Tag: Fine Arts

Landscape photographer Karen Duncan Pape turns her lens to the page in “De-Circulated,” an exhibition of reconstructed covers of banned books on display at McGuffey Art Center through January 28.

“Growing up in Southwest Virginia, books were extremely important to me, as they exposed me to other worlds and broadened my perspective,” says Pape. “I was shocked to find that books I had read in AP English many years ago were being banned in America today, and I was upset that young people might lose access to literary tools that might help them develop critical and inquiring minds, or that might support them in their quest for self-understanding.”

Pape began checking out banned books from libraries and taking multiple exposure photographs of the covers, which she blended in post-processing to create new designs. Books like Lola at the Library, banned in Pennsylvania, The Hate U Give, and The Bluest Eye, both banned in multiple states, are refracted and reimagined into colorful new forms. The abstract photographs obliterate or obstruct the text—a reminder from Pape of the power of the written word, and what is lost when it’s eliminated.

Mystery vibes

Karen Duncan Pape: “‘Relativity’ ( above left) is taken from a book cover about Albert Einstein, all of whose work was burned in 1933 in Nazi Germany, simply because he was Jewish. The book cover itself is simple and sort of boring, gold and black, with a photograph of Einstein. As I was working on the piece, I thought about the mystery of Einstein’s work. He said ‘The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science.’ The resulting blue piece speaks, I hope, of Einstein’s sense of mystery, and of something which we cannot see but can only sense. 

“‘Why We Can’t Wait’ by Martin Luther King, Jr. is another piece that brings me joy. This book was banned in South Africa at the height of apartheid. The image, with its elevating verticals and large WE, implies Dr. King’s idea that, now just as when he wrote this book, WE cannot wait, and WE together are responsible for moving humanity forward into a more balanced, peaceful, and loving state.”

The results are in! In November, C-VILLE readers submitted the best photo they captured in 2023, each illustrating the theme “What a day!” Our judges—Ézé Amos and Stacey Evans—reviewed more than 80 submissions, and what follows are the best of the bunch. The final list features gorgeous landscapes, bustling wildlife, and captivating shots in and around Charlottesville. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated.

1. “Varied Interests” by Raman Pfaff

May 7, 2023. iPhone 14 Pro. Mona Lisa draws daily crowds at the Louvre, but in this photo some seemed more interested in other art. One seems to want the day at the museum to end.

2. “Rainy Day at Fourth and Market” by Steve Ashby

January 28, 2023. Canon-P. The intersection at Fourth and Market streets was glossy from a light rain as I waited for a shopper to exit the Market Street Market. Exposed at 1/8th of a second with a Canon-P equipped with a 53mm/2.8 Soviet-era lens and loaded with long-expired Kodak Plus-X film. Processed for 10 minutes in Kodak HC-110, dilution “H” (1:63).

3. “Alone Time” by Max Hoecker

October 1, 2023. Canon G7X. I was in Baltimore to see the Orioles. Meanwhile, there was an anime convention going on at the time. My family was at the food truck when I noticed this participant sitting by herself.

4. “White Pelicans Fish Buffet” by Stuart Scott

July 27, 2023. Olympus E-M1 MarkII with Leica DG 100-400/F4.0-6.3. While visiting Yellowstone National Park, I was surprised to see a group of white pelicans working as a team to herd small fish for their meal. I have a series of pictures as they stay in a line formation then curl around to trap their next meal. You can see the ripples in the water as they move in for a feast. I watched for over an hour as they repeated the fish herding.

5. “Labyrinth” by Carlton Carroll

May 20, 2023. Autel EVO 2 Drone. This new labyrinth was created at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont by a local scout for her Eagle Scout project. The scout designed the labyrinth layout, and with the help of her troop, cleared, tilled, and placed the logs. This photo was taken as the project was completed.

6. “Fall Beauty in Aspen” by Laura Mark

October 1, 2023. iPhone 13 Plus. This picture was taken at the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen, Colorado.

7. “Seaside Splendor” by Chloë-Ester K. Cook

May 28, 2023. Nikon L35 AF, Ektar 100 Film. This was taken at the Calanque d’En Vau in the Calanques National Park outside of Cassis, France, with my partner on my first-ever European trip. Calanques are beautiful steep-walled inlets of the Mediterranean Sea—and they’re worth every step of the slick, sharp, sweaty hike it takes to get there. 

8. “A Few of My Favorite Things!” by Bill Shaw

January 7, 2023. Canon EOS 6D, EF50mm lens. Depicting my wife with a few of her favorite things. Raindrops on roses, bright copper kettles, and warm woolen mittens!

9. “Bonfire at Bagatelle” by Mike Powers

October 28, 2023. iPhone 13 Pro. The full moon rises over a majestic bonfire marking the end of a perfect fall day in Albemarle County, as teens relax while keeping an eye on social media feeds.

10. “Ferry to Vinalhaven” by Forest Veerhoff

August 21, 2023. Canon Rebel 2000, Portra 160 Film. I took this photo on a backpacking trip in Maine this summer. We began our journey here on a ferry to the island of Vinalhaven. I captured this moment because I was drawn to how each subject is in their own world, some of them even ignoring the beauty around them. We see here a sense of wanderlust and adventure and a question of who these people are and where they are going.

Our judges:

Ézé Amos is a documentary photographer and photojournalist who immigrated to Charlottesville from Nigeria in 2008, and now captures the unique spirit and energy of our city.  His many photo projects include Cville People Everyday, Cville Porch Portraits, Witnessing Resistance, and his most recent and ongoing project, The Story of Us “Reclaiming The Narrative of #Charlottesville Through Storytelling and Portraits of Community Resilience.” Amos is also an affiliate photographer with numerous national and international media organizations, and his work has been featured by The New York Times, Getty Images, NPR, AP, CNN, BuzzFeed, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker, among others. Amos’ photo of the melting of Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee statue made Time magazine’s Top 100 Photos of 2023.

Stacey Evans is the imaging specialist and project coordinator at the University of Virginia Library Digital Production Group. She has over 25 years of experience as an artist, educator, and professional photographer, and her work has been published, exhibited, and collected nationally. Her art practice focuses on the intersection of the built environment and nature through topographic photography from moving vehicles. She previously taught workshops on digital photography through the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Piedmont Virginia Community College, and now privately. Evans graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design with a bachelor of fine arts in photography. 

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. “Their World As Big As They Made It: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance” showcases the visionary works of writers, artists, and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, plus other permanent exhibitions. 

Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Sentiment in Place,” landscapes by V-Anne Evans. Through December 24.

Botanical Fare 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. Works by Judith Ely. Through December. 

The Center at Belvedere 540 Belvedere Blvd. The Second Annual Small Works Open Exhibit features works no larger than 13 inches in a variety of mediums. Through December.

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. On the main floor, “Congregation,” mixed-media vignettes by Aggie Zed. In the great halls, Sara Clark’s “Ornatus Mundi” continues. 

The Connaughton Gallery McIntire School of Commerce, UVA Grounds. “Landscapes and Georgia O’Keefe Revisited,” alkyd oil paints on canvas, MDF panels, and textile/multi-media works by Eric T. Allen and the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective. Through December 8.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Making Spirits Bright,” a group show featuring seasonal designs. Through December.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd., UVA Grounds. Exhibitions include “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” “Processing Abstraction,” and “N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged.”

Grace Estate Winery 5273 Mt. Juliet Farm, Crozet. Works by local landscape artist Anne French. Through March.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. “Performing Country,” never-before-seen works from the museum’s permanent collection. Through March 3.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Fleeting,” oil on canvas by Annie Harris Massie. Through December 20.

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Celebrating Life” by Chicho Lorenzo.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. The Holiday Show & Shop features three floors of original art, home goods, prints, ceramics, cards, fiber arts, and ornaments. Through December.

New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “repair is the dream of the broken thing,” an installation by Matt Shelton. Through December 28. 

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. A multimedia exhibit with BozART Fine Arts Collective artist’s Judi Ely, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Shirley Paul. 

Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. “Never a Dull Moment,” abstract expressive art by Vickie Marsango, and the Carriage Works Studios Group Show. Through December 17. Reception December 14 at 5pm. 

The PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Looking Small, Thinking Big,” from Fenella Belle. In the South Gallery, “Drawn to the Light” by Deborah Davis. Through January 13.

Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “game of telephone,” contemporary works by Michael Reisor. Through January 21.

Random Row Brewery 608 Preston Ave. Watercolors byJuliette Swenson. Through January 15.

The Ruffin Gallery McIntire Department of Art, UVA Grounds. “Thinking of Place iii” features 85 printmakers from around the world inspired by the themes of space and place. Through December 15.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “The Labyrinth,” many-layered constructions of mineral-pigmented glazes by Clay Witt. In the Dové Gallery, “Under the Skin,” paintings and works on paper by Akemi Ohira. Through January 19.

Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. “Wheel of the Year,” a collection of eight quilts by Amanda Wagstaff. Through December.

Superfly Brewing 943 Preston Ave. “Charlottesville Stages: Concert Photography” showcases photographs of local bands and international superstars performing on Charlottesville’s stages by Henry Strauss, Sanjay Suchak, and Rich Tarbell. 

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy. An exhibition that includes a rare engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Through December.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville 717 Rugby Rd. “Season of Light,” a group show. Through December.

Susan McAlister uses a number of approaches to landscape, from direct physical representations to more nebulous suggestions of place, to riffs on the basic forms and patterns that are the building blocks of the natural world. “My process is essentially the same whether I’m working representationally or abstractly,” says McAlister, whose work is the subject of “Canopy,” now on view at Les Yeux du Monde. “I’m finding form, I’m pushing color, I’m layering materials, I’m thinking about the relation of all of these elements together.”

The plein air tradition of sketching and painting out of doors is central to McAlister’s practice. “When I take my walks in nature,” she says, “I think about the shapes that are happening and the way the light moves through those shapes and how a vine travels up a tree and continues over your head. I’m considering all of this and what it’s like being engulfed by nature and how that makes my heart feel.”

While outside, McAlister also forages for natural found objects, which she uses as inspiration, sometimes incorporating them into her assemblages, thus rooting them in a specific time and place. “Faunus I,” for example, features a feather, petal, and bee. Originally inspired by a visit to the Matisse room at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., McAlister took the concept of cut-outs and ran with it, adding three-dimensionality into the mix to produce her gorgeous explosions of layered cut paper.

Luminous vistas of the Blue Ridge cloaked in fuzzy haze are conjured up from a combination of McAlister’s observation and memory. “These wooded landscapes are about my childhood. I grew up where my playground was the uncut forest outside my door. That kind of tangled landscape, that’s orderly but also disorderly, is endlessly appealing to me.”  

In “Near and Far,” the haze has been replaced with rain-washed crispness. McAlister uses extraordinary brushwork here, with bold expressive slashes, smears, and clumps of paint that describe the varied mountain terrain of woods, meadows, and streams. 

“Meeting in the Woods” depicts the sort of tangled woodland that appeals to McAlister. In this rollicking work, the scene has shifted from the gently sloping hills of memory seen in “Wooded Way,” “The Engagement,” and “Evening,” to more rugged Montana. McAlister has amped up her brush work accordingly, with slashing strokes that describe the wind tossing the trees, and add points of visual interest to the work.

“Spring Shadows & the Forest Floor” seems to exist on the knife edge between abstraction and representation. McAlister has visually nailed the sense of wind, using large brushes to produce blurry contrails of paint along with quick daubs of green that suggest fluttering leaves. 

The artist’s muted palette perfectly embodies the temporal and atmospheric conditions she wishes to convey. Light greens pinpoint the season as early spring. Dove gray represents the recesses of the forest interior. Elegant inky blotches describe roots, branches, and tree trunks, tiny flecks of cerulean blue and stark white brighten the sky with intense, pure pigment. In the upper left quadrant, the absence of green implies that we are at the edge of a clearing or body of water where the land opens up and the view of the sky is more expansive.

McAlister’s palette of sunny pastels is derived from Bonnard. It’s a challenging color scheme to make serious, particularly for an artist who states, “I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be sweet. I’m most pleased when my paintings read as bold and expressive.” So, she tempers her palette’s prettiness with the introduction of duller shades, gesture, and layering. You can see this in the rectilinear zones of “Edge of the Forest.”

“Come to the Woods” has a curious power that seems to build with each repeated viewing. The initial impression is of a work that is delicate and fragile, thanks to its pale colors and softly undulating shapes. But, the complex arrangement of pink, blue, green, and yellow and the interplay between painted surface and line, create interesting visual relationships. With its tessellated forms and passages that cascade down the picture plane, the work is really a deconstructed landscape.

Four paintings—“Vert,” “From the Open Window,” “Lost in the Forest,” and “Lush”—are hung together on the wall. McAlister did this to create a bigger expanse of painted surface. But the quartet’s juxtaposition, with two representational works and two abstract ones, hits at the crux of McAlister’s oeuvre, which is really about painting in and of itself, not one specific style. You see in these works, the ease with which the artist switches gears and her incredible facility, no matter how she’s painting. The “what” she’s painting remains a constant, however.

“Landscape is where my heart is,” she says. “It’s what I want to talk about.” As the works in the show reveal, McAlister uses various inventive means to “talk” about it, but one thing is clear, she is using a decidedly contemporary language to do so.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. “Their World As Big As They Made It: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance” showcases the visionary works of writers, artists, and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance. Plus, other permanent exhibitions. 

Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Diamonds & Rust,” mixed-media paintings by Patte Reider Ormsby. Through October 28.

The Bridge PAI 306 E. Main St. A First Fridays After Dark dance party. $10, 8:30pm. 

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. In Chroma’s Micro Gallery, “The Same River Twice,” small and complex prints on paper by Edie Read. In Vault Virginia’s Great Hall South, Read’s accompanying large-scale abstract wall forms, “Wing.” In Vault Virginia’s Great Front Hall, “Ornatus Mundi,” works by Richmond artist Sara Clark. Through October 27. First Fridays opening.

City Clay 700 Harris St., Ste. 104. “Dysfunctional Teacup Show,” a mixed-media show of unusual and unexpected teacups. 

The Connaughton Gallery McIntire School of Commerce, Rouss & Robertson Halls. “Landscapes and Georgia O’Keeffe Revisited,” alkyd oil paints on canvas, MDF panels, and textile/multi-media works by Eric T. Allen and the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective. Through December 8.

The Create Gallery InBio, 700 Harris St. “Of,” watercolor and photography by Fisher Samuel Harris. Through October. First Fridays opening.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Backyard Nature Studies,” ceramic art by Corinna Anderson, and “Change of Seasons,” photography by Staunton artist Dale Carlson.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Beyond the Burn,” original designs by pyrographer Genevieve Story. Through October. First Fridays opening. 

Dovetail Design & Cabinetry 1740 Broadway St., Ste 3. “The Arc Studio Group Show,” acrylic and mixed-media works by artists at The Arc of the Piedmont. First Fridays celebration. 

Elmaleh Gallery Campbell Hall, UVA Grounds. “Like the Waters We Rise,” posters from the front lines of the climate justice movement, 1968–2022. Through October 29.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd., UVA Grounds. Exhibitions include “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” “Processing Abstraction,” and “N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged.”

Grace Estate Winery 5273 Mt. Juliet Farm, Crozet. “Local Colors,” plein-air paintings of central Virginia’s wine country by Jane Goodman. First Fridays opening.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. “Three Women from Wirrimanu,” paintings by Black Indigenous women artists Eubena Nampitjin, Muntja Nungurrayi, and Lucy Yukenbarri Napanangka. Through December 3.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Canopy,” abstract works by Susan McAlister. Through October 29. Luncheon and artist talk on October 15 at 12:45pm

The Local Restaurant 824 Hinton Ave. “True Nature,” oil paintings by Kris Bowmaster. Through October.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Interior Spaces,” oil and watercolor floral and landscape paintings by Marcia Mitchell. In the first-floor galleries, “If You Have Ever Gone To The Woods With Me, I Must Love You Very Much,” works by Lindsay Heider Diamond, and “Turtles All The Way Down,” oil paintings by Alan Kindler. In the second-floor galleries, “LANDSCAPE: Creating a Sense of Place,” an all-members exhibition of painting, photography, sculpture, collage, and three-dimensional art. First Fridays celebration.

New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “growing out of season,” mixed-media installation and vignette storytelling by Sri Kodakalla. Through October 26. First Fridays opening.

Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. “closeness,” landscapes composed of intricate arrangements of dried paint scraps by William Mason Lord. Through October 29. First Fridays opening.

Pro Camera 711 W. Main St. “The Queens of Queen City” by Michael O. Snyder features photographs exploring the courage, risks, and repercussions of openly expressing LGBTQ identities in rural, conservative America. Through December 2. First Fridays opening.

PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Beyond the Office Door,” works from staff and faculty at PVCC outside the art department. In the South Gallery, the Annual Faculty exhibition curated by Fenella Belle. Through November 4.

Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “Colorscapes,” a collaboration between a father and daughter, Tom West and Cate West Zahl. Through November 5. 

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “After We Are Gone,” new works by Mike Egan. In the Dové Gallery, “Tales of Min’umbra,” shadow art by Tania L. Yager.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. A multimedia exhibition featuring works by Ellen Osborne, Katharine Eisaman Maus, and Juliette Swenson. Opens October 10.

Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. “All Black Everything,” works using mostly black or all black materials by Benita Mayo, Leslie A Taylor Lillard, Kweisi Morris, Kori Price, and Tobiah Mundt. First Fridays opening.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy. An exhibition that includes a rare engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Through December.

UVA Medical Center In the main lobby, 1215 Lee St. A multimedia group show by the BozART Fine Art Collective. Through November 7. 

Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. TechnoSonics, an experimental turntablism workshop and performance with guest artists Maria Chavez and Jordi Wheeler. October 14.

Coral reefs are wondrous marvels of natural beauty. They are both living things and ecosystems for a myriad assortment of other creatures, and are a vital link in the chain of life. It’s estimated that 1 billion people benefit from coral reefs in the form of food, coastal protection, clean sea water, and income from tourism and fishing.

With “House on Fire” at Quirk Gallery, Kiara Pelissier uses glass to draw attention to the existential threat the earth and all its inhabitants are facing as our climate changes and temperatures rise. Pelissier focuses on the devastation happening to coral reefs around the globe. These beautiful animals are struggling to survive in an environment that is becoming untenable. Mass bleaching events, unknown until the 1980s, are now common occurrences in our oceans, which absorb 93 percent of the heat trapped by CO2.

Each coral is made up of polyps that are attached to a reef at one end, and have an open mouth surrounded by tentacles at the other. One of the most remarkable things about coral is its symbiotic relationship with algae. Each coral polyp contains millions of algae cells, called zooxanthellae. The coral provides them with an environment in which to thrive and photosynthesize, which, in turn, helps sustain the coral. At night, corals become active, extending their stinging tentacles to capture floating plankton.

Coral polyps are actually transparent—it’s the zooxanthellae that provides the pigment that gives coral its vivid and varied color. Coral can be hard or soft. It lives and grows connected to other corals. Soft corals resemble plants. Hard corals use the calcium in seawater to form outer skeletons that become the structural basis of a coral reef. Bleached coral is not dead, but without the algae inside, it is more at risk for starvation and disease, and if the situation doesn’t improve, it will die.

Taking the title of the show from Greta Thunberg’s famous 2019 Davos speech, Pelissier continues the metaphor of the burning house with the introduction of a portion of a roof. Her intention is to bring what’s happening out of sight, beneath the sea, quite literally home. Pelissier’s roof is mostly white, interspersed with cobalt, amethyst, and lime-green tiles—the white alludes to bleaching and the other distinctive colors appear in certain corals when they experience heatstroke. The message is clear: The roof, our home, our planet, like the coral, is in mortal peril.

The heatstroke colors appear again in the dramatic sheaths of glass rods at the opposite end of the gallery. It isn’t until you see that these pieces are all titled “Scream” that you note the urgency to the upward thrust of the rods. Pelissier wants us to understand the direness of the situation: The coral—out of sight and out of mind—is screaming for our help.

“Anthropocene” refers to our current era of human domination, and features drooping clear polyps placed against a mirror. From a visual viewpoint, it’s a dazzling display of silver and glass, but it’s also a powerful memento mori. The polyps, drained of color and deflated, bear little resemblance to healthy coral. They’ve expelled the algae living in their tissues as a reaction to stress. Transparency is the final stage in coral’s death spiral before all “flesh” is gone and only a skeletal superstructure remains. It’s impossible to look at this piece without seeing ourselves reflected in the mirror, just as it’s impossible to look at what’s happening to coral without confronting our role in its demise.

“In My Lifetime,” spans decades from the 1950s to the 2020s, and presents a series of 13 glass coral clusters. Pelissier suggests movement by incorporating slightly mushed polyps into her arrangements to mimic the swaying of ocean currents. The early clusters are luscious explosions of colored glass. It’s not until the 1980s, when the first mass bleaching event occurred, that we begin to see white clusters. After 2000, there are no more entirely colored ones, just predominantly white with only a few bright-hued polyps. The last three have lost not just their color, but most of their mass, leaving behind skeletons.

A video features Pelissier producing one of these blooms. It’s magical watching the molten bubble of glass being pushed down onto the arrangement of upside-down polyps, and then the whole weighty thing lifted and plunged into the fiery glory hole (the name given to the furnace used for reheating the glass during its manufacture). You can feel the heat and sense the effort and determination involved in producing blown glass pieces of this scale and complexity.

Fire and heat have special relevance to those who work with blown glass. Pelissier herself has experienced the profoundly deleterious effects of exposure to hot temperatures, developing an allergic reaction to the heat she needs to produce her work. It got so bad, she almost abandoned glassblowing altogether, pausing her practice for a full six years. Fortunately, she has figured out a way to limit her exposure and also limit the amount of time her 2,000-degree furnace is on—a necessary piece of equipment that she acknowledges is not exactly green. She is helped in this effort by the fact that her current pieces are composed of numerous smaller elements that form each coral cluster, allowing her to organize her production in stages so as to use the furnace as efficiently as possible.

Like many of us during the pandemic, Pelissier turned to Netflix for some welcome diversion. Watching Chasing Coral introduced her to the plight of coral and inspired this body of work. It is a galvanizing documentary, well worth your time. The artist is donating a percentage of sales to coral reef rehabilitation and research.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. Permanent exhibitions include “Flowerdew Hundred: Unearthing Virginia’s History” and “Declaring Independence: Creating and Recreating America’s Document.”

Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Diamonds & Rust,” mixed-media paintings by Patte Reider Ormsby. Through October 28. First Fridays opening.

Botanical Fare 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Familiar Scenes: Recent Landscapes in Oil” by Randy Baskerville. Through September 4. 

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Throwing Shadows,” oil paintings by Ashe Lauglin. Through September 29. First Fridays opening.

The Connaughton Gallery McIntire School of Commerce, Rouss & Robertson Halls. “Landscapes and Georgia O’Keefe Revisited,” alkyd oil paints on canvas, MDF panels, and textile/multimedia works by Eric T. Allen and the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective. Through December 8.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Simply Stated Elegance,” Cindy Liebel’s jewelry, inspired by contemporary architecture and abstract line art, and “Views of Serenity,” contemporary impressionist paintings by Lee Nixon. Through September. Meet the artists September 16 at 1pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Art of Humor,” handmade figurines by polymer clay artist, comic, and sculptor Derek Brown. Through September. First Fridays opening.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd., UVA Grounds. Exhibitions include “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” “Processing Abstraction,” and “N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged.”

The Greencroft Club 575 Rodes Dr. “Flowers and Barns,” watercolors and oils by Linda Abbey. Through September 30. 

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. The “Sally Hemings University Connecting Threads” exhibition encapsulates the semester-long work of students of UVA’s Sally Hemings’ University. Through September 9.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. “Three Women from Wirrimanu,” paintings by Black Indigenous women artists Eubena Nampitjin, Muntja Nungurrayi, and Lucy Yukenbarri Napanangka. Through December 3.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Canopy,” works by Susan McAlister. Through October 29. Opens September 15.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, pine resin sculptures by Frank Shepard. In the first floor galleries, “Textures: Hard and Soft” by Jill Kerttula and “Whimsy” by Michael Firkaly and Karen Rexrode. In the second floor gallery, a member group show of photography. In the Associates Gallery, “Animals.”

New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Color is Light,” two- and three-dimensional abstract pieces by Edie Read. Through September 28. First Fridays opening.

PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Beyond the Office Door.” In the South Gallery, the Annual Faculty exhibition.

Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “House on Fire,” glass works by Kiara Pelissier and her team. Through September 29.

The Ruffin Gallery McIntire Department of Art at UVA, 179 Culbreth Rd. “Murmuration,” former art students, colleagues, and mentors of Elizabeth Schoyer combine energy, moving through the air, connecting creative visions, and converging. Through October 6.

The Scrappy Elephant 1745 Allied St., Ste C. “This is Creative Reuse IV,” mixed-media works using wood samples, paper, and beads, brought together through embroidery by Ellen Kanzinger. Through October 1. 

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Dové Gallery, “People in Empty Places,” new paintings by Lev Keatts. In the Main Gallery, “Teeny Tiny Trifecta 6,” a group exhibition and fundraiser. Through September 29. First Fridays opening.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. On the second floor, oil paintings by Susan Lang in the Cancer Center hallway and photography by Michael Marino in the Outpatient Lab hallway. On the third floor Labor & Delivery hallway, oil paintings by Linda Staiger. Through October 9. 

Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. “Sentimental Sediments: Ochre, Madder, Indigo,” new works by Laura Josephine Snyder, Allyson Mellberg Taylor, and Jeremy Seth Taylor, including a wall painting and a group of works exploring homemade inks and paints. Through October 1.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello 931 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy. An exhibition that includes a rare engraving of the Declaration of Independence. Through December.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville 717 Rugby Rd. “Face It, Your Fascinating?” showcases portraits by Alan Kindler. Through September.

Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Heirloom,” collages by Caro Campos and paintings and sculpture work by Dorothy Li. First Fridays opening.

Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 2450 Old Ivy Rd. Permanent exhibitions include “Flowerdew Hundred: Unearthing Virginia’s History” and “Declaring Independence: Creating and Recreating America’s Document.”

Botanical Fare 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Familiar Scenes: Recent Landscapes in Oil” by Randy Baskerville. Through September 4. 

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. An installation of nature studies paintings by Richmond artist Emma Knight. Through August 25. First Fridays opening.

Create Gallery InBio, 700 Harris St. “One Man’s World,” oils on canvas and mixed-media by John S. Lynch. Through August.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Capturing Nature’s Beauty in Natural Gemstones,” jewelry by Rachel Dunn, and “Chromatic Conversations,” paintings by Ellyn Wenzler. Through August. Meet the artists August 12 from 1–3pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Textures of Time,” handmade stoneware by clay artist Laura Vik. Through August. First Fridays opening.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd., UVA Grounds. Exhibitions include “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” “Processing Abstraction,” and “N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged.”

The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “historical fiction,” a collection of paintings by Sarah Miller. Friday, August 4, 5–7pm.

The Greencroft Club 575 Rodes Dr. “Flowers and Barns,” watercolors and oils by Linda Abbey.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. “Performing Country,” an exhibition highlighting never-before-seen works, and other permanent exhibitions. 

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Organic Matter,” new works by Monica Angle, Heather Beardsley, Michelle Gagliano, and Kris Iden. Through August 27. 

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. “Colors of the World,” watercolor paintings by Karen Knierim. Through August.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “Flotsam, Discarded Materials Transformed,” an immersive installation of oceanic artwork by L. Michelle Geiger. In the hallway galleries, the summer members show. Through August 13.

New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Shade is a place: relief is my form, A Clearing with MaKshya Tolbert.” Exhibition includes poetry, pottery, and interactive Shade Walks along the Downtown Mall. Through August 24. First Fridays opening.

PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North and South galleries, the 2023 Student Exhibition. Through September 4.

Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “House on Fire,” glass works by Kiara Pelissier and her team. Through September 29.

Random Row Brewing Co. 608 Preston Ave. #A. “Near and Far: Scenes from Virginia and Tennessee,” oil paintings by Randy Baskerville. Through August 30.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital Second floor lab and cancer hallway. Animal portraits by Susan Edginton, florals by Jane Skafte, and photography by Jim Greene. Through August 7.

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville 717 Rugby Rd. “Conversing with the Universe,” works by Linda Nacamulli. Through August.

Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Entre Nos,” a group exhibition featuring works by artists in the undoc+ spectrum, curated by Erika Hirugami. Through August 19. 

A pair of shows on view at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia shine a spotlight on arts, culture, and the very existence of two groups of Indigenous people in North and Central America. “N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged” and “Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery,” curated by Adriana Greci Green, The Fralin’s curator of Indigenous Arts of the Americas and Dorie Reents-Budet, research associate at the National Museum of Natural History, center on work drawn from the museum’s collection.  

“N’Dakinna Landscapes Acknowledged” takes an innovative approach to presenting landscapes by members of the White Mountain School of painting, which flourished in New Hampshire during the 19th century. Similar to, though lesser known, than the Hudson River School, it shared some prominent Hudson River artists. Featured in this show are works by White Mountain painters Benjamin Champney, Samuel Lancaster Gerry, Samuel W. Griggs, and Sylvester Phelps Hodgdon.

As the robust American landscape painting tradition reveals, the land—its beauty and vastness—was a source of enormous inspiration and pride for newly arrived settlers. America’s great expanses represented a present-day Garden of Eden that was theirs to inhabit and tame into cultivation. This reverence was far-reaching, extending even to those who might never actually see these places in person. Champney’s paintings, for example, were often reproduced as chromolithographs that were widely distributed. 

This perspective ignores the fact that the land had been inhabited for millennia by a whole host of Indigenous peoples who had very different ideas about the land and its stewardship. N’Dakinna (homeland) is the Abenaki’s (People of the Dawn Land) name for this area, which they have occupied for 13,000 years. The Fralin show asks us, when looking at these beautiful paintings, to consider the Abanaki and their relationship to the land. 

As we navigate the choppy waters toward a more accurate understanding, the trick is to hold two different realities in one’s mind, acknowledging the experience of loss—of people, land, and culture, known as territory acknowledgment—and yet appreciate these paintings for what they are: beautiful landscapes that provide an incredibly valuable snapshot of what pre-industrial America looked liked.

Champney’s “Moat Mountains from Intervale” depicts a broad vista of cultivated valley before a backdrop of the dramatic geological formations known as the Ledges, with mountains beyond. The picture is surprisingly small given the grandiosity of the scene, but there’s an appealing intimacy to its size. The other works, oil on paper studies, provide charming pastoral vignettes, with Gerry’s view of a twisted tree against a blazing evening sky possessing a moodiness reminiscent of the almost contemporaneous German Romantic painters.

In addition to the paintings, two maps included in the exhibition speak to the Indigenous people’s relationship with the land. One, a topographical map Greci Green produced in collaboration with Chris Gist of UVA’s Scholars Lab, features the Abenaki and neighboring nations, the Haudenosaunee and Wabanaki, spelled out in a striking orange font across the map. The bold, flat writing effectively subverts the map’s imposed borders, proclaiming whose land it really was. 

“My own work is very much focused on Indigenous Native sovereignty and treaties,” says Greci Green. “When I think about art and landscape, I see it through those lenses.”

The other map, made in 1852 by cartographer Franklin Leavitt, features superimposed reproductions of the paintings placed where they were made, as well as a vintage postcard and a stereographic photograph. These latter two, which feature Abanaki posing for the camera, are souvenirs of the tourist industry that emerged around them. “These pictures of Abenaki basket makers at tourist spots highlight how these artists remain there in this landscape and are engaged with the local touristic economy,’’ says Greci Green. 

“Look Three Ways: Maya Painted Pottery” explores the rich tradition that flourished on the Yucatan Peninsula during the first millennium. Included in the show are works from The Fralin’s impressive collection of this art form, dating from 250–900 CE. Over the years, certain of these pieces have been displayed in the museum’s study center for the benefit of students, but the collection has never been displayed in this fashion before.

The vessels vary from everyday uses to ceremonial objects important to feasts that could be celebratory in nature, or important political events between different groups. They share a similar palette of red, black, soft terracotta, and cream, and the shapes of the vessels are simple: rounded bowls of different sizes, their fubsy form derived from gourds, some footed, and tall cylindrical drinking vessels. 

The title of the show alludes to the three ways the works are analyzed by scholars: interpreting the Maya hieroglyphic writing that decorates the vessels, the style of the pot—it’s size and shape—and finally, instrumental neutron activation analysis which can identify the place where the pot was made.

There is a poignancy to what is on view at The Fralin, an unmistakable sense of loss and displacement, of precious relics of obliterated human experience. But there is also a vibrancy in the artistry, a chance to sense what was so widely destroyed, and appreciate those who came before.

Likening their artistic collaboration to dancing the tango—following, giving, and then stepping back, Michelle Gagliano and Beatrix Ost decided to call their venture “Symbiotic Tango.” Chroma Projects is currently showing a selection of Gagliano/Ost works that give us a taste of what the collaboration looks like. A more extensive “Symbiotic Tango” show will be presented by the William King Museum of Art in Abingdon in December.

At Chroma Projects, the work is hung inside its bank vault. This intimate shrine-like setting is the perfect backdrop for pieces limned, framed, and splashed with gold. This precious metal’s glint enlivens an artwork visually, but gold also connotes high value as it pertains to the object and its message. For Gagliano and Ost, this high esteem also extends to the collaboration itself, which has enriched them both in untold ways.

“Before this, I was never drawn to abstraction,” says Ost. “But, now I’m in it. I’m in Michelle’s abstract world.” For Gagliano, working with Ost’s narrative has been expansive. “I never studied surrealism,” she says. “But getting to know Beatrix’s life, and seeing how it extends on to the canvas has been an incredibly enriching experience.”

How did the Gagliano/Ost collaboration come about? Like just about everyone else during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two artists were struggling with isolation. So in November 2020, they hatched a plan to begin working collaboratively, transforming the ensuing months into a time of flourishing artistic output and creative growth.

One wouldn’t necessarily have thought to put the two artists together. Gagliano produces shimmering atmospheric, abstract compositions, while Ost’s ornate narratives boast a complex surrealist iconography that she uses to explore the human condition. But, this stylistic divergence works to their advantage as each brings her unique perspective to the project. “It’s like a collision of contemporary surrealism and abstracted nature,” says Gagliano.

The women do share many significant similarities. Both derive real sustenance from their practices, which have provided them not only a living, but an identity and psychic fulfillment. They are also each the mother of three sons. But, perhaps most important for their practice, Ost and Gagliano both grew up on large farms: Gagliano on a dairy farm in Upstate New York, and Ost on a farm in Bavaria that specialized in cabbages used in sauerkraut. This birthright has engendered in both artists a deep reverence for nature in its many forms—its bounty, its fury, and its fragility.

Gagliano and Ost work sequentially, completing paintings that they then exchange for the other to add to. To let go of something you’ve labored over to completion, giving it to someone else to work on as they wish, would give most of us pause, and in the beginning, it was challenging for the two. The artists were leery of stepping into the other’s painting for fear of mucking up the vision. It got easier as time passed and they became more in tune to each other and appreciative of the process.

The “Dissected Presence” series of paintings was begun by Ost. The works feature densely packed forms and images from her rich visual lexicon, creating a sumptuous allover effect. In two paintings from the series, an ancient-looking plaster idol reminiscent of the stylized Cycladic schematic figures is affixed to each panel. Their significance isn’t directly spelled out, but they seem to allude to a feminine goddess along the lines of Gaia. All of the works in this series are shot through with diagonal shafts of gold added by Gagliano. These metallic embellishments add a dynamic thrust of movement. They also disrupt the illusion of three-dimensional space, without obscuring the original composition.

Begun by Gagliano and finished by Ost, the series with the same name as the show, “Symbiotic Tango,” has nine paintings. Here, the focus shifts to the surfaces—Gagliano’s forte. She says she was inspired by the James River, with the churn and splash of paint intended to evoke water flowing over rocks. The explosions of paint resemble swirling clouds of vapor and the work can be taken to represent an emergence of some kind. The paintings boast hidden narrative tidbits—faces, birds, strange toothy creatures, a disembodied hand—that one must really look for in order to see. These partial glimpses of recognizable things amid the chaos of swirling medium suggest an excavated wall where only fragmentary sections remain, with the rest degraded or covered with dust or mud. Ost revels in these instances where the abstract meets the surreal. “That’s how the mind works,” she says. “It understands both the abstract and the surreal. It’s the eyes that want order.”

Working as an artist can be a very solitary pursuit. Many spend hours alone in the studio trying to figure things out. With another artist in the mix, it’s not only companionable, but there’s another person invested in the process to act as a sounding board. This is helpful in completing a piece by reinforcing the decisions and choices involved in its creation. It’s also easier to appreciate the artistic output and derive pleasure from its creation because you have someone else experiencing the same reaction and reinforcing one’s own. “I get so much from her and she gets so much from me,” says Ost. It’s a joint endeavor of listening, trust, and support.