechanics of the Mind,” featuring paintings by Blake Hurt.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Coexist: A Prayer Flag Project,” an interactive exhibition by Jum Jirapan. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. An exhibition of watercolor paintings by Karyn Gunther Smith. 5-7pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Visage,” featuring drawings and paintings by Frank Walker and Jae Jae Johnson. 5-7:30pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

Categories
Arts

Sharon Shapiro disrupts nostalgia in Welcome Gallery exhibition

Sharon Shapiro’s painting “Above Ground” serves as the title of her show opening on Friday at the Welcome Gallery. Shapiro will give a talk at the opening and on April 17. Courtesy the artist

Artist Sharon Shapiro has a unique history with the Welcome Gallery, where her exhibition “Above Ground” opens this week. Now operated by New City Arts Initiative, the space served as her art studio from 1996—when she first moved to Charlottesville from Atlanta—until 2001. Fittingly, her exhibition is themed on nostalgia—or the disruption of it—in an examination the American dream.

“Nostalgia is such a seductive trap,” Shapiro says. “There’s something compelling about it but it’s also really dangerous. There’s a dark side to always yearning for what was, but something comforting about it, too,” she says. “Were things ever really as good as we remember?”

Shapiro, who now works out of her home studio in Louisa, grew up in the small railroad town of Bluefield, West Virginia. “My father had a clothing store my whole childhood and I would sit in his store and draw the mannequins and clothes,” she says. While studying fashion illustration at VCU, she fell in love with painting and ultimately obtained a bachelor’s of fine art from Atlanta College of Art.

"Holiday" by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist
“Holiday” by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist

Most of her paintings are figurative and arise from found photos, the history of which “changes within the context of my work,” Shapiro says. The pieces in this exhibition began with a search she did on eBay for vintage photographs of swimming pools and backyards in 1970s America. “It’s odd in the first place that people are selling their family photos,” she says. “There’s something about it that’s quirky to begin with.” From this beginning she layered other scenes to create composites and juxtaposed color with black and white to play with the texture of our emotional lives and memories. This layered and distorted quality erodes the would-be sentiment and reshapes it into something edgier. Whether it is a figure out of proportion with her landscape, like the truncated woman in “Swan Lake,” or the blurred and duplicated figures in “Devils” and “Holiday,” Shapiro challenges our simplistic view of the past.

"Swan Lake" by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist
“Swan Lake” by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist

“I’m fascinated by the idea of the American dream,” she says. “The idea of the suburbs, everything all kind of alike…There’s something off-putting about that too. It’s not real. We’re trying to make things look perfect. Things never are. Especially human relationships.” This interest in the tension between outer appearance and interior drama reminds her of something her grandmother used to say: “Don’t believe anything you hear and half of what you see.” To this end, she investigates the meaning we ascribe to objects, specifically the above-ground pool as “a class signifier.”

"How the West was Won" by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist
“How the West was Won” by Sharon Shapiro. Courtesy of the artist

In “How the West Was Won” a young girl jumping into a pool is suspended in mid-air. Her face is in color but her body is black and white, the toe of her Mary Jane shoe dripping onto a lounge chair. “Things might be unraveling,” Shapiro says. “I like that aspect in my work.” In “Cure for Pain” there is both innocence and a self-consciousness about its precariousness as two girls in pink bathing suits and swim caps look over the edge of a kiddie pool. There is something not entirely wholesome about the pool, the metal bars of which are visible beneath its canvas. And a sense of foreboding expresses itself in the exaggerated, claw-like shadows of the girls’ hands.

Interestingly, while Shapiro is preoccupied with water in these paintings, she says, “I’ve always had a fear of water. Since I was little, I’ve been simultaneously fascinated and scared.” It is this vulnerability of youth and the threat to innocence that ripples throughout the exhibition as Shapiro qualifies our romanticized view of the past.

Categories
Arts

José Bedia brings new energy to Second Street Gallery

José Bedia’s “Memoria y Creencias Culturales/Memory and Cultural Beliefs” opens on Friday at Second Street Gallery. The artist will make brief remarks at 6:30pm Friday, and offer a longer presentation at the gallery at 1pm on Saturday. Courtesy of the artist

A new exhibit at Second Street Gallery might represent the start of a new era for the gallery. José Bedia, a renowned Cuban painter and sculptor, will visit the gallery February 3 for a solo show and other events.

Born in 1959 in Havana, Bedia studied Palo Monte, a branch of Congo-derived religion brought to Cuba by slaves. The religion evolved through the slaves’ contact with colonial Spain, Native Americans and other Caribbean cultures. One of Palo Monte’s most salient features is the use of a consecrated vessel called a caldero that functions like a small altar.

Bedia’s work is replete with references to Palo Monte, Cuban history, Native American spiritualism and tensions between imperialism and traditional cultures. The sacred calderos appear as regular motifs. He fills canvases with black silhouettes of slim human figures and animals that could have stepped out of European cave paintings, and he mixes perspectives like Salvador Dalí, sometimes adding sculptural elements to his paintings that reach out from the wall into the room toward the viewer. You’ll see rifles, aircraft carriers and airplanes being shot at with arrows.

“I don’t think he is critical of technology,” says Tosha Grantham, curator of Second Street Gallery and an accomplished scholar of Bedia’s work. “I would look at the difference between critical and critique. He calls it like he sees it. There are kindnesses in the world and there are cruelties. They each find a place in the work. Because he is a veteran, because he was a soldier [drafted to fight in Angola by the Cuban government], there’s a lot he has to say about warfare.”

According to Grantham, this is a big get for Second Street—or any gallery in any city.

“He’s very widely celebrated both within and outside the country,” Grantham says. “He’s one of the best-known Cuban artists working in the States right now. And he’s very modest about that. He is widely collected.”

Bedia is an art collector himself. He has traveled around the world, meeting indigenous peoples and learning about their religious and artistic practices.

“I think Bedia would claim his influences to be found in international indigenous artistry,” Grantham says. “People who are very close to whatever the energetic forces are that order the universe. …He’s very much like a field researcher or anthropologist. He spends time traveling and connecting with people.”

One of Bedia’s most well-known paintings is his depiction of a frog carrying a scorpion on its back, a reference to a fable that originated in the 1950s and has resonated in cultures around the world. The eye-catching piece is among the works featured in the show at Second Street.

“The scorpion is on the back of the frog and they get halfway across the river and the scorpion stings the frog,” Grantham says. “There’s an inevitability that there is a tendency to return to one’s nature. There are certain forces you can’t control. But then there’s also a great respect for nature.”

Grantham first became familiar with Bedia through a happy coincidence. His work had just been shown at an exhibition in Paris, and Grantham, an undergrad at the time, saw his Barcelona show in 1990.

It was that exhibition that caused Bedia to begin to blow up in the international art market and attract the attention of collectors and museum curators from around the world. Grantham would eventually devote part of her dissertation as a Ph.D candidate at the University of Maryland to Bedia. When she was first hired as Second Street’s curator in 2013, this was exactly the type of show she wanted to bring to Charlottesville.

“At the time I applied for the position it felt like this great bursting-at-the-seams moment where there was a lot of support for new ideas,” says Grantham. “So I mapped out the kind of program that would feature local, regional and national artists. Also, the gallery’s mission is to show art that might not otherwise be seen in Charlottesville.”

Grantham’s personal relationship with Bedia is a major part of how Second Street was able to draw him to Charlottesville, and Grantham hopes similar relationships with other artists will enable the gallery to continue punching above its weight class.

“We would certainly need a larger budget to keep doing this kind of show,” Grantham says. “This is possible in part through José [Bedia’s] generosity.”

Categories
Arts

Neal Guma gallery assembles a striking group show

Holly Andres is known for using multiple images to tell a story, such as in "The Fallen Fawn" series. Photo courtesy Neal Guma

With just five photographs on view, Neal Guma has assembled a richly satisfying show featuring some of the most interesting photographers working today at his new, eponymously named gallery on Third Street. While different in terms of style, approach and subject matter, the work is linked by a sense of mystery, foreboding and even danger.

Julie Blackmon’s “Rope Swing” in the window has been attracting a lot of attention, according to Guma. The image presents a backyard scene of children playing. Like a spy from the land of grown-ups, Blackmon captured a moment when the adults are absent and children are running the show. At the center of the image, a girl of about 8 is caught by Blackmon as she shimmies impossibly high up a rope. Danger is conveyed not only by how high off the ground she is, but also with the tangled hair and skimpy attire of her companions.

“Blackmon’s photographs really take you back to a time when kids were freer, less organized,” says Guma. “A big influence on her is the Dutch 17th century painter Jan Steen who painted many family scenes with kids and animals everywhere. There’s a sense of absolute chaos and that’s what Blackmon loves and yet, at the same time, her work’s so well composed. It’s a brilliant edge.”

Holly Andres is known for using multiple images to tell a story. “River Road: Mile Marker 39” from “The Fallen Fawn” series is pleasing from both a formal and descriptive standpoint. The autumnal palette, shape of the car windows and roof line, and the way the girls are dressed and styled, all work together to impart a nostalgic ’60s quality to the work. Reflections and shadows play on the windows, adding pattern and texture that both draws attention to and shields the girls. The image is loaded with suspense.

Andres melds two entirely different trajectories in “River Road.” It’s almost like there are two photographs contained within it: The winsome, romantic girls and the forceful abstract diagonals that frame them make for a highly unusual and compelling image.

Though not a photographer, Julie Cockburn works with discarded photographs. She painstakingly embroiders these with precisely stitched shapes that she uses to draw attention to the psychological undertones lurking beneath the surface of the vintage formal studio shots she favors.

“Carita” is embellished with pastel-colored circles that trail across the image like an effervescence of bubbles that almost completely obscures Carita’s face. The exception is her eye, which stares out with such haunting soulfulness, it stops you in your tracks.

The clues we have to “Carita” are few, but the softly coiffed curls, pearls at her throat and the lustrous sheen of the soft bow on her dress convey a certain refinement. And then there is the kicker, the inscription: “To my darling a teacher, Aurora…” which throws a big pot of doubt and suspicion onto the image. While this could be entirely innocent, Cockburn’s manipulation of the piece invites a different, much darker interpretation, causing you to wonder about the nature of the relationship of teacher and student.

“What makes his work is the play between the flatness and the detail,” says Guma about German photographer Markus Brunetti’s “Wells Cathedral Church of Saint Andrews.” The photograph is one from a series of European sacred structures Brunetti and his partner, Betty Schoener, photographed over the course of 10 years. Brunetti shot each building in multiple sections, which Schoener then painstakingly assembled to form a composite. The result has more clarity than a traditional camera could capture, or the naked eye could see.

With an equal field of focus, everything is incredibly distinct: the saints’ faces, their hair, the live pigeons roosting in the edifice’s crannies, the lichen, weathered wooden doors and strip of brilliant green at the base, and they all work to animate and revitalize an iconic image to which we have almost become blind.

Lois Conner is known for her photographs of China, where she has spent many years taking pictures. Her long, narrow proportions, specific to the camera she uses, recall a Chinese screen. “Atchafalaya Swamp, Louisiana,” dating to 1988, is the only black-and-white image. A masterful technician, Conner’s tonalities are ravishing.

At times you wonder whether you’re even looking at a photograph; it’s more like graphite on paper. The pops of white that are the fruit at the center of the bush and the abandoned rowboat that seems to float above the ground in otherworldly fashion are extraordinary. With consummate craftsmanship and enormous sensitivity, Conner has created an image that’s mysterious, evocative and timeless.

“Putting together a group show like this is kind of like making a playlist,” says Guma. “You like every song, but you want the whole thing to work together. And it sort of takes on this theme. There are connections, and some of them you don’t foresee, but when they happen it’s magic.”

Categories
Arts

Sonya Clark marks slavery history at Second Street Gallery

Sonya Clark’s “Encrusted” considers Abraham Lincoln’s role in black history through a sugar-coated $5 bill. Courtesy of the artist

Sonya Clark’s “Bitter, Sweet and Tender,” currently on view at Second Street Gallery, features sculpture, textiles and photography Clark has created, found or had fabricated. These objects limn a potent narrative encompassing Clark’s personal history and the troubled history of the U.S. and Caribbean centered on the use of people as commodities, examined through the lens of sugar production. Clark’s family hails from Jamaica, where sugarcane was, and continues to be, a major crop.

Sugar, along with cotton (in the American South), were the major drivers of the slave trade. “Sugar fed so much of the global economy,” says Clark. “The only way it could feed that global economy to the degree it did was by enslaving people and having them provide free labor.” Though slavery was abolished in 1838 in Jamaica, growing and harvesting sugarcane continues to be a grim reality for those laboring in the fields.

Many of Clark’s objects are painful to look at and consider. Some, like the “Confederate Battle Flag,” are obviously so. Others, like the “The Journey,” a length of gold thread on a spool that measures the distance between Ghana and Virginia (miles scaled to inches), require more attention to parse out.

Clark began unraveling Confederate flags because she was interested in seeing what it would mean to bring this fraught symbol down to its threads. Last year, in response to the sesquicentennial of the end of the Civil War, she did an unraveling using a flag made from cotton (for obvious reasons). That flag could be completely unraveled because of the way a cotton flag is made. But, the aptly named “Unraveled Persistence,” a nylon version, which features a printed image, manages to retain the symbol and the flag’s shape even after all the weft threads have been taken out. So while Clark is doing the same action with both flags, the messages in the two pieces are very different.

“Monumental Cloth (old)” and “Monumental Cloth (new)” present two contemporary versions of the dishrag that was used as the flag of surrender at Appomattox. The original dishcloth was subsequently divvied up; half is in the Smithsonian American History Museum and other portions of it were distributed around the South. “That’s the flag we should be celebrating,” says Clark. “The Confederate Flag of Truce. That’s the piece of cloth and the symbol that brought our nation back together.”

“The Price” forces us to confront the commodification of humans in today’s economic terms. Working with her studio manager and assistant, Clark came up with an amount that she would command as a 48-year-old woman with craft skills. “We decided to take out the fact that I’d probably be someone who would want to try to escape, so as to make me more valuable, but still it’s only the price of a nice car, not even a fancy car,” says Clark. “And I would be owned for life. It was very uncomfortable for them [her manager and assistant] to do. And I told them, ‘It shouldn’t be comfortable.’

“It’s this ironic thing because…having slaves would be like having a luxury item, and having many of them would mean you were quite wealthy, right? Instead of having one Lexus, you’d have 10, or 50, and then the wealth breeds more wealth because of the free labor that the enslaved human beings were providing.”

The showstopper may be the bolt of McHardy tartan made from hand-woven bagasse (sugarcane fiber). It commands attention as a marvelous piece of emotionally charged craftsmanship that alludes to intertwining bloodlines. The tartan is Clark’s family’s; her maternal Jamaican great-grandmother married a man of Scottish descent in the 1870s. The piece weaves together the discarded sugarcane fibers, as well as Clark’s family history. As the bolt of woven cloth brings these ancestral threads together, it also simultaneously succeeds in unraveling certain preconceived racial ideas.

“Obviously, making an heirloom for my family is very, very close to me,” Clark says of the piece. “There’s earth from my family’s homestead in one vessel and there’s another that is holding indigo-dyed, handspun cotton that I’ve had since my very first trip to West Africa in 1989. So that piece means a lot to me.”

For Clark, the seminal piece is “Encrusted,” a $5 bill coated with crystallized sugar. “Bitter, sweet and tender, I feel like they’re all in that piece,” she says. By encrusting the bill with Lincoln’s visage on it, she’s drawing on sugar’s preservative qualities, trying to uphold what he was trying to do, even as there were challenges and complications surrounding it. The money is, of course, tender, but the circumstances surrounding Lincoln—the Civil War, his assassination and the failure of his reconstruction plan—are tender, as well. There’s also bitterness there. “We’re hardwired to believe that something bitter is poison,” says Clark. “But it also might be something medicinal that has healing properties.

“One of the things I wanted to bring to light in the show is the embedding of our past in our present,” she says. “That’s what I was doing with ‘Rebel Yell.’ It’s a roller coaster I rode as a child. …Here are all these brown and black kids going down 95 to get to King’s Dominion to get on this roller coaster and have a good time. It did not occur to any of us, much less our parents, that that roller coaster was named for the Confederate battle cry. I think it’s really interesting to bring to light that embedding. The repercussions of slavery—how much wealth we have in this nation because of the enslavement of people and how much it still replays in our present, in our subconscious. So I’m trying to bring some of those subconscious things into our consciousness so that we can actually dig at the roots of this troubled history and attempt to right the ship.”

Her voice and perspective are critical right now in our national dialogue. “Looking at what’s happening across the country and with this upcoming election, I would say, ‘Maybe we’ve taken some steps forward, but whoa, maybe we’ve taken some steps backwards,’” she says.

Clark’s bitter, sweet and tender work helps us understand where we have been. It is only then, armed with this information, that we can move in that forward and ultimately redemptive direction.