Tag: Fine Arts

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.

I met up with Claibourne Reppert, owner of The Honeycomb Salon and Gallery, at her renovated warehouse apartment just before 10 on a Sunday morning. She was cooking hashbrowns and slowly waking up after a late night performing as the lead singer of The Sharkettes, a fictional girl group put together for local math metal band Sharkopath’s latest music video.  Her tiny orange kitten chased a green sock back and forth across the wooden floor and Gaston, her English bulldog (adopted from a Frenchman), tried to balance himself on a shiny red ball. Huge, brightly painted canvases and sculpture were stacked against the walls and balanced in corners in a makeshift gallery archive.

Reppert has been styling hair and setting trends in D.C. and Charlottesville since 2006, winning the Best of C-VILLE hairstylist award in 2011 and 2012. In June 2012, riding off her success at Moxie Hair & Body Lounge, she opened her own shop, The Honeycomb Salon and Gallery on East Market Street, parlaying her sense of style and tastemaking into the local art scene.

A year after opening, with a growing client list and the demands of booking out artists and promoting events mounting, Reppert hired her brother-in-law, Ryan Trott, most recently of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to take over management of the gallery.

Trott, a visual artist and musician himself, joined Reppert and C-VILLE with some strong coffee and Carpe donuts for a conversation about the future of The Honeycomb Gallery and Charlottesville’s subversive art scene.

C-VILLE: Why did you decide to start up a gallery in addition to the salon? You weren’t busy enough?

Claibourne Reppert: “Originally, the idea for the gallery came because the space I rented for The Honeycomb was just too much space for me. I wanted to do something interesting that kind of gave back to the community and cultivated more of the environment that I want at the salon—the people that the art shows attract are the clients I want and vice versa. There’s a nice crossover.”

One problem with that is I’ve been to one of your openings where a client has tried to get you to cut her hair in the middle of it… 

Ryan Trott: “Is that really true?”

CR: “Oh, yeah. You get ’em a little drunk and they’re like, ‘I feel like this side is a little shorter than this side…’”

How would you describe the artwork you feature for someone who’s never been to the gallery?

CR: “Younger, funkier, and maybe a bit edgier… God, are these all horrible buzz words? [laughs] I mean, one show we had was all just wizards. It was all 4/20, wizards, and weed, and I was like, ‘This is awesome!’”

Does that create a contrast between the gallery and the salon crowd?

CR: “Definitely. Many of my clients are on the more conservative side, so it’s kind of fun to have those two extremes. The gallery is in line with my personality so I like being all, ‘O.K., you need to go sit down there with the art for an hour while your highlights process. Have fun looking at all these wizards.’”

RT: [laughs] “Yeah, you can read People or you can look at some cool art.”

CR: “Some clients who don’t have time or interest in going out to galleries can do both. I love having a St. Anne’s [-Belfield School] mom come in for a cut and browse the gallery and be like, ‘Oh wow, that’s a woman [having sex with] a deer.’”

 So, I know you also don’t charge a commission on any of the work sold in your gallery. That’s pretty rare—what prompted that decision?

CR: “Well, I don’t pay for advertising for the salon and I feel that the little bit of money that I put into the openings is my form of advertising. Also, with a lack of commission, I’ve been amazed at how affordably artists are pricing their work. They sell really well. The only commission I take is a piece of art.”

 You have a piece from every show?

CR: “Yeah, I’m stocking up my own little collection. I think it’ll be cool after The Honeycomb ceases to exist to have a record of all the shows.”

 Do you guys want it to stay focused on mostly local artists?

RT: “I definitely want to branch out. I’ve reached out to people in Baltimore, it would be nice to mix it up so it’s not mostly friends at the openings. It’s cool that a lot of artists we know in D.C. and New York have Charlottesville connections too.”

What are your plans for the gallery moving forward?

RT:  “We have a show in August with Daniel Cundiff from the Roanoke band Eternal Summers, which will be the first show I’m really involved with. And I’ve been going back and forth with Jamie Morgan who is lined up to be our show for July. We’ve got some lighting renovations planned, and I’m also getting a library going in the gallery. It’ll feature contemporary art books that visitors can flip through. It’s kind of a funny space (the ceilings are only 6’2″), so we’re talking to artists about creating alternative installations. I’m really excited to connect with the gallery community here.”

CR: “The haircutting pays the rent and the gallery is just for fun. We’ll keep doing it as long as it’s fun.”

“Apocalyptic Dentistry,” a sculptural jewelry installation by Jamie Morgan, is on view at The Honeycomb Salon and Gallery through the month of July. The opening reception is Friday, July 5, from 5-9pm and will feature a candy buffet and music by DJ Shay Shay the Wulf Baby.

The Telegraph is unique in Charlottesville for its wide selection of zines, indie comics, and small press books. Among these are several works by local artists, including a short comic by the young artist Francesca Rowan titled Alencia.

This zine-style stapled booklet contains a short sword-and-sorcery story about a young heroine who uses her skills in magic and fighting to vanquish undead forces. The story is simple and clear, and her character begins to develop in interesting ways by the end of the seventeen pages.

Rowan’s draftsmanship has stronger and weaker moments throughout the story. Her drawings are simple and are influenced by some of the naïveté art styles which permeate indie comics as well as contemporary illustration. The goal of this drawing approach is to reach for emotive clarity rather than representational clarity, which suits the art of storytelling. Some of Rowan’s drawings are confident with clean marks which elegantly depict motions and actions. On page twelve (spoiler alert) the first panel depicts the heroine lopping off the head of a desiccated undead lady-creature. This drawing in particular fantastically captures a slice of time. The image is reminiscent of the graphic stylized drawings of Mike Mignola. Some of Rowan’s drawings, however, are less confident, and revert to generic depictions of faces and objects. This seems to happen most often when Rowan is describing intricate facial expressions or larger environments. In general, she seems most comfortable rendering monsters and small atmospheric moments.

The storytelling, however, is very interesting and well thought out. She leads the viewer through each moment of the story effortlessly. Rowan shows us around each scene using shifting aspects to build suspense as the undead creep from their graves. The drawings and panel compositions direct the viewers to each important moment as it happens, without relying on narration or predictably consistent jumps in time. One of the most fantastic aspects of comics and visual storytelling is that when done well, the craft becomes invisible.

The writing in Alencia reads a little campy. It fits so perfectly and absolutely in the fantasy genre. The dialogue is functional and economic except for an occasional arbitrary exclamation. It seems that the story is designed in an episodic manner. Rowan introduces conflicts which are not resolved and gives small glimpses of characters, like Alencia’s talking cat companion, which we immediately want to know more about. These elements create the beginning of what I imagine could be a fairly interesting story arc. Even the subtitle, “A Noble Deed – First Story,” suggests additional chapters to follow.

Alencia is not a masterpiece, but the work is lighthearted and fun to read. There is no mention of when future stories or chapters will be released, however this sort of work only gets better the longer an artist pursues it. I look forward to reading future installments.

-Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

Everyone has his or her own way of processing information. Some of us think visually; the neurological place where seeing is believing and photographic memories are born. Others have an astounding knack for audio perception, memorizing information primarily with their psychoacoustic faculties. There are those who rely heavily upon numerical data and others who do best when offered a literary source of information.

No matter how we perceive the world, we all have strengths and weaknesses in terms of what holds our interest. All of us enjoy thinking about some things but not others. That’s why some of us chose to practice law, while others study rat brains, or cook French cuisine for a living.

These inevitable truths can leave those of us in the visual arts with a difficult dilemma to overcome. That is to say, even if there is a very important message we wish to convey through our creations, there is no guarantee that viewers will take that information away from those visual representations alone.

Photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff attempt to overcome this obstacle by combining their respective efforts in a large scale research collaboration that touches both on the power of the photographic image and the weight of infographics. The resulting exhibit is titled “Petrochemical America: Project Room,” and offers a multifaceted approach to discovering the issues surrounding the proliferation of petroleum products in American culture.

Some of the images are primarily visual. Viewers are given the opportunity to bask in the hauntingly surreal and beautiful photographs captured by Richard Misrach. These large-scale images depict the industrialized landscape of the Mississippi River Corridor also known as “Cancer Alley.” One of them shows a field of green, a sky of blue, and in between, a small ranch style home with decorative plants on the front porch. The house is dwarfed by the expansive chemical plant towering behind it. Another photograph shows a misty morning landscape. In it, several over-sized spherical factory tanks are faintly visible through the mist, while the hollow grave-like slabs in the foreground rise up like memories; an indication of where homes once stood and people once lived.

Other images primarily function to showcase information. Viewers are presented with a combination of graphs, topographical maps, posters, leaflets, interesting emails, linear doodles, and scribbled notes. Each of these pieces of information was obtained through extensive research. Taken individually, they seem meaningless, but put on display side-by-side, they form narratives pertaining to complex economic and ecological forces that have shaped this landscape.

Somewhere in between, viewers will find several large infographic artworks: aesthetically pleasing representations of information gathered and then combined through graphic design. Various subjects were chosen with obvious specificity to convey very precise meanings. One such piece mashes together aesthetic elements with at least five distinct infographic systems. Superimposed are an image of bluish-black oil floating on water, an illustrated depiction of evolutionary history and the rise of man, a graph of carbon monoxide levels in our atmosphere through history, a cutaway view of the geological changes through time (from the appearance of fossil fuel to its complete depletion) and a map of the Mississippi River. Another such piece shows cutaway views of a human’s internal organs combined with extensive information regarding the astounding number of cancers that are caused by petroleum products that proliferate in our daily lives.

With such a broad spectrum, some of the infographics have lost their clarity and meaning. Even if the viewer will walk away with an idea, or a general concept, certain types of data are hard to glean from the visual representations alone. One such piece as mentioned above, depicts the evolution of man and the depletion of fossil fuels over time. The piece hypothesizes that when fossil fuel is all used up and carbon monoxide levels in the atmosphere make the earth uninhabitable, the evolutionary chain will end. Concrete data in this graphic is essentially unattainable or unreadable. This leads us to ask whether is it more important to lay out actual facts or to give just a general idea in an exhibit like this.

There are several other pieces in the show that present factual information very concretely with less focus on aesthetics. These pieces successfully function as a call to social action through an artistic representation of statistics and scientific evidence.

This show attempts to balance the vivid emotional photographs with the stark graphical overlays. Misrach and Orff have created a body of work which functions very well as a whole, though each individual work is executed with varying degrees of success. Some are bulky or over-worked, some beautiful and terrifying, while others are haunting but obscure. Perhaps this is meant to mimic the noisy proliferation of information we experience and analyze on a daily basis.

These photographs will fill viewers with an undeniable sense of horror and helplessness. It successfully presents us with information ranging from the things we use daily that are made of petroleum, to the types of cancers that are caused by those products. On a larger scale, it reminds us how the production of these products affects our environment and how it will change our future. It even gives us a window into the lives that were destroyed by various illnesses caused by petroleum products and the very plants that produce them all over the world. The show is painful to look at and yet the compelling information and poetic imagery is hard to look away from.

Unlike some other exhibits that display various inconvenient truths, “Petrochemical America” leaves us with a small glimmer of hope. Rather than leaving viewers with nothing more than an empty feeling in the pit of their stomach as a starting point for change, the exhibit offers up a small handbook full of potential solutions. Entitled, “Glossary of Terms and Solutions for a Post Petrochemical Culture,” the leaflet covers a whole range of options available to us as a means for coping with the consequences of our collective actions. Somehow, it is relieving to be reminded that despite the fact that the giant scale of social, political and environmental factors that led us to this point are much bigger than any of us imagine, even smalls actions like carpooling are a step in the right direction.

Ultimately, “Petrochemical America” as one complete entity achieves many things that a standard body of artwork does not. It functions to successfully present research and analysis in the form of an aesthetic visual art display. It is a scary, but also hopeful. And above all, it provides information via more than just one medium, which should allow people from all walks of life to appreciate and understand it.

~Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller

 “Petrochemical America: Project Room” is on display at the McGuffey Art Center through June 30, 2013.

For the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, Rich Tarbell and Brian Wimer have created a series of charming and nostalgic narrative photographs. The series, “Slumber Party Massacre,” is essentially a remake of the 1982 film of the same name. Tarbell and Wimer have obviously altered the story and how we view it by shooting photographs rather than film. This approach offers a unique vision of the slasher movies and their formulaic pivotal moments. It allows viewers to take some time to relish every detail, from the subtle foreshadowing, to the stunning climax, and all the gore and screaming that transpires in between.

The photographs are highly detailed glossy metal prints which are hung in a small floating gallery under the Market Street Garage. The images themselves are very striking and the printing method gives them a refurbished vintage feel. As you enter the gallery space, the narrative unfolds from left to right. It is also interesting to note how the photographs are dated by the 1980′s period objects which populate them. In the series you will find a wired landline telephone, an Ouija board, and a small television with a twist knob for the channels.

The way the images are constructed is varied and versatile. Some photographs are composed like still frames of film. An example of this is the image shot from the killer’s perspective. In it we see one gloved hand holding a trowel and a bloody heart held in the other. This is a technique often used in horror films to give a strong sense of point of view, as well as to preserve the mystery of the killer’s identity. Alternately, some frames are composed more like traditional photographs. For example, the first image in the series contains a lot of information that is conveyed through the composition. This image takes time to examine, and would function very differently with moving parts. However, all the images function to further the narrative by the most effective means available, drawing from the crude and campy implementations of the film genre itself.

The screenplay for the original 1982 film Slumber Party Massacre, written by the American feminist author Rita Mae Brown, was intended to be a parody of the genre. The producers shot the film as a straight genre piece instead. Nonetheless, the film retained elements of comedy and philosophy which were uncommon to its era. Although the photographs are difficult to analyze as one would a film, it seems as though Tarbell and Wimer have picked up on these subtle notes and carried them over to their reworked script. The photographs depict a predominantly female cast who live up to the standard of Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street-not merely surviving by accident or relying upon external forces for salvation. Instead, the photographs depict a female instigated and female resolved murderous rampage, with many male and female casualties along the way. Tarbell and Wimer have also made the interesting decision (spoiler alert) to make the killer one of the slumber party participants. This is not a unique strategy in slasher films, but an interesting one considering the feminist undertones.

Despite possessing such a concrete narrative, a few of the photographs still manage to stand out as beautiful works independent of the series. In particular the first and last images are strikingly well composed, and distort time like a skilled painting.

In addition, we would be amiss not to mention the forethought taken in planning the opening reception for the show as well. Culinary themes run throughout the photos and it really put a smile on our faces to see the props from the photo-shoot offered up as refreshments. After all, who doesn’t want to eat pizza and popcorn and candy while enjoying a bunch of campy-fun, horror-filled photographs brimming with pizza and popcorn and candy? (We really giggled at the electric carving knife placed with a certain nonchalance among the pizza boxes!)

As a whole, the series is very nostalgic, lighthearted, and visually enjoyable. It is well worth a visit.

“Slumber Party Massacre” by Rich Tarbell and Brian Wimer is on display as an official Community Exhibit of the internationally renowned LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph. The show will be displayed alongside the “It’s Only Rock’n’Roll, Volume 2″ exhibit by Rich Tarbell. Both exhibits can be viewed from June 12-21 at Pop-Up Galleries 106 & 110 on the first floor of the Market Street Parking Garage.

~Aaron Miller and Rose Guterbock

The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center encapsulates the seminal role played by the quest for and the denial of public education in the history of African-Americans. Promoted by Thomas Jefferson as key to the success of democracy, education was denied to black people in Southern states between 1800 and 1835. Despite this, African-Americans managed to educate themselves surreptitiously, knowing it was the surest route out of the tyranny of their existence. Their struggle, embodied in the center’s past, provides an essential window into this nation’s history.
Though the Jefferson School opened in 1926, it can trace its genesis to a freedmen’s school that opened just four months after the end of the Civil War. The center’s permanent interactive exhibition “Pride Overcomes Prejudice,” opening in September, chronicles the school’s rich history, revealing the resilience and resolve of Charlottesville’s African-American community in the pursuit of education.
Local African-Americans were “deeply engaged in the political process that determined access to education from Reconstruction to the end of the 20th century. “In the case of Charlottesville, their efforts meant pushing back against a system where separate was anything but equal,” said Executive Director Andrea Douglas.
Many don’t realize that the school held an enormous position for Charlottesville and Albemarle’s African- American citizens above and beyond its educational one. Without other options, it became a de facto community center. From plays to concerts, every range of entertainment took place here as well as various social events. The center will continue this tradition, offering the community a place where African-American culture and history is sustained and honored.
State-of-the-art, with all the bells and whistles you would expect in a first class museum, the center allows Douglas enormous latitude in the type of art she can exhibit. Incorporated into the design is a genealogy hub where local residents can trace their family histories, making connections with the larger African-American story of the United States. Here “histories are being questioned, developed, and articulated,” said Douglas. “We have come a long way into defining and undefining what Charlottesville’s black community is supposed to be in the minds of all of those people who think they know.”
Each year, the center will present four temporary exhibitions, monthly lectures, performances and a film series in its Dolby-surround theater. In addition, art and language classes will enable students of all ages to “engage with cultural production that reflects the diversity of our American landscape.”
The focus is mid-career artists like photographer Lola Flash, whose work will be on exhibit through August 30. Based in New York, Flash spent a decade in London where she received her M.A. Her photograph, “Stay afloat, use a rubber” is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Interestingly, Flash happens to have deep roots in Charlottesville: Her great great great grandfather was Berkeley Bullock, a landowner and deacon of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and she traces her family back to Sally Hemings.
Flash’s work deals with issues of gender, race, and sexual orientation, deconstructing pre-conceived notions and stereotypes. She is concerned with the phenomenon of “pigmentocracy” wherein lighter skin is equated with beauty. It’s an issue that exists within the entire African diaspora, whether one is talking about Brazil, Jamaica or the U.S. Aside from the soul-crushing injury such a hierarchy of skin tone does to self image, it also has real socioeconomic ramifications—going back to slavery, for example, where the slaves with lighter skin were assigned to the house, while the darker skinned ones labored in the field.
Flash’s arresting photographs of men and women, shot in London, South Africa, and New York, command attention. Flash keeps the locations intentionally ambiguous, but the subjects all have a unity of style: They’re hip, urban and urbane. With the exception of the light skinned women, gender is blurred—the message being one of desirability. But at least on the outside they don’t seem to be too bothered by these issues. Confident and self-possessed, they appear comfortable in their own skin no matter what its shade. And perhaps the fact that the new generation is more tolerant with respect to sexual orientation and race has a lot to do with this.
Large format (5′ x 4′) C-prints are hung just above eye-level so that you are looking up at them, giving them a position of power. The film border is left intentionally visible signaling that these are not rarefied portraits. Unframed and affixed to the wall with Velcro, there’s an edgy freshness and immediacy to the work. Nothing stands between you and it.
Flash exemplifies exactly what the Center is trying to do. “By concentrating on artists of the diaspora, which you don’t get to see very often in Charlottesville, we’re trying to diversify the city’s arts offerings,” Douglas explained. “We’re not limiting our selection to just American artists. Our desire is to exhibit artists from the Caribbean or from Africa or L.A.—artists whose point of view is so vastly different from an East Coast point of view. The work is going to look different and this will challenge the notion of cultural specificity. Black people are not monolithic. We are not all thinking the same thoughts or needing to have the same set of dialogues that have been prescribed for us. Creating those spaces where these dialogues become multiple and temporal is what I see as the center’s role.”
Lola Flash will give a gallery talk on June 14 at 5:30pm in the African American Heritage Center auditorium.

“[sur]passing”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center
Through August 30

We take mobility and locomotion for granted. Our bodies are designed like a well-oiled machine and our nervous system works with such fluidity that we often forget the complexity involved in creating movement. It isn’t until we sustain an injury that we remember all the physiological aspects, and how hard it is when that range of motion is taken away from us.

Throughout time, and all over the world, capturing the very moment in which movement occurs has fueled many artist’s ambitions. From Degas’ dancers, to Turner’s “Rain, Steam and Speed,” to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” movement has offered a certain magic.

Guillermo Ubilla’s series “Nudes in Motion,” currently on display at FIREFISH Gallery, contributes to the tradition of celebrating movement. His photographs are clean, well presented and strive to capture quick movements of the human body in a clear and visually penetrating way.

The photographs are black and white figurative images with simple compositions. Each image contains one or more nude female figure, the visual evidence of its movement, and nothing else. The backgrounds are  black or white, providing an empty space through which the bodies can move. Ubilla  exposed his images over a period of time and captured the artifacting and blurring as his models moved. The evidence of movement is caught in the form of fingers tracing lines across the composition, fuzzy spheres repeating themselves in space, or phantoms appearing behind shadowy figures. Each piece gives the impression of shadows, blurred vision, even echoes of inverted x-rays. The contrast within the images is heightened, the edges are soft, supple and distinctly human.

The photographs are not portraits. The identity and details of the individuals, other than an occasional tattoo, are not significant. The figures in the photographs are all females and all nude. The lack of clothing reveals bizarre and interesting details of the figure’s movements. The collapsed time twists and contorts the bodies of the models. However, it is not clear in the photographs why the figures are all female. As a study of movement, the show seems narrowly focused in this respect.

The images give the viewer little choice but to focus on the figure in motion. The black space around the figures serves a few purposes. It provides contrast, sets the figures in a particular place in the composition and also provides an empty feeling where we can easily imagine where the figures are moving next. In many of his images this purpose is clear and effective. However, Ubilla also tends to overuse blank space, achieving a crisp design and aesthetic, but conflicting with the way the image functions. The large spaces sometimes add nothing to the image or even dampen the effect of subtle movements in the figure.

According to the artist, “The idea behind the project was to capture the movement of a human body over a period of a few seconds. Often photographs are about a single, decisive moment capture in a fraction of a second. I wanted to take a moment and spread it out over a few seconds and see what kinds of shapes and patterns the human body can make under those conditions.” To accomplish this, Ubilla used a variety of lighting equipment; continuous lighting sources and flash stroboscopic lighting, as well as a long shutter speed to record the path of movement of the body. The method used to capture these images is not obvious, leaving the photographers work mysterious and a little eerie.

The finished pieces clearly depict how well Ubilla uses the tools of his craft. He also printed, matted, and framed all of the pieces for the show himself. Each portion of Ubilla’s creative process has been well controlled with quality in mind.

Guillermo Ubilla’s show “Nudes in Motion” at the Firefish Gallery opens Thursday, June 6 from 7pm – 9pm and will remain on display for the month of June, a month in which we celebrate the photograph.

It is well worth a visit to see well thought out and well presented work by a local artist. Ubilla was also recently featured in Black and White Magazine.

~Rose Guterbock and Aaron Miller of C’ville Art Blog

Whether hanging on the walls of a Charlottesville hotspot or on display on the Downtown Mall, paintings by Kris Bowmaster are immediately recognizable. Not only does Bowmaster create pieces with distinguishable vibrancy and wistfulness, but he paints with a purpose that speaks.

Bowmaster’s upcoming show “Predator/Prey,” was inspired by photographs of animals attacking and consuming each other. He was especially moved by a particular photo of a lion on the back of a bison, triggering a sense of wonder at seeing two animals approaching what he calls “ultimate intimacy.” Indeed, as he put it, “how can you get closer to anything other than to ingest and digest it?”

Despite a lack of formal training, Bowmaster has been an avid devotee of many art forms including dancing, singing, and poetry for years. Dance often bleeds into his painting, both in form and process; in one specific methodology of his process he “approaches the canvas with paint on [his] fingers to perform [dance] gestures,” purely to implant the sensuousness and vehemence of dance into the strokes of pigment.

“Painting is violent,” Bowmaster said. “I’m constantly destroying what I’m doing and adding on to it.” The cathartic nature of his works reveals an aggravated and turbulent, but still formative inner dialogue.

When asked to elaborate on the thematic elements confronted in the ferocious depictions in “Predator/Prey,”  Bowmaster explained that it’s more an “exploration” rather than a thematic progression that necessitates a resolution, and that he is staying true to his convention of self-development with an audience. “It’s about people, not animals,” he said. He believes that one plays the role of both predator and prey upon reaching a depth of intimacy in a relationship, and that the roles are interchangeable and alternating.

Much of his artwork is his way of “figuring things out in front of people” and staying in touch with himself. “People should come before a painting and be able to feel that the artist went through something,” Bowmaster said. He dives head first into a visceral and primitive ideology and, in doing so, reorchestrates his perception of himself and his experience, promoting candidness and mindfulness in the midst of a separated and inhibited reality.

He explained that, in “Predator/Prey,” he aims to address the “precariousness of closeness,” and the idea that relationships are about surrender and “coming down the ladder” of power and autonomy to sink into coalescence and interrelationship. This theme will be further explored during dance performances with Charlotte James and Dylan Jacobs that will accompany the show opening on June 8.

Through his art, Bowmaster creates his own turn to be heard and delivers a message of great magnitude. “So few people get a turn to be heard in the world,” he said. ~Chelsea Blakely

Saturday 6/8  No cover, 5:30pm. “Predator/Prey,”  Performances begin at 7pm with Dylan Jacobs, Charlotte James, and Kris Bowmaster, followed by a poetry reading by Colotte Blount and a DJ Dance Party with DJ Bow and DJ Bristol  8:30pm. Milli Joe’s Coffee, 400 Preston Ave. 282-2659.

“The Civil War was a uniquely visual and literary war,” keynote speaker, Dr. Charles F. Bryan, explained Wednesday night at the Bradley T. Arms Detachment 1256 in Shadwell. The program, “Civil War Artist, Diarist, and Prisoner of War,” was sponsored by the Marine Corps League and featured the collection of Robert Knox Sneden, a Union soldier who produced nearly 1,000 watercolors and five volumes of diary entries during and after the war.

Bryan, President Emeritus of the Virginia Historical Society, spoke to a small but interested crowd, expounding on the life and work of the most prolific Civil War artist ever. Although the presentation, aided by PowerPoint images, was a fluid explanation of the man and the history surrounding him, there was little analysis of the artwork and the themes, both artistic and personal, running through the work.

An engineer from New York, Sneden helped map areas of Virginia and the old South that had never been drawn or configured before. In his spare time, he sketched battle scenes and landscapes, cities, like Charleston and Atlanta, and the army forts and stations he occupied. He also recorded everything that passed his eye or entered his weary mind, especially the details of daily soldier life, his prison sentences, and his observations of the brutal reality playing out around him.

“He seemed to be trying to put together a comprehensive history of the war,” Bryan said. Sneden returned to New York and continued to record his experiences after the war, contributing more than 30 images to the series “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.” Struggling to keep a steady job and failing to get his diary published, Sneden retreated into alcohol and died in a soldier’s home in 1918.

The sketches (which were later turned into watercolors) are rudimentary and general depictions that display more of an architect’s sense of functionality than an artist’s sense of skill. His landscapes are full of rough lines mapping out space, as if surveying the scene, rather than capturing it and imprinting it with meaning. Yet it’s the overview of “View of Culpeper Court House,” with the lightly shaded horizon and primitively rendered buildings, that makes his work effective. His writing is cleanly descriptive, using words to sketch, and omnisciently observant or “clinical and unemotional,” as Bryan put it. His sober, unsentimental perspective lets us into a simultaneously personal and objectively historical landscape.

The collection, discovered in 1994 in a Connecticut bank vault, was brought to the attention of the Virginia Historical Society by an art dealer named Robert Hicklin. The breadth and the detail of the maps and watercolors was so unique that the VHS, headed by Dr. Bryan at the time, decided to buy them. The only problem was finding the money for a vast collection of Civil War art that was originally offered at $250,000.

The VHS bought 400 watercolors and maps for $100,000 in cash with the help of Floyd Gottwald, a generous and inspired patron. As it happened, Gottwald recognized his ancestral home in a painting of Leesburg, Virginia. The connection spurred Gottwald to insist that the VHS find out more about the man and his work.

Bryan’s search brought him to Snedens Landing, a hamlet in the lower Hudson Valley, 20 miles north of New York City. The initial inquiry came up empty, but he was referred to a great great-nephew of Sneden’s and learned that, stored somewhat haphazardly, were 500 more watercolors and a 5,000 page diary.

In 2000, Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey was published and edited by Bryan and Dr. Nelson D. Lankford. The illustrated memoir chronicles Sneden’s harrowing journey through specific campaigns, such as the Seven Days Battles and the second battle of Bull Run, as well as his time in Andersonville prison. A companion of mostly illustrations, Images from the Storm, was published a year later.

Sneden’s watercolors and writings can be accessed mainly through the books, but information about the collection is available on the Virginia Historical Society’s website (www.vahistorical.org), where exhibition schedules are listed.

Sneden’s work is also included in VHS’s exhibition “The Story of Virginia, An American Experience,” a wide ranging history of Virginia through its art.

No matter how you access Sneden’s work or feel about its value, experiencing one man’s complete perspective is as unique and important as the war he recorded. Thankfully, in an age where history is constantly turning to dust, organizations like the Virginia Historical Society and the Marine Corps League continue to preserve evidence of the Civil War’s personal toll and the artistic benefits we have reaped from the destruction. ~Justin Goldberg

If you’re in need of an instant mood-elevator, I suggest you head straight over to the McGuffey Art Center where dazzling light and vibrant color (and some pretty nifty painting) is on full display at a group show featuring the work of Karen Blair, Jessie Coles, Priscilla Long Whitlock, and Krista Townsend. Still lifes, landscape, animals, and urban scenes are all represented in this appealing show.

In her work, Coles describes a domestic life that is warm, rich and inviting. Just looking at her paintings, I know I’d like to spend time at her house. But above and beyond the pleasing vision her work presents, Coles’ paintings also have potency. “Energy and movement are the real subject of my work,” she says. She develops her paintings over repeated sessions, wherein scale may change, relationships alter, and “unexpected colors knock against each other creating an energy and excitement I never could have predicted.” These works are composites of repeated observations, not frozen moments in time. Coles’ rich impasto reminds me of Wayne Thiebaud and I’m not saying that just because of the cake. Seriously, you almost want to take a spoon and run it along the surface, scooping it up to eat. They’re that yummy.

I love Karen Blair’s riotous flower paintings that seem to explode with vernal energy. In “Poppies and Queen Anne’s Lace” she achieves an interesting, almost cut out effect, as if the flowers had been appliquéd on top of the turquoise background. There’s a more somber woodland creek and an autumnal scene of goldenrods that show Blair’s versatility. Don’t miss the exuberant “Poppies and Garden Hose” hanging around the corner in the McGuffey shop. I almost did. Big, colorful, showy, it’s a picture that captures the sensations of being in a garden buzzing with life: warm sun, moist earth, loamy smells. An admirer of Fairfield Porter, Blair seeks to balance abstraction and realism in the same way, “always asking how little information I can give and still convey the image.”

Almost abstract, Whitlock’s paintings provide ample opportunity for her to show off her dynamic brushwork, which varies from expressive little daubs to dramatic slashes of pigment. “My interest is the challenge of interpreting landscape into painted marks, shapes, and color,” said Whitlock. A plein air painter, she spends time “standing in the field, marsh or woods.” Yet she isn’t dogmatic about recording exactly what she sees, choosing to use a highly keyed palette of pinks, greens, lavenders, and yellows, exaggerating the hues found in nature. Her paintings are certainly pretty, but they also have a heft to them thanks to her audacious application of paint. I particularly liked how Whitlock moves from light to shadow and foreground to distance using color in “Plank Road Field,” and also the lively brushwork in the areas of shadow. Two of her pieces on view, including this one, are triptychs. Breaking up the work into panels objectifies it, further removing it from the realm of traditional landscape painting. The effect is accentuated by Whitlock, who paints the edges of the canvas using a single bright color to provide a visual break between the individual panels. With the exception of Coles, whose works are framed, the other artists also paint the edges of the canvas, in effect, “framing” the work.

Krista Townsend’s paintings range from the very small (6″ x 6″) to the very large (75″ x 36″) and from farm animals to urban scenes. She employs a bold palette with splashes of orange and expanses of hyacinth. An intense, almost bluish light floods her work giving it a freshly scrubbed look as if it had just rained. The effect reminded me a bit of the work of Icelandic American painter, Louisa Matthiasdottir. There’s also a hint of Hopper in these empty streets. (To me, her “Chinatown” seemed like an animated, updated rift on Hopper’s “Early Sunday Morning.”) It’s interesting seeing views of Charlottesville and the surrounding countryside, well-recorded fodder of other local artists (Richard Crozier and Edward Thomas, specifically) treated in a completely different way. Townsend works professionally as a medical illustrator, an occupation that demands exacting verisimilitude, so it’s notable that she is able to let go of this in favor of expression. Her training still stands her in good stead in composing her works, and in a painting like the extraordinary prepossessing cat by the steps, amber eyes glinting in the sun. Townsend has perfectly captured feline essence in this charming painting.

All of these women paint from nature, but they’re after something more than just an accurate rendering of reality. It’s “more about the physicality and energy of the paint and less about landscape as ‘scenery’” is how Whitlock puts it. Certainly, they all know how to produce widely appealing work, but these artists also know “from” paint. You get the sense that they revel in their medium. There is joy there with the end result being works that lure you in with their charm and hold your interest with each singular approach.