Tag: Charlottesville art

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Less is more: Grace Ho’s virtual exhibition ‘Solace’ transcends the online gallery

Grace Ho’s “Solace” is online at StudioIX.com through June 30. Courtesy of artist

By Ramona Martinez 

The paintings in “Solace,” shown this month on Studio IX’s virtual gallery, are large. Most of them are three-by-four feet, and would doubtless be particularly compelling in person. But it is a testament to Grace Ho’s voice as an artist that, even on a computer screen, her work leaves a big impression.

In striking black and white, Venus-like figures are closely cropped in minimalist compositions. There is a keen sense of design here, and an almost intuitive understanding of the power of efficiency. To be able to depict a figure with just a few marks brings to mind artists like Matisse and Picasso—and “Solace” is in conversation with those masters.

Artist Grace Ho. Image courtesy subject

“Less is more, if you can swing it,” says Studio IX Gallery Curator Greg Antrim Kelly, “and Grace certainly can.”

That approach is due to her other line of work: Ho is a digital designer at WillowTree, a mobile app and web development company in Charlottesville. She began painting a few years ago because she wanted to find “something outside of work.” Ho describes her past art experience as “drawing here and there,” though on her website she has posted a devastatingly effortless portrait of Jimi Hendrix that would make Egon Schiele take a second look.

The show consists of 16 pieces: nine large paintings and a series of smaller, stream-of-consciousness drawings. The drawings were inspired in part by an Ecuadorian artist based in Brooklyn named Juan Miguel Marin, who creates large, black-and-white vortices with a Sharpie, based on what’s going on around him at live events. Ho aims to emulate that free-spirited approach in these smaller pieces. She cites Marin as one of her biggest influences, but the strongest works in her show were clearly developed independent of his style.

“Solace,” a theme chosen pre-coronavirus, is about the beauty of being alone with one’s self and present in the physical body. The figures in her paintings are bodies of mothers and middle-aged women, close-ups of how curves look while the back is arched or while lying down. There are rolls of fat and saggy bellies, but they are elegant and sensual. Although the aesthetic is very modern, the figures themselves are more classical. You can feel their weight, plump and soft.

“Everybody’s trying to be so perfect, using visual tools to tune their body,” says Ho. “That’s why I wanted to paint some of the ‘imperfections’ that are beautiful and human.”

Image courtesy of the artist

Offline and alone, the women in these paintings are not performing. And if you know anything about the history of figurative art, this is significant. In Ways of Seeing, John Berger writes, “To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men.”

Art for centuries has reflected this; in fact, the whole genre of the reclining nude basically came about so kings could have pictures of their mistresses to show off. Even as a woman artist, avoiding this patriarchal tradition takes real effort. Ho has managed to banish the male gaze from this figurative series. It feels like we are looking in on a private moment, but not voyeuristically.

Another notable element of this series is the sense of space. In “Rest” and “Rise,” the figures look mountainous, and the composition almost becomes a landscape. Here the figures are echoing their natural source. The choice to use black and white also affects the perception of depth. In “Curve,” a remarkable work composed of only five white marks, the mainly black composition creates a void that gives us a sense of infinite space. In the future, Ho is interested in exploring painting that uses pigments found in nature. Thematically this makes sense, as her work is already tapped into something very organic.

Two other paintings are worth mentioning separately: “Figure,” on a black canvas with white paint, is more experimental than the other work, and it is Ho’s favorite piece in the show. We can make out a head, a waist, and a woman’s bottom, but the rendering is much looser. There is movement in this piece that pushes your eyes around the composition, and it is absorbing, even though there isn’t technically much paint on the canvas at all.

“Solace” ends on a personal note with “Ru,” a charcoal drawing of a mother and child on acrylic. Ho made it while she was feeling homesick, and thinking of her childhood in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She says she thinks of her mother a lot when she paints. “Ru” is reminiscent of the genre paintings, or scenes of domestic life, that women artists turned to instead of figurative work (from which they were barred for centuries). There is something beautifully poetic about a figurative show ending with a return to this tradition. “Solace” returns us, in many ways, to our roots.

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Culture

Passing glances: Stacey Evans explores light perspectives in ‘This Familiar Space’ 

“‘This Familiar Space’ is two years in the making, and the dozens of works that comprise the show (including this collage) were made by artists here in Charlottesville and in Besançon, France, one of Charlottesville’s Sister Cities. Image courtesy of Stacey Evans

One of the first assignments Stacey Evans gives her photography class is to visit the same place at different times throughout the day, a few days in a row. She tasks her PVCC students with noticing the light, how it’s different minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day. If Monday’s morning light is soft, Tuesday’s might be bright, and Wednesday’s might be grayed by rain.

It’s a practical lesson for an art that relies on light not just for composition but for mood, for atmosphere, for meaning. It’s also a rather practical (and sometimes difficult) lesson for life: Change is constant.

Change is also a major theme in Evans’ own photography. She ruminated on it in “Ways of Seeing,” a series of collages from photos shot through train car windows and exhibited at Second Street Gallery in April 2017. It’s present again in Evans’ current SSG exhibition, “This Familiar Space/Cet Espace Familier,” which opened online last week.

“‘This Familiar Space’ is two years in the making, and the dozens of works that comprise the show were made by artists here in Charlottesville and in Besançon, France, one of Charlottesville’s sister cities.

Evans served as artist, producer, and curator for the show, which is divided into four unique, but related, groups of works. Evans planned to mount it on the walls of SSG’s Dové Gallery, until the space closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and she had to envision and execute it for the web. 

One of the photos in the “Daily Muse” series. Photo by Stacey Evans

The first segment, “Daily Muse,” is a series of 11 photographs of the same rooftop view in Besançon, taken by Evans on a 2018 Sister Cities Commission trip. Capturing this view from her hotel room became a routine for Evans on the trip, and though the visual perspective is technically the same, none of the photos are. The sky differs, sometimes drastically and sometimes subtly, from image to image, affecting the colors of the building below, the shadows, and the overall tone of the photographs. In the bottom center space of the grid, Evans has written, “This too shall pass,” putting to words what the eyes and the mind have already acknowledged, consciously or not. 

Evans expects the text might resonate deeply with viewers right now, as we’re all eager for the pandemic to pass. But, she says, we’re not always so open to change: We like our routines, too. And the set of photographs presented in “Daily Muse” shows how routine and change are not necessarily opposite, but complementary, co-existent. It’s about “understanding that things aren’t permanent. Change does happen, and [you have to be] okay with change, because if you get stuck in your ways, I don’t see that as a good thing,” either. 

Another image from “Daily Muse.” Photo by Stacey Evans

Evans’ role shifts a bit in “Look to See.” She made photographs in both Charlottesville and Besançon, and students altered them into collages. She had Charlottesville High School students start a batch, then brought them to Besançon for Lycée Louis Pasteur students to finish; the Louis Pasteur kids started a new set of collages that Evans brought back to Charlottesville to be completed at CHS.

Evans also served in a production role for the third piece, “The Ones We Can Still Save,” a sculpture and video collaboration between Charlottesville-based artist Nina Frances Burke and Besançon-based artist Gabriel Hopson. Each artist gave Evans a small package of materials (the one requirement: that it fit in Evans’ suitcase) for the other to use. Hopson, who is diabetic, sent Burke an insulin pen full of the life-saving medication, something he can easily access (and even spare) thanks to French health care, something that is difficult, sometimes impossible, for people to access in the U.S. health care system. The pen was full but unusable, and Burke embedded it, inaccessible, in a nest-like sculpture. Together with Hopson’s video (we won’t give away all the details), it’s a comment on the differences between the American and French health care systems.

One component of “The Ones We Can Still Save,” a collaboration between Charlottesville artist Nina Frances Burke and Besancon artist Gabriel Hopson. Image courtesy the artists

The fourth piece, “The Light Between,” is a video collage Evans made of both moving and still footage of daily life in Besançon and Charlottesville. It’s full of marked differences (architecture, language) and similarities (going to work, dining al fresco) among life in both places. One of Evans’ favorite juxtapositions is around the 1:40 mark—note the power lines in Charlottesville, and the absence of them, in Besançon. 

Across all of the works in “This Familiar Space/Cet Espace Familier” there’s evidence of connection of people across time and space. “That’s always been in the show,” says Evans, though the theme might project a bit more right now. 

Recognizing the ways in which we’re all connected—and how our own decisions can affect others—is important, says Evans, who considers herself “a global citizen first and an American second.” That realization can complicate our constant internal, highly personal, negotiation between change and routine, already a delicate balance to strike. For Evans, the secret to staying grounded is looking up, thinking about the ever-shifting sky, and “the umbrella that connects us all,” she says.

 

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Culture

Focused group: Porchraits capture residents at a distance 

Helen (left) and Garnette (right), photographed by Eze Amos for the Cville Porch Portraits project.

Two weeks ago, Eze Amos was “bored as hell.”

Usually the photographer is running around Charlottesville at all hours, snapping candid shots of everyday life in the city—buskers, beer drinkers, sidewalk chalkers, protesters—shooting weddings, or completing assignments for this newspaper.

But with everyone staying home for social distancing, Amos and many other photographers have lost their paid gigs and the chance to work on their passion projects.

While scrolling through his phone, Amos read an article about Cara Soulia, a Needham, Massachusetts, family photographer who, in this time of quarantine, began taking pictures of families in front of their homes for a series she calls #TheFrontStepsProject.

Soulia’s work energized Amos—he couldn’t sleep that night. He just had to do this in Charlottesville, and he knew he couldn’t do it alone.

Since then, Amos and four other photographers—Tom Daly, Kristen Finn, John Robinson, and Sarah Cramer Shields—have photographed more than 200 families and individuals outside their Charlottesville-area homes for Cville Porch Portraits (@cvilleporchraits on Instagram). 

(Soulia’s work also inspired local photographer Robert Radifera, who launched a similar project to benefit the Charlottesville Community Foundation.)

Amos isn’t bored anymore, and he’s not likely to be any time soon: About two dozen requests come in every day.

There’s something uniquely lovely and intimate about making images of people outside their homes. “In photography, we often go to the pretty places, not always to the true places, or the personal spaces,” says Robinson. “Places bring something out of you, or are a reflection of what you bring in.” 

Taken separately, these images say a lot about who the subjects are as individuals. Someone chose to be photographed in her cozy bathrobe and panda bear slippers. A family posed in matching, carefully handmade Easter outfits. In one photo, kids have strewn their toys about the porch; in another, someone has arranged her flower pots just so. There are grandparents using their photo to say hello to their grandchildren.

Taken together, these images say a lot about who we are as a community.

Ranger, photographed by Tom Daly

It’s as much an “act of solidarity” as it is a fundraiser,  says Finn, an attempt “to create some visual representation of ‘we’re all in this together.’”

The project keeps these five photographers employed, and they’re splitting the profits 50-50 with the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists, established last month by The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and the New City Arts Initiative, with some help from The FUNd at CACF. Already, the photographers have donated $5,000 to the relief fund and are on track to make another donation of the same size soon.

Folks can sign up for a portrait via cvilleporchportraits@gmail.com and pay what and if they can, on a sliding scale from $0 to $250. When the photographers arrive on site, they take care to maintain at least 10 feet of distance between themselves and their subjects, per CDC guidelines. “That’s what a telephoto lens is for,” says Finn with a laugh.

Finn has experienced a range of emotions during the shoots, from tearing up while talking with a woman who was recently laid off, to feeling a bit starstruck when local civil rights legend Eugene Williams contacted her for a portrait.

Whether photographing an old friend or a new acquaintance, the photographers are learning more about themselves. Robinson usually gets up close with his subjects, so the physical separation is new. For Amos, even this distance feels close—as a street photographer, he doesn’t often interact with his subjects all.

Emily, shown here with her family, is a former RN collecting PPE for the local healthcare community. Photograph by Kristen Finn

As the photographers bond with the photographed, they share these moments with the rest of the community via social media, hoping to foster a sense of connection—and some strength and comfort—despite our distance. 

“I think everything that Charlottesville has been through has us hungry for resilience, and we’ve trained and built for reciprocity and resilience,” says Robinson, noting that community leaders have worked hard to build that in the wake of summer 2017. “We all learned that we need to be there for each other, and we have to…remember to be strong, but also be tender.” 

With that in mind, Amos aims “to show what the community looks like,” to show the racial and ethnic and economic diversity of the Charlottesville area that is often overlooked or erased in the images media, businesses, tourism groups, and others choose to project. Sure, the fundraising matters, he says, but inclusion matters more. “We want everyone to feel like they are part of this, that they can be represented” in this project, in this place, in this moment in time. “This is for everyone.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the name of The FUNd at CACF, which helped provide seed money for the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists. We regret the error. Updated April 8, 2:37pm.

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Culture

Seeing it through: Art Apart initiative offers a window to connection

Rainbow drawings by brothers Henry, age 5, and Sam, age 3, are part of the Art Apart initiative. Henry says that rainbows make him feel “happy!," and he wanted to share his drawing “to make people happy.” Sam thinks that rainbows are “pretty,” so he also contributed a rainbow “for friends to see.” Staff photo

Art in all its forms accomplishes many things. It can entertain. It can teach us something new about ourselves, or others. It can keep us company, keep us busy, keep us calm. It can inspire. It can comfort. At its core, art is about shared humanity. 

With that in mind, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative and Charlottesville Safe Routes to School have partnered on Art Apart: A City Wide Gallery, which is meant to keep us connected creatively as we separate physically during the threat of the COVID-19 virus.

The idea: Make or find a piece of artwork. Display it in a front window, on a door, or on a porch, so that it can be seen from the sidewalk or street. 

The goal: To brighten the day of those passing by. “To give or find ways to stay connected and inspired, and bring a little bit of beauty into the world. To put it out there in spite of all this fear and uncertainty,” says Alan Goffinski, director of The Bridge PAI.

A few different things inspired Art Apart.

With schools closed until August, Kyle Rodland, Safe Routes to School coordinator for the City of Charlottesville, and his colleagues sought to set up some family-oriented activities that could continue the pedestrian safety skills kids typically learn in school—safely crossing the street at a four-way stop, building bike-riding confidence—at home. “Of course, we want people to be safe in the middle of a pandemic,” says Rodland, but people are going to go out. They’re going to take walks, drive or bike to the store.

Another “Art Apart” contribution. Staff photo

“If we can find something that has artistic value, and physical value, as far as getting some exercise and getting out and moving—it’s kind of a wholesome thing,” says Rodland, who called Goffinski to brainstorm.

Goffinski was moved by a recent post in the Charlottesville Mutual Aid Infrastructure Facebook group: A mother posted a picture of her young son sitting by the window overlooking the parking

lot of their apartment building. She explained that all day, the boy called a friendly “hello!” to folks (all adults) in the parking lot, looking for some sort of human connection as he sat cooped up in the house. Not a single person acknowledged him.

“We can do better than this,” Goffinski thought. He hopes Art Apart might help.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a drawing or a painting or an artwork that you’ve made yourself” to foster that connection, says Goffinski. “It can be one that someone else made that you love, that you want to stick in the window for everyone else to see.

Participants can submit their art to The Bridge’s map of places where artworks can be seen around town. 

“All of these arts organizations in town are doing a Hail Mary, trying to figure out how [we] can be helpful, and be impactful,” Goffinski says. “It’s interesting to see people like Kyle, and all these other arts organizations in town not throwing in the towel, but really fighting to make sure that they’re continuing to do good things.”

 

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Culture

In sharp relief: Supporting artists through COVID-19

Rapper LaQuinn is one of the local artists who has received aid from the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists, set up to help artists who have lost gigs, gallery shows, and more due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by Amy and Jackson Smith

In an effort to help artists facing financial hardship because of venue closures and event cancellations due to COVID-19, The Bridge PAI and New City Arts Initiative launched the Charlottesville Emergency Relief Fund for Artists on March 20. Artists can apply to receive up to $300; all they need to show is “proof of practice,” says Bridge Director Alan Goffinski. “Proof of a canceled gig, book tour, art show, etc.,” he adds. “The quality of the work will not be judged. We just need to see proof that artists are artists.”

Andrew Stronge requested funds to recoup a fraction of the contract work he lost due to the cancellation of various regional comic-cons. A graphic designer and screen printer who creates posters, shirts, hats, and more, he relies on those events for a significant chunk of his income. He used his relief fund allocation to buy groceries for himself and his wife, who is pregnant with their first child.

Rapper LaQuinn Gilmore (you’ve seen his posters) will use his allotment to stay afloat, even if it’s for a short time—his live gigs were canceled and in-studio recording sessions are not social-distancing friendly, so he can’t record new stuff to sell. And his restaurant job’s gone to boot. Even before the pandemic, he says he was struggling to find affordable housing for himself and his daughter.  

As of March 25, 61 artists had applied for $15,700 in funding, says New City Arts Executive Director Maureen Brondyke. The initial $10,000 raised has already been dispersed, and they hope donations will continue to come in to cover new requests.

“Many of these artists carefully plan from month to month, juggling [multiple] jobs on top of their creative practice in order to pay the bills,” says Brondyke about the need for immediate help. “We’re all acutely aware right now of how difficult it is to not connect with others in person, and artists are often the ones either on stage or behind the scenes creating these opportunities—at performances, at markets or fairs, in restaurants, at school, in galleries and theaters—work that often goes undervalued until it’s gone.”

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Culture

Sculpture and shadows: Renee Balfour’s “New Work” evokes a haunting stillness

McGuffey Art Center is currently closed due to the COVID-19 virus, so here are some images from Renee Balfour’s “New Work” exhibition, currently up at the gallery. Courtesy of the artist

By Ramona Martinez

The 11 wood sculptures that make up Renee Balfour’s “New Work” at McGuffey Art Center have a haunting stillness. Hung around the main gallery, some white and some unpainted, they are reminiscent of bones and fossilized plants—like prehistoric objects suspended in time. The exhibition is full of contradictions, or maybe polarities: seemingly organic, yet meticulously constructed; static yet full of movement; terrestrial yet otherworldly. More amazing still is that Balfour is a self-taught woodworker who has only been sculpting for four years.

She has, however, been a painter for over three decades. A mentor to rising artists like Madeleine Rhondeau, Balfour is an important presence at McGuffey. Her painting, like her sculpture, is nature- based: Plants and flowers are painted so close up, they become abstractions. But these are no colorful Georgia O’Keeffes—the colors in Balfour’s paintings are melancholic, dark and earthen. The muted tones make us focus on the strength of the movement and the light. And there is an eeriness to her early work. An unsettled feeling that these abstracted plants are alive in a different way, perhaps unnaturally or supernaturally.

“Rooted” by Renee Balfour

Balfour translates this vibe into her three-dimensional “New Work.” “Embrace,” assembled from painted poplar, was inspired by a cow skeleton found on a beach. Two long contours of white wood are parallel, with curved, rib-like cuts wrapping into one another. Next to it, “First Water” is also mammalian, although the kind of mammal isn’t clear. That’s another interesting element to this work: The compositions reference natural forms, but they are not of this world. “Her Thoughts Became Her Sanctuary,”—a large, walnut cocoon of a piece, with curved bands up the center— looks half plant, half mammal. It really doesn’t matter ultimately, because like her paintings, the experience is not trying to determine the content or reference Balfour is using, but rather to enjoy the abstraction—the way the different shapes interact with one another and create movement within the composition.  

The process of making each piece is very labor intensive. Each composition, in part, depends on the natural contours of the wood. But Balfour also creates her own shapes by laminating slabs of wood together, and carving out pieces with a band saw. Even the tiny ribs that are featured in many of the works are cut from larger laminated blocks.

“You know, the one thing about painting, you put on a paint stroke and you don’t like it, you paint it out. Here, if I don’t like the way one piece is moving, then I have to re-cut it,” says Balfour. “Drawing it out is one thing, but when you actually get into the three-dimensional aspects of it, things change very quickly. It makes them somewhat improvisational.”

“Embrace” by Renee Balfour

The haunting quality of the show also comes from the lighting, done in collaboration with artist Scott Smith. The cast shadows are a key component of the work, Balfour says, filling compositional voids. She experiments with different lighting schemes in her woodshop before they are displayed in the gallery. “It’s the subtle shifting of the light that changes the shadows. And it also changes the color of the shadows,” says Balfour. While lighting the show, she says some of the shadows surprised her with their complexity. Thematically, this makes sense—exposed to light, her work undergoes a natural mutation. “All the pieces are designed in a way that the shadows are an extension of the piece,” she says, allowing the viewer to go deeper as a shape-shifting secondary characteristic of the static object emerges.

 

 

 

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Culture

Getting real: CHS students join Robert Shetterly in truth-teller exhibition

"I choose to paint RBG because I have always looked up to her and the role she played in gaining many of the rights that women deserve. She is fearless, powerful, and competent, proving women can do anything men can do—and do it better too. She is able to navigate the broken system and stand up to it, exposing its flaws, which takes a lot of bravery and wisdom. She has given me the confidence to say that I am a feminist and have pride in that," says Lucy Armengol, a student at Charlottesville High School. Image courtesy the artist

By Charles Burns

arts@c-ville.com

In this age of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” there are few values more precious than complete honesty. Robert Shetterly, an American artist, realizes this more than most. Years ago, Shetterly embarked on an ambitious project: a portrait series of citizens committed to addressing pressing issues with the kind of remarkable candor and clear-eyed morality all too lacking in public policy and discussion, both then and today.

In the wake of 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq War, Shetterly became increasingly appalled by the level of dishonesty coming from the U.S. government and the media. Feeling a moral imperative to highlight truth in a time defined by so much falsity, the career illustrator turned to painting.

“The only thing I could think to do was surround myself by painting portraits of people who made me feel much better about living here,” says Shetterly. He originally intended to paint 50 portraits for “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” but hit that goal in a few years and realized he was just getting started. “So I just kept going,” he says. The project is now at 245 portraits and counting.

In Charlottesville, however, the focus isn’t all on Shetterly. Art students at Charlottesville High School were asked to create their own portraits of figures they regard as truth-tellers, with the resulting paintings featured alongside some of Shetterly’s own work in “Youth Speaking Truth,” an exhibition that first hung in the lobby of the Martin Luther King Performing Arts Center at CHS and is now on view at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. Subjects of the student-produced paintings were incredibly varied, ranging from Kobe Bryant to Bernie Sanders to Michelle Alexander to Timothée Chalamet. Some students even painted their parents. Shetterly contributed portraits of Claudette Colvin, a plaintiff in the lawsuit that ended bus segregation, Rachel Corrie, a young activist killed in the Gaza Strip, Maulian Dana, a tribal ambassador and human rights activist, and more.

Abigail Brisset, a sophomore at Charlottesville High School, chose to draw her mother for two reasons: her career in counseling and her Ethiopian heritage. As a counselor, Brisset’s mother is required to offer insight and honesty on an almost daily basis, forced to constantly be both generous and unflinching. “A lot of people trust her, and she speaks a lot of truth,” says Brisset. Her Ethiopian background also informs the way she approaches her interactions with anyone and everyone; according to Brisset, her mother is constantly late to events, in keeping with her culture, because “what’s happening in the moment is more important than where they have to be.” When chided, Brisset’s mother’s response is simple: “This is who I am.”

Richard Herman, a junior, painted Rachel Carson, a marine biologist whose 1962 book Silent Spring, and its explanation of the destructive effects humans have on the natural world, boosted the environmental conservation movement. “She was an important person to my great-grandmother,” says Herman, who first learned about Carson from his art teacher, then heard more about the writer’s influence from his grandmother.

Sophomore Belaynesh Downs-Reeve turned the tables and drew Shetterly himself. “He paints under-represented stories in history,” says Downs-Reeve, noting that this makes Shetterly a truth-teller in his own right.

CHS art teacher Jennifer Mildonian says the exhibit is important for numerous reasons. “This is a special exhibit because the students got to meet a professional artist who’s working in the world of art, but also the world has been so unbalanced that they’ve had some really good discussions about what it means to be a truth-teller, and so I think it’s been a process of digging deep a little bit to figure out what that means to them.”

During a recent reception for the CHS iteration of the show, Shetterly remarked that, “what we’re gradually identifying here, and what the students have helped to identify, is the community that we want to be part of, the values we want to live by. I mean, that was what got me going in the first place. I thought, ‘I can’t live in this country, that allows this kind of thing to happen. I’ve got to surround myself with people who make me feel good about the history of this country.’ And that’s why I started painting.”

Let’s hope that these talented student artists continue to follow Shetterly’s lead.

“Youth Speaking Truth” is an exhibition of 120 portraits by Charlottesville High School students alongside works from Robert Shetterly’s “Americans Who Tell the Truth” series. See it at The Bridge PAI this month.

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Arts

February galleries guide

Sculpture and drawings by Phuong Nguyen are on view in “Constructions” at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery this month. Image courtesy artist

Phuong Nguyen’s small wonders

In recent years, artist Phuong Nguyen has learned the truth of a common proverb: Big things do indeed come in small packages.

After graduating from UVA in 2015, she struggled to find a studio that would allow her to paint and print on a large scale. So she changed her creative practice and started working small, drawing with pencil and paper and sculpting with fabric, embroidery thread, beads, and other craft materials.

The shift suits Nguyen’s work well. Small pieces require viewers to slow down, to come closer in order to appropriately understand the message, which, for Nguyen is quite personal and intimate: Her work, on view this month in a solo show, “Constructions,” at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, explores identity and the trauma of immigration.

“In some ways, it’s hard for me to talk about my experiences,” says Nguyen, who came with her family to the U.S. from Vietnam in 2006. Instead, she says she lets her art do the talking by “making these things, and making them brightly colored and attracting attention, as an avatar…letting them stand for my narrative, it’s helpful and fun.”

Image courtesy Phuong Nguyen

Immigration offered her family more opportunities for a better future, but at a cost, says Nguyen. She didn’t speak English when she started middle school in the States, which often made her feel like an outsider. But art class put her at ease, made her feel confident and helped her communicate with her teachers, her peers, and even herself.

“Looking back on it, I realize the power of art to connect people, and [of art] as therapy. That’s really a powerful tool for me now, for processing,” she says.

Laughter helped her cope, too. After Nguyen spent months tying thousands of tiny French knots on fabric for one piece, she removed the embroidery from the hoop and tossed it over a nearby yogurt cup (which she uses to organize studio materials). “It cracked me up,” she says, and that’s when she knew the piece was complete, yogurt cup and all. “When you know, you just kind of know,” she adds, laughing.

First Fridays: February 7

Openings

The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Face to Face: Portraits of Our Vibrant City,” an annual exhibition that uses the intimate process of portraiture to connect artists and community members who have different life experiences. 5:30-9:30pm.

Charlottesville Tango 208 E. Water St. “Stillness,” a show of pencil sketches by David Currier. 5-7:30pm.

Veronica Jackson at Chroma Projects

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third Street SE. “That’s Pops’s Money,” an installation of fabricated time cards by Veronica Jackson that relates the story of Jackson’s grandmother’s silently devalued work as a homemaker. 5-7pm.

City Clay 700 Harris St. #104. “Out of the Round,” featuring ceramics by Dina Halme, Beth Bernatowicz, John Williamson, Lauren McQuiston, and Paula Whitmer. 5:30-8pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “Americans Who Tell The Truth: Climate Change,” part of the Robert Shetterly portrait series. 5-7pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Drawing on Life with Laughter,” featuring the uplifting and sometimes humorous work of illustrator Jesse Bellavance. 6-8pm.

IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “Through the Looking Glass,” an immersive art experience featuring paintings, photography, and mixed- media pieces by artists such as Aaron Farrington, Joe Vena, Kataryzna Borek, Brielle DuFlon, Chicho Lorenzo, and others. 4-6pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Fiber Transformed,” featuring work from Mary Beth Bellah, Lotta Helleberg, Jill Jensen, Jill Kerttula, Lorie McCown, and Wrenn Slocum; in the Lower Hall Galleries, “Arts Beyond the Streets,” an exhibition by the Black Power Station collaborative from Makhanda, South Africa; in the Upper North Hall Gallery, a show by Nate Szarmach; and in the Upper South Hall Gallery, “Serenity in the Mountains,” a show by Alison Thomas. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. #150. “Art for String Education,” featuring works by Jessie Meehan. 5-7pm.

Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. “Du Temps Perdu,” featuring paintings by Brian Geiger. 6-8pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “A Tribute to Eloise,” an exhibition of works by the e salon watercolorists. 5-7pm.

Tanya Minhas at Second Street Gallery

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “By the Strength of Their Skin,” paintings by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Mabel Juli, and Nonggirrnga Marawili, three of Australia’s most acclaimed women artists. In the Dové Gallery, “Nature Tells Its Own Story,” featuring paintings by Pakistani artist Tanya Minhas. 5:30-7:30pm

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Be the Bravest Version of Yourself,” featuring oil and canvas and printmaking works by Tomie Deng. 6-8pm.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Constructions,” sculpture and works on paper exploring identity and the trauma of immigration, by Phuong Duyen Nguyen. 5-7:30pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “What’s Left,” sculpture by Richmond artist Kiel Posner. 5-7pm.

WVTF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. “Forty Years—Forty Faces,” a series of photographs and written works by Glen McClure and Marshall McClure of folks who have received help from the Virginia Poverty Law Center. 5-7pm.

VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “A Colorful Perspective,” featuring watercolor, acrylic, oil, and digital design pieces by Julia Kwolyk. 5:30-7:30pm.

Other February shows

Albemarle County Circuit Court 501 E. Jefferson St. An exhibition of work by members of the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild.

Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. Featuring work by Cecelia Schultz, Annie Waldrop, and Chuxin Zhang.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. A show of mixed media works on canvas by Paula Boyland.

Mike Sorge at Crozet Artisan Depot

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. Featuring the work of sculptural winged woodturnings and contemporary bowls by Mike Sorge. Reception February 8, 1-3pm.

Crozet Library 2020 Library Ave., Crozet. “Fraile Eden,” a show by underwater photo- grapher Gary Powell.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Select Works from the Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection”; and “The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles,” and “Figures of Memory.”

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “A Place Fit for Women,” part of the Robert Shetterly portrait series.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Time,” featuring works by Ann Lyne, John McCarthy, and Ana Rendich.”

 

Robert Shetterly at the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of work by mixed media artist Sigrid Eilertson.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Retrospective,” a show chronicling more than a decade of the “Every Day is a Holiday” calendars made annually by collaborative artists and lifelong friends Eliza Evans and Virginia Rieley.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Nature,” featuring watercolor, pastel, and acrylic works by Billie Williams.

UVA Health System main hospital lobby, 1215 Lee St. “Expressions in Color,” featuring works by the Piedmont Pastelists.

UVA McIntire School of Commerce 125 Ruppel Dr. “Encrypted Metamorphosis,” a show of work in a variety of media by Deborah Davis and Craig Snodgrass.

Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. “Go Wahoos,” a show of UVA-themed acrylic works by Matalie Deane.

Woodberry Forest School 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry Forest. “in context.,” featuring paintings in acrylic on canvas and paper by Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many area art galleries and exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, email arts@c-ville.com.

Categories
Arts

Dog tales: Mysterious public art series uses frankfurters to make a point

Sketches of humanlike hot dogs making cultural commentary have been popping up around the City of Charlottesville since last summer. Image courtesy @stilts_walker

They appeared over the summer, three identical wheatpaste posters of anthropomorphic hot dogs in buns, wearing sneakers and pedaling unicycles as they exclaimed in speech bubbles, “Hot dog!”

One, pasted to the side of the raised parking lot between Market and South Streets, was gone after about a week, but the others—on Cherry Avenue and West Main Street, stuck around. And then more started to pop up.

“A hard rain’s gonna fall,” warns a hot dog holding an umbrella on the Dewberry hotel skeleton. “Lockheed Martin stock increased 3.6% today,” its twin hollers from the side of another downtown building. “Rise up,” insists one standing atop a pair of stilts. “Shred the gnar,” “no war but class war,” say two others on skateboards.

A few weeks ago, the images appeared on Instagram under the handle @stilts_walker, and this reporter saw it as an opportunity to catch up with the artist, Charlottesville’s hot dog Banksy, if you will.

I slid into @stilts_walker’s DMs, expecting the wurst (“no way, you weenie”). But the artist agreed to an interview on three conditions: One, that we link up in the old Chili’s parking lot. Two, that I mention the location of our meeting in this story. And three, that their identity remain anonymous.

Image courtesy @stilts_walker

As we sit in my car on a chilly January day, the artist is frank about how the sausage was made. “People should do the things they wish were happening. I wanted to see this happening, so I did it,” the artist says. “I thought a hot dog on a unicycle sounded fun. It’s ubiquitous…everyone can inherently understand the humor in an animated hot dog. And it’s easy to draw, fast.”

“I initially didn’t plan on doing more than one,” @stilts_walker continues. “I had some supplies and a few free hours, so I threw it together and didn’t give much thought to continuing the project or doing new things, new adaptations.”

At the same time, the artist understands the influence art and culture can have in shaping movements, particularly progressive movements. Could an anthropomorphic hot dog help shape a movement, even in a small way? The artist believes it can. The character can be adapted into a variety of situations, and more than one dimension (at least conceptually speaking…the posters are 2-D), and it can say just about anything. “The things that are being expressed in these speech bubbles are things that a lot of people are thinking about all the time, so why wouldn’t the hot dog also be thinking about them? It seemed like a way to, in a fairly non-aggressive manner, communicate some pretty blunt ideas and ideologies,” says the artist, who’s incorporated social and political commentary into some of the posters (i.e., “Rise up”).

A couple weeks ago, the artist pasted up a hot dog riding a hobby horse in the CAT bus shelter on Market Street directly across from the Robert E. Lee statue in Market Street Park. The illustration humorously mocks the statue, but the speech bubble’s no joke: “That’s racist,” this hot dog said.

This particular poster, pasted in the CAT bus shelter on Market Street directly across from the Robert E. Lee statue, was removed within hours of its appearance. Image courtesy @stilts_walker

That particular poster disappeared only a few hours after it went up, but the artist isn’t jumping to conclusions about why it was removed. It may or may not have been a statue supporter who took it down, the artist says. “It could very well just be the reality that a bus driver sees something and reports it, and perhaps Charlottesville Area Transit has a reputation for quickly addressing graffiti concerns on their property.”

The artist (or artists…there may be more than one hot dogger out there) hopes the wheatpaste posters can inspire, or at least pique the curiosity of Charlottesville’s citizens. “It’s no earth-shattering or groundbreaking act,” the artist says of the work. “But I do strongly believe that culture, and having a vibrant, creative underbelly in a city is critical to maintaining [that city’s] cultural identity. And I would like that identity to be progressive and welcoming and friendly, and fun.”

And by doing this anonymously, @stilts_walker isn’t just watching their buns. That anonymity injects a much-needed element of curiosity into the city. People (including some Charlottesville city councilors) regularly post their own pics of the hot dog posters to social media, expressing surprise and delight over the project that began on a playful whim and has evolved into something quite engaging. Some folks have even sent the artist fan art.

Image courtesy @stilts_walker

Going forward, the series creator plans to play around with the poster illustrations, text, and context in order to keep Charlottesville on its toes and in conversation with whatever these hot dogs have to say.

“In a small-ish town like Charlottesville, where it’s easy to feel like you know everything about everything, having a little mysterious whimsy enter your day, enter your life, is exciting,” says the artist. The hot dogs give us something to relish.

Categories
Arts

January galleries guide

“You Belong Here Now,” a series of Polly Breckenridge’s monotype prints, opens at Chroma Projects gallery Friday, January 3. Image courtesy the artist

Precarious balance

Polly Breckenridge’s monotypes at Chroma Projects

Part of the appeal of printmaking is that it gives an artist the ability to create multiple copies of the same image.

But for local artist Polly Breckenridge, the attraction lies in the printmaking process itself—the way the pressure of the press embosses each design element into the paper, for instance—and how it satisfies her craving for “creating objects of beauty with color and layers and texture.” And so she uses that process to make monotypes (unique, one-off prints), some of which are on view in “You Belong Here Now,” at Chroma Projects gallery through January.

Image courtesy the artist

Inspired in part by No One Belongs Here More Than You, a collection of short stories published by filmmaker, writer, and performance artist Miranda July in 2005, Breckenridge’s series of monotypes use shape, line, color, texture, and a set series of human gestures to create compositions that she says “[analyze] how much we have in common, and how we’re different,” that address “our precarious balance as we go through our lives, as to where we belong, and that feeling of belonging.”

Some of the prints are vibrant and bold, with layers of ink covering most of the space; others are more ephemeral. Similar figures repeat throughout the series, representative of gestures that Breckenrdige created and chose “as an expression of a certain universal feeling.”

In one piece, a figure plunges headfirst into a hoop, only its legs still visible, in what Breckenridge calls “a visual representation of diving down a rabbit hole,” of how sometimes it’s easy to dive into another person (or even oneself), but other times, with a different person, that same action is quite difficult.

Image courtesy the artist

Another piece shows a figure caught by the big hand in “a falling kind of gesture,” says Breckenridge. “Being caught by something bigger than yourself, which could be the collective consciousness, or another person that’s there to catch you.”

Because each viewer brings their own experience and interpretation to the pieces, Breckenridge constantly learns new things about the meaning contained within her works. Perhaps that’s because, like the monotypes themselves, we humans are all alike, and yet each of us is completely unique.

First Fridays: January 3

Openings

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third Street SE. “You Belong Here Now,” featuring monotype prints by Polly Breckenridge. 5-7pm.

Fellini’s 200 W. Market St. “The Creator’s Creation,” a show of photography by Laura Parker. 5:30-7pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “”, featuring acrylic and mixed media works by Jim Henry; in all other hall galleries, the new members show, featuring photography, metalwork, oil paintings, and more by new McGuffey associate members. 5:30-7:30pm.

Michael Williams at McGuffey Art Center

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “New Zealand Watercolors,” an exhibition of work by Blake Hurt. 5-7pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. An exhibition of photography by Charlie Dean. 5-7pm.

Other January shows

Albemarle County Circuit Court 501 E. Jefferson St. An exhibition of work by members of the Central Virginia Watercolor Guild.

The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Ridged,” an exhibition of work by local LGBTQ+ artists. Opens January 10.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Coloring Outside the Lines,” featuring fluid acrylic works by Paula Boyland.

C’Ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. Studio sale, featuring works from member artists.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Otherwise,” exploring the influence of LGBTQ+ artists, and  “Time to Get Ready: fotografia social,” both through January 5; “Select Works from the Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection”; and “The Inside World: Contemporary Aboriginal Australian Memorial Poles,” and “Figures of Memory,” both opening January 24.

Java Java 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “How do you C’ville?,” an exhibit by Allison Shoemaker highlighting local businesses and investors.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “A Place Fit for Women,” featuring paintings by Robert Shetterly. Opening January 18, 6-8pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Dean Dass: Venus and the Moon,” featuring atmospheric landscape paintings as well as stylized works of abstracted shapes and heavily worked surfaces, through January 19, with a reception January 12, 2-4pm; and “Time: Ann Lyne, John McCarthy, Ana Rendich” opening January 25, 4-6pm.

Ana Rendich at Yes Leux Du Monde

Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St. “CONFLICT/Resolution,” Adam Disbrow’s series reflecting the merger of the “seen” with the “unseen.”

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Bold,” featuring acrylic paintings by Novi Beerens and collages by Karen Whitehill.

Over the Moon Bookstore 2025 Library Ave., Crozet. “Natural Light,” a show of oil and acrylic paintings by John Carr Russell.

Radio IQ/WVTF 216 W. Water St. “40 Faces, 40 Years,” a photography exhibit marking the forty years of service of the Virginia Poverty Law Center. Opening January 15, 5-7pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “Illuminations & Illusions,” a show of paintings and sculpture spanning more than four decades of Beatrix Ost’s career as a visual artist, through January 10; and “By the Strength of Their Skin,” paintings by Regina Pilawuk Wilson, Mabel Juli, and Nonggirrnga Marawili, three of Australia’s most acclaimed women artists, opening January 24. In the Dové Gallery, “The Slow Death of Rocks,” reverse painting on glass and sculpture by Doug Young, through January 10.

Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes at Woodberry Forest School

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Way. “Dreamy Landscapes,” featuring work in oil by Julia Kindred.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Modern Folk Art,” a juried exhibition; “Iconoclasts,” featuring works on fabric by Annie Layne; and “Small Works,” featuring pieces by SVAC members.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Marker’s Edge,” featuring works in marker on paper by Philip Jay Marlin.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Retrospective,” a show chronicling more than a decade of the “Every Day is a Holiday” calendars made annually by collaborative artists and lifelong friends Eliza Evans and Virginia Rieley. 5:30-7:30pm.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Shadow Sites,” an exhibition of installation and photographic work by Steaphan Paton and Robert Fielding, two acclaimed contemporary Australian Indigenous artists. Opening January 24.

Woodberry Forest School 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry Forest. “in context.,” featuring paintings in acrylic on canvas and paper by Madeleine Rhondeau-Rhodes. Reception January 9, 6:30-7:30pm.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many area art galleries and exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, email arts@c-ville.com.