Tag: McGuffey Art Center

Categories
Arts Culture News

The Charlottesville Black Arts Collective creates and engages community

Local artist Somé Louis has found space for exploration and expression by participating in CBAC exhibitions. Photo by Eze Amos.

When you want to initiate change—real change—it’s hard to do it alone. The time, effort, versatility, and resources it takes to affect progress as an individual requires a level of passion and privilege most of us cannot afford when there are children to raise and bills to be paid. But when change needs to happen, people have a tendency to step out and find each other.

When you’re part of a collective, you’re part of a democratic collaboration of efforts. You find ways to work together, to do what’s best for everyone involved. You embody gestalt, and organize yourselves into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, enabling the collective to achieve advances that extend beyond itself. 

This is exactly the kind of work the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective is achieving: initiating change for the betterment of our community, and for Black creatives throughout the commonwealth. The drive to open up opportunities that explore and evoke the essence of Black culture is on full view in the CBAC’s upcoming exhibition “Sugah: Black Love Endures,” which opens at McGuffey Art Center on September 6.

Community commitments

The story of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective began in 2020, with another artist-run cooperative, the McGuffey Art Center. Two members of McGuffey’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee reached out to Black creatives in the area, seeking individuals interested in curating an exhibition of works by Black artists. Instead of an individual taking the helm, a small group coalesced and agreed to curate the show together. The process served as a catalyst for the creation of the CBAC, which debuted “Water: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Black Experience” in 2021, its first curatorial effort at McGuffey. 

“Love is in the Hair,” by “Sugah: Black Love Endures” exhibiting artist Cherrish Smith. Image curtesy of the CBAC.

Since then, the CBAC has partnered with the arts center to mount exhibitions each year, including the 2022 show “Lay My Burdens Down,” and 2023’s “Blackity Black Black,” an embrace of quintessentially Black aesthetics. In this relationship between hosting venue and curatorial collective, McGuffey sponsors the shows, while the CBAC creates open calls, curates the exhibitions, and works directly with the exhibiting artists. McGuffey members help with the art installation process, publicity, and—crucially—provide gallery space for the shows to take place. 

“This partnership allows us to help amplify Black art and provide a means of sharing Black art with McGuffey members and visitors as well as helps broaden the diversity of work and artists showing work at McGuffey,” notes CBAC member Kori Price. When asked about the partnership between the CBAC and MAC, Bill LeSueur, operations manager at McGuffey Art Center, added, “It’s mutually beneficial. The search for inspiration is continual. MAC will continue to support CBAC and open up opportunities for underrepresented artists. This establishes a model for future partnerships and additional collaborations.”

Progressive partnerships

As an untethered, volunteer-based collective of artists and art enthusiasts, the CBAC seeks out this type of community partnership to facilitate opportunities for artists in and around Charlottesville, centering Black voices and their creative work. While these opportunities most often take the form of exhibitions geared toward showcasing and selling artwork, the CBAC also aims to support artists by providing workshops to share skills and learn from each other, as well as critiques to provide feedback to creatives, and social gatherings such as community cookouts to strengthen existing relationships and foster new connections.

Tori Cherry, Leslie Taylor-Lillard, Kori Price, Benita Mayo, Kweisi Morris, Tobiah Mundt, Derrick J. Waller, and Mavis Waller currently make up the member roster of the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective. The CBAC is adamant about forming connections with community partners to expand the reach of Black artists throughout the greater- Charlottesville area—in addition to McGuffey, the group has established partnerships with Alamo Drafthouse, New City Arts, Second Street Gallery, and Studio Ix—creating platforms for their experiences to be shared through “a Black lens with clarity and creativity,” as Price puts it.

How sweet it is

Since its inception, the CBAC has focused on curating exhibitions and experiences around ideas that are unique or essential to Black culture. Themes that encourage the expression of Black joy have become especially important to the collective, like 2023’s “Blackity Black Black” and “Black Eyed Peas, Greens, and Cornbread”—an exhibition in celebration of new beginnings and the future—mounted at Studio Ix earlier this year. “Black love seemed like a natural next step for us,” says Price. “We all felt that the way in which love is expressed within the Black community was unique and were curious to see the ways in which artists might choose to depict and communicate love through their art.” 

Richmond-based artist P. Muzi Branch’s “Bi-Cultural,” on exhibit in “Sugah: Black Love Endures.” Image curtesy of the CBAC.

Featuring works from P. Muzi Branch, Lizzie Brown, Chris Green, Jae Johnson, Leslie Lillard, Somé Louis, Tobiah Mundt, Maiya Pittman, Kori Price, Joshua Ray, Dorothy Rice, Cherrish Smith, and JaVori Warren, “Sugah” (pronounced SHU-gah) explores aspects of love related to the familial, the romantic, the self, and the cultural. Paintings, photographs, fiber arts, and mixed media works depicting affectionate embraces, acts of service, and cultural expressions define the look and feel of the exhibition. 

Exhibiting artists Dorothy Rice and Cherrish Smith both chose to explore external identity markers in their respective works, “The Sisters Braid Love” and “Love is in the Hair.” In her exhibition application, Smith—the youngest artist in the show and a repeat participant in CBAC exhibitions—explained, “Black hair is art in itself … Black hair is love, and it helps me freely be me no matter how I choose to wear it!” 

Drawing inspiration from Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss,” Lizzie Brown’s contribution to “Sugah” explores romantic love with a nod to art history. As the artist explains, “The intimacy, peace, and security shared between the two lovers is further emphasized through the use of circular motifs, which are symbolic of the wholeness and intricacies of their connection.”

Lizzie Brown’s “Intimacy: The Forehead Kiss” will be exhibited in “Sugah: Black Love Endures.” Image curtesy of the CBAC.

Local artist Somé Louis, who previously showed with the CBAC in “Blackity Black Black,” presents “Gestures of Play,” an embroidered handkerchief that captures the energy of childhood exuberance, documenting dance-like movements. The depiction of dance is “an act that binds me to my cousins and aunties in the Caribbean, who all studied dance, and understood movement through dance in a variety of ways,” Louis wrote in her exhibition application. Speaking on her experiences with the CBAC, Louis says, “It’s always great to find a space that allows for expression and exploration as an artist, which I have found as part of the CBAC exhibitions.”

Richmond-based artist P. Muzi Branch is also showing with the CBAC again after his inclusion in “Blackity Black Black.” Expressing the importance of the opportunities afforded by the collective, Branch asserts, “The CBAC group, through presenting thematic exhibitions, is affirming Black American visual art as a legitimate cultural genre that speaks for, informs about, and undergirds the Black community. African American visual art has unique ethnic norms, ideological themes, and aesthetic qualities that set it apart from all other culture-based art. The term ‘Black art’ is a cultural designation, not a racial one.”

Call and response

The affirmation of Black art and the expansion of cultural understanding and appreciation is at the heart of CBAC endeavors like “Sugah: Black Love Endures.” The benefits of this work extend beyond individual accolades and artistic achievements, impacting not just Black creative communities, but the entire Charlottesville community. As Price confirms, “The art in our shows is for everyone and provides a wonderful opportunity for patrons to explore new art and discover new artists.”

New exhibition opportunities attract new talent, enticing artists to show work in this area for the first time, or to show their work for the first time period. New artists bring new ideas, new expressions, new aesthetics to bear, and we all benefit by getting to see and experience novel examples of art and entertainment. New works creating stronger impacts on audiences bring new attention to an art scene. Viewers come to discover artists and works that resonate with them. New audiences strengthen creative communities by investing their time and resources into galleries and venues, which in turn use those investments to strengthen their programs that benefit artists and audiences, creating a mutually beneficial cycle of cultural and capital exchange. 

It’s through this lens that the full scope of the CBAC’s efforts can be understood. The message behind many of the works in “Sugah: Black Love Endures” is that to feel love is to feel safe, secure, supported. When we show up for Black artists, we offer our support. We offer a sense of security and commitment to culture and community. We offer love, and may that love ever endure.

Categories
Arts Culture

Letting it flow

Bolanle Adeboye’s “Rain Dancer” is part of “Water: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Black Experience,” which features work by 25 Black artists from across Virginia. The exhibition is on display at McGuffey Art Center through March 28. Photo courtesy of the artist

By Alana Bittner

When writer and photographer Kori Price agreed to be part of the curation committee for a Black artists’ exhibition at McGuffey Art Center, water was not on her mind. It didn’t come up until someone asked how they wanted viewers to move through the gallery. Price recalls discussing ways to make viewers feel like they were underwater: “How did we want them to feel? Should they follow a specific route through the space? How should they flow through?”

Those questions evoked sobering scenes for Price. Water signified the Middle Passage, the expanse of ocean that was used for trans-Atlantic slave trade, into which an unknown number of Africans jumped rather than endure bondage.

But water is also present in moments of joy and release, strength and protest. Price says the committee, which also includes Derrick Waller, Sahara Clemons, Dena Jennings, Jae Johnson, Tobiah Mundt, and Lillie Williams, soon realized it was the perfect metaphor for framing such a broad topic, and agreed on “Water: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Black Experience” for the show’s title.

The group intentionally kept the requirements for the participating artists simple, asking only for interpretations on the theme. The results are wide-ranging and surprising. The show features painting, photography, and film, plus banjos carved from dipping gourds. In the films of Ellis Finney, water symbolizes the flow of time and memory. For painter Clinton Helms, the theme manifests as a powerful thunderstorm, while Bolanle Adeboye captures the joy of a young girl playing in the rain. Yet despite the range of subjects, Price marvels at how “each individual piece flowed together as a cohesive unit in the show.”

Waller, a photographer, says that initially, he had no idea where to begin in creating his art for the show. The challenge encouraged him to step out of his comfort zone and pick up a paint brush. The discussions involving the trans-Atlantic slave trade had imprinted one quote in particular on his mind. In Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan’s character Killmonger says, “Nah… Just bury me in the ocean…with my ancestors that jumped from the ship…cuz they knew death was better than bondage.” Waller’s resulting work, “Death Was Better Than Bondage,” is a haunting tribute to those who jumped. Black pins are scattered across a background as blue as the sea, marking the lives lost to the waves.

When Price discovered that the first slave ship to the mainland colonies, the White Lion, landed in present-day Hampton, Virginia, she grabbed her camera and drove down to visit. The experience was moving, and resurfaced questions about her own past. “Like many Black Americans, there’s likely not a record of who my enslaved ancestors were or when they gained their freedom,” Price says. “Though I don’t know them by name, I think about them…and wonder who the more than 20 Africans were that walked off the White Lion and became our legacy.” Price’s “Shadow of 20. and Odd Negroes” shows ethereal shadows cast upon a deserted beach, stretching almost to the ocean beyond.

As submissions came in, the McGuffey committee noticed that many of the participating artists were showing work for the first time. Waller says that in talking with the artists it became clear that opportunities for Black artists to show their work were limited. For Waller, this affirmed a troubling trend. In his experience, it’s been “very rare to attend an art show that is totally focused on celebrating the talents of Black artists.”

During the curation process, the committee members began to discuss the role they could play in helping Black artists get connected with opportunities to show their work, and eventually decided to present the show as the product of a new organization: the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective. Waller says that “helping Black artists gain exposure will be at the core” of CBAC’s mission.

“Water” shows just how valuable that exposure is. By featuring a variety of Black voices, the exhibit captures the nuances and multiplicities of the Black experience, something missing from white-domintated art spaces.

“I think that people can make a mistake in interpreting the Black experience as a singular and stereotyped experience,” says Price. She hopes viewers can “leave with a better understanding of our complexities.”

For Waller, “Water” touches on something fundamental. “I think the show will make people feel,” he says, “whatever that emotion may be…joy, sadness, anger, peace. I want people to feel. And then I hope these feelings spark good conversation and dialogue.”

Categories
Arts Culture

PICK: Art Unlocked

Invest in the arts: Love art? Worried about the effect of a pandemic on our area’s art scene? Art Unlocked brings together seven organizations in central Virginia, including McGuffey Art Center and The Bridge, to support the work of over 65 artists. The gallery is currently open online, and the show culminates in a November 14 live fundraising event at McGuffey, which includes music by Wild Common, a performance by dancer Lillie Williams, and a culinary experience from APimento Catering’s chef-owner Gay Beery. Those who choose to remain at home can enjoy an upscale meal delivered by Tavola restaurant, along with remote bidding access.

Through 11/14, price and times vary. artunlocked.org.

Categories
Arts Culture

PICK: Outdoor Film Series

Publicity Photo

Fresh air perspectives: As cooler temps make our time outside more tolerable, the Outdoor Film Series will enrich our minds with shorts, films, and documentaries by filmmakers of color in collaboration with Light House Studio, Vinegar Hill Theatre, and McGuffey Art Center. The theme of the second installment is Waiting for Answers: Meditations on Existence, Time, & Place. Bring your own blanket and snacks and get level with community artists.

Wednesday 10/7, Free, 7pm. McGuffey Art Center, 201 Second St., NW. lighthousestudio.org

Categories
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.

 

 

 

Categories
Arts

October galleries

Gabriel Allan while at work on his sculpture “The Messenger,” circa 2007. Image courtesy of the Allan family

An artist’s journey

The night Alp Isin heard that his friend and fellow artist Gabriel Allan passed away, he couldn’t stop thinking about Allan’s sculptures.

Though Isin had seen “a bunch” of Allan’s pieces, covering a range of times and places, he “wasn’t sure what the totality was. That day, that night, I got this overwhelming feeling that I would really like to see [all of] it,” says Isin.

This week, Isin gets his wish: “What Is To Give Light Must Endure Burning: A Retrospective of Gabriel Allan’s Artistic Evolution” is on view at McGuffey Art Center for the month of October. It’s a collaborative curatorial effort between Isin, Gabe’s father Freeman Allan, and artist Bolanle Adeboye.

Allan, who died in March of this year at age 37, was a fairly prolific artist, but he didn’t sell many of his pieces. He left the curators a lot of work to plumb for the exhibition (Isin imagines it’s most of Gabe’s oeuvre).

His most visible work, “The Messenger,” a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of a fire-winged man, will be moved from its spot at IX Art Park to welcome viewers to the show from the McGuffey front stairs. Inside, the show begins with a T-shirt that an 11-year-old Allan designed for a Free Union running event, and courses through some of the sketches and sculptures he made in high school (including his first, a bust painted blue and inscribed with a Khalil Gibran poem), before arriving at work he made while in school at UVA, and later as a working artist in Charlottesville. It will also include some of the photographs he took while traveling abroad.

Freeman, who was very close with his son, put together a timeline that accompanies the artwork to contextualize what was going on in Allan’s life at the time he made each piece.

“The Messenger” was cast into bronze fairly recently, at a Santa Fe foundry, and Allan exhibited the work at Burning Man before bringing it home to IX Art Park last year. Photo by Brian Wimer

Isin imagines that the show will be a different emotional experience for those who knew Allan, than for those who did not. But he expects all viewers to be deeply moved by the work itself, which he says deals with psycho-spiritual issues in “a very interesting way, a very deep way.”

What’s more, adds Adeboye, “seeing it all at once, in the same room,” whether the viewer knew Allan or not, “you’ll get a full picture of [Allan] and his journey. It paints the picture of life through art.”

Opening October 4

The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “BEYOND: Virginia’s Enduring Exploration of The Mind,” half mini-museum and half art exhibit showcasing the ongoing exploration of human consciousness occurring within area organizations such as The Monroe Institute, The Association for Research and Enlightenment, The University of Science and Philosophy, and Yogaville. 5:30-9:30pm.

Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third Street SE. “The Asemic Landscape (a calligraphy of trees),” featuring paintings by Michelle Gagliano. 5-7pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “Recent Paintings,” a show of new works by Warren Boeschenstein. 5:30-7:30pm.

Warren Boeschenstein at CitySpace

 

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Pattern and Color Play: A Journey with Polymer Clay, Stone, and Wood,” featuring works by woodturner Floyd E. “Pete” Johnson and polymer clay artisan Judith N. Ligon. 6-8pm.

Eichner Studios Gallery 2035 Bond St. #120. A show of work by Julia Lesnichy and a number of local artists working in a variety of media. 6-8pm.

Fellini’s 200 W. Market St. An exhibition of landscapes in watercolor by Linda Abby. 5:30-7pm.

The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Utility: New Paintings by Cate West Zahl,” highlighting the accidental and often overlooked beauty that can result when function consciously overshadows form. 5-7pm.

IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “1-2-3,” an exhibit of affordably-priced work by 12 local artists, in a variety of mediums. 5-8pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “The Art of BEING a HERo,” portraits of heroic women by Krista Townsend; in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery, “Room to Breathe,” rural landscapes from Maine to Florida by Lindsay Freedman; in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery, “Do You Live Here?,” paintings of Mid- Atlantic scenes by artist John Trippel; and in the Upstairs North and South Hall galleries, “What Is To Give Light Must Endure Burning: A Retrospective of Gabriel Allan’s Artistic Evolution.” 5:30-7:30pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Ars Combinatoria,” an exhibition of paintings and mixed-media sculpture by John Lynch. 5-7pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Dové Gallery, “She’s In Monochrome,” featuring works in grayscale by Pam Black, Jessie Coles, Gray Dodson, Sam Gray, Lou Haney, Krista Townsend, and Laura Wooten; and “Subculture Shock: Death, Punk, & the Occult in Contemporary Art,” featuring paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and mixed media by Jessicka Adams, Peter Benedetti, Paul Brainard, Eve Falci, Frodo Mikkelsen, Porkchop, and Tamara Santibañez. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Original Animal Paintings,” featuring acrylics on canvas by Lesli DeVito. 6-8pm.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Inspired by Van Gogh,” new works by members the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective, including Jo Lee Tarbell, C. Ann Robertson, Miriam Ahladas, and others. 5:30-7:30pm.

VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Buy- O-Chromatic,” paper and waxed thread book art by Amanda Nelsen. 5:30-7:30pm.

Liz Zhang at Welcome Gallery

 

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Echoes,” a series of oil paintings by Liz Zhang in which the familiar, the family, becomes foreign. 5-7:30pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Who We Are,” featuring acrylics on canvas by Chris Butler. 5-7pm.

WVTF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. A joint show of work by Betty Brubach and Jim Cato. 5-7pm.

 

Other October 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. “Evening Boaters,” featuring work by Linda Verdery, through October 6; and “Color Notes” by Lee Halstead, opening October 12.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “A Mind of Seasons,” paintings by Linda Verdery. Opens October 12.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. Oil and pastel paintings by John Kozloski. Opens October 5, 4-6pm.

Carpediem Exhibit 1429 E. High St. A rotating, expanding multi-media exhibit of works by local, regional and out-of-state artists.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A show of work by Elizabeth Herlevsen of Red Mud Hen Pottery. Opens October 12, 2-4pm.

The Center 491 Hillsdale Dr. “Close to Home: Painting What We Love,” an exhibit of oil paintings by Randy Baskerville.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Asian Art from the Permanent and Select Private Collections”; “Otherwise,” exploring the influence of LGBTQ+ artists; “Time to Get Ready: Fotografia Social”; “Of Women By Women”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Ernest Withers: Picturing the Civil Rights Movement 1957-1968,” a show of 13 works from the African American photojournalist best known for capturing 60 years of African American history in the segregated South.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Ngayulu Nguraku Ninti: The Country I Know,” featuring the work of Sharon Adamson and Barbara Moore; and “With Her Hands: Women’s Fiber Art from Gapuwiyak: The Louise Hamby Gift.”

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Field Days,” a show of Susan McAlister’s multi- media works initiated “out in the field.”

Susan McAlister at Les Yeux du Monde

 

McIntire School of Commerce Connaughton Gallery Rouss and Robertson Halls, UVA. “Woodland and Sky,” featuring oil paintings by Kendall Cox and Linda Staiger.

Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. #150. A show of work by Georgie Mackenzie.

Mudhouse Coffee 213 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “People Other Than This One,” a show of Greg Antrim Kelly’s smartphone photographs of friends, colleagues, and strangers.

Piedmont Place 2025 Library Ave., Crozet. “Landscapes and More,” a show of work in a variety of media by members of the BozART Fine Art Collective.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. Featuring the work of five artists from the Beverly Street Studio School.

Summit Square Retirement Community 501 Oak Ave., Waynesboro. “Serenity,” featuring photography, watercolor, and mixed media works by Terry Coffey, Gail Haile, Shirley Paul, and Juliette Swenson.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. An exhibition of perceptual paintings by Susan Viemeister. Opens October 13, 11:30am.

Georgie Mackenzie at Milli Coffee Roasters

University of Virginia Hospital Main Lobby 1215 Lee St. Landscape and wildlife photographs by George A. Beller.

Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. “Lovely Landscapes,” a show of work by Julia Kindred.

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

It’s complicated: The exquisite perils of Peter Allen’s self-discovery

Pencil art and collaged poetry reveal the tortuous allure of soul searching in “Un-becoming Peter Allen” at McGuffey Art Center through August 18. “Albedo” is one of the works included in Allen’s third solo show since joining McGuffey in 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

A confession: I’m not adequately prepared to discuss Peter Allen’s “Un-becoming” show at McGuffey Art Center with the level of insight both the artist and his art deserve.

I certainly spent plenty of preparatory time and afforded the exhibition my contemplative attention. No, this is just a shortcoming of my own faculties—the same dearth that surely plagues the stupefied majority of Allen’s audiences. For there exists a gap of confounding distance between the viewer and the disarmingly tight collection of striking, illuminating, and unflinching personal visions alighting the walls of the Sarah B. Smith Gallery. For seven pieces, there is much to digest and decode.

I’ll liken my feeling of ineptitude to those moments when, reading an article, you pause to look up some referenced concept with which you’re unfamiliar; then, two minutes later, you find yourself on Wikipedia reading its definition for the fifth time, starting to question if it’s actually written in English, convinced that you know less after this fruitless endeavor than when you started, and cursing yourself for having dicked around so much during formative middle school math and science classes.

This is the overwhelming effect of Allen’s brilliance in visual art and poetry. To my great satisfaction, the artist’s statement and the ideas he’s shared about his creations demonstrate profound meaning. See, for a dummy like me, it’s a little intimidating.

Allen, a McGuffey member since 2011, says that his penciled paper and canvas pieces contend with “the nature of the self and the pressures of context.” His autobiographical discoveries invite viewers to consider their own identities, too. This lofty impulse is advanced through an upcycling of public domain, commercial, and personal images, recontextualized in graphite. He then couples his visuals with hand-cut, stenciled letters on a grid, spelling out his poetry in vertical streaks without space between the lines, often mirroring itself in a backward orientation. Though difficult to read, Allen accurately notes that his texts, which harbor some likely unintentional resemblance to Gee Vaucher’s protest art for anarcho-punk band Crass, look “at once ancient and modern.”

These bi-media pieces require us to consider the meaning of the words, as well as the images. There is little doubt that a casual Friday night art crawl won’t suffice, nor will the half-buzzed gallery stroll-through that might otherwise do the job for art proffered without paired poems. This takes time. Muttering your knee-jerk Rorschach test appraisals to the person next to you won’t cut it here.

Check out the titles—even they demand explanation: “Sequela,” “Scotoma,” “Albedo,” “Anamorph.” The good news is that, for three dollars, you can get a chapbook of sorts, where conventional presentations of Allen’s poetry are served with definitions of the unfamiliar language he’s chosen for his works’ names. Honestly, his verse provides more shocking imagery than his visuals, ornamented with terrors like deformed spider parent domination, town-crushing giants from childhood, and a recurring theme of relatives performing mutilations on each other.

The sinister elements that arise in his penciled canvases are more muted: an arrogant bather tilting aggressively in the surf, the confrontational gaze of a man among a gaggle of unhappy children, a stunned Red Riding Hood scrutinizing a contented wolf dozing in her grandmother’s clothing.

The show’s first piece, “Sequela,” features a type of self-portrait bust bisected by a vertical stream of text; the subject wears an unsettling white paper mask with holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth. The mask itself hangs on the backside of the wall above the poem, “Vault.” The three-part text tells of wandering into a dense forest, referencing wolves and birds, animals that reappear in the aforementioned fable piece “Albedo,” and the perched bird of “Anamorph.” It’s an intricate pattern of meaning that no brief review has space enough to explore.

Viewers of Allen’s third solo McGuffey show will be taken by the explosive monochromatic beauty of “Zoetrope,” which extends across multiple panels, snaking around two walls. Allen says the idea for the work originated 40 years earlier, when as a college student, he would shoot photos on the train to New York for museum visits. It concerns his idea of time and space interacting as parts of the same illusion that obscures the viewers’ sense of location and ability to interpret what’s being observed. “Zoetrope”’s silhouettes, cloud bursts, rays of sunlight, windows, reflections, and waves of smoke make it impossible to tell.

Though Allen leaves us ample instructions for understanding his influences, ideas, and objectives, following him for the entire journey takes chutzpah. But, for those of us willing to take on the challenge, the rewards are many.

Categories
Arts

Buzz worthy: McGuffey group exhibition reimagines ancient beeswax-based medium

L. Michelle Geiger's encaustic mixed media is one of seven artists’ encaustic paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media works are on view in “Melting Point: Contemporary Encaustic Works” at McGuffey Art Center through June 2. Courtesy of the artist

Sometimes, when the windows are open and the weather is warm, Giselle Gautreau has special guests at her McGuffey studio.

“Bees will come in and visit, so I have to escort the ladies out,” Gautreau says. “I used to be a beekeeper, so I’m obsessed with bees.”

The winged visitors are drawn to the smell of beeswax and honey created by Gautreau’s encaustic artworks. Encaustic painting is a wax-based form of mixed-media art that has its roots in Greece, as early as the fifth century B.C. By combining molten wax, damar resin, and extremely high heat, artists could create and preserve paintings ranging from warships’ adornment to architecture and pottery embellishments and Egyptian funeral portraits. Over time, the costly, labor intensive artform fell out of favor—but it has experienced a modern-day resurgence.

“Artists now have more access to tools to heat the wax,” she explains. “More studios are teaching encaustic workshops, too.”

Gautreau uses instruments such as a pancake griddle, créme brûlée torch, dental tools, and razor blades to create her artworks, several of which are on view until June 2 in a McGuffey group show that she curated, “Melting Point: Contemporary Encaustic Works.” Gautreau selected six other encaustic artists from around the region to join the exhibition—Michelle Geiger, Gina Louthian-Stanley, Bridgette Mills, Lynda Ray, Jeannine Regan, and Kristie Wood.

The show is a veritable feast for the senses. Sculptural works like Mills’ “Guardians II”—comprised of chicken wire, mirror, wax, and textiles—still smell of beeswax. It’s a rich, tactile piece that pays homage to a site-specific sculpture Mills installed in an arboretum in Maryland that was stolen and never recovered.

Geiger, another McGuffey artist, infuses her interest in marine biology and bookmaking in her three-dimensional assemblage paintings. In her whimsical “Stories of the Sea” mixed-media piece, an octopus figurine leafs through an array of papers Geiger ripped from a textbook. She positions the figures against a blue-green background, richly reminiscent of algae, space, or the hue of water 10,000 leagues beneath the surface.

Other pieces in the show, such as Ray’s bright, geometric wave series or Regan’s abstracted landscapes, build up colorful layers of the thick, textural wax—so much so that light bounces across the paintings and creates three-dimensional peaks and valleys. Louthian-Stanley achieves a similarly sculptural effect in her works by using a combination of roofing tar and wax. Her 3-foot-wide painting “Frozen River” calls to mind an empty winter landscape that nonetheless feels warm and inviting, complex, and expansive.

“It can be an excavating or additive process. Everyone approaches encaustic in different ways,” says Gautreau.

Wood, another Charlottesville artist, incorporates the wax and resin medium via photo transfer. She scours antique stores for vintage portraits, manipulates them digitally, and renders the photographs on wax. In “Delicate Little Flowers,” Wood peeled the new wax representation of the original image, and delicately arranged each photo transfer in circular layers—and with added elements like a gold frame and hardware she has captured this cyclical family tree at one specific moment in time.

Gautreau’s works also evoke feelings of nostalgia and memory. Her delicate, graphite-based marking dances across the surfaces of “Grove in Winter” and “Gather”—perhaps imitating a honeybee in flight. She loves the cloudy, diffused quality created by buffing and re-buffing the encaustic surface, and experimenting with the translucency of the wax.

“When I’m oil painting, I know what I’m after and what the piece will look like,” Gautreau says. “Less so with encaustic. There are more happy accidents.”

Categories
Arts

April Galleries

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Andy Faith’s favorite thing to do as a kid was visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art to look at Marcel Duchamp’s found art pieces. She’s been making her own work from found materials since 1994, the latest of which are on view at McGuffey Art Center throughout the month of April. Photo by Martyn Kyle

Soft morning light filters in through the window of Andy Faith’s studio in the basement of McGuffey Art Center, and try as it might, the light can’t possibly illuminate every object on every shelf in the place.

There’s an old Monticello Dairy ice cream carton, yellowed and full of rusty nails; tea bags; rough slabs of wood; metal cages; doll eyes she found in Paris; plastic dice of many colors; scraps of cheesecloth; jars of doll pieces labeled “breasts + other body parts,” or “penises”; aging clockworks; various animal skulls; and a small box of tiny bones that tinkle when Faith runs her hands gently through them.

She laughs as she looks around at her beloved materials—she can hardly find anything when she wants it, but still manages to create. It helps to have a deadline, says Faith, like the one for “untitled,” her show on view in McGuffey’s Upstairs South Hall Gallery throughout the month of April.

“Protector” is one of the pieces featured in Faith’s show at McGuffey this month. Photo courtesy of the artist

“It’s sort of political,” she says about the show, with pieces like “Even If You Don’t Believe, Please Pray for Them,” dedicated to the children who have been, and continue to be, separated from their parents at the U.S. border. There are pieces on racism, on incarceration, on sexism, and a few totems. “But that’s what it is. That’s what’s happening,” she says, and these things are on her mind constantly.

For Faith, making this work is healing, and she hopes it will be for the viewer, too. Some folks may think it’s scary, and she understands that, but it’s protective and beautiful in its raw vulnerability.

Sometimes, art has to break a viewer’s heart in order to heal it. —Erin O’Hare

Openings

Chroma Projects Gallery Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Luminous Structures,” a show of works by glass artist Emily Williams and painter Elaine Rogers. 5-7pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “It’s A Music Town,” a multimedia exhibition curated by Rich Tarbell and Coy Barefoot that explores the sights, sounds, and stories of Charlottesville in the modern rock era. 5-8:30pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Once Upon a Time: Clocks with a Story,” featuring clocks made by tinkering guru Allan Young. 6-8pm.

Dovetail Design & Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “New Home: Same Mountainside,” watercolor and mixed media works by Leah Claire Larsen. 5-7pm.

Home Sweet Home Realty 1050 Druid Ave. Ste. A. “Reflections, Illusions and Dreams,” a show of work by Casey Woodzell. 5pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Picasso, Lydia and Friends, Vol. IV,” featuring 12 Picasso prints as well as works from seven friends of the late modernist art professor and painter Lydia Gasman. 1-5pm.

Live Arts 123 E. Water St. A show of light box works by Bolanle Adeboye.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Albemarle in Winter,” a show of watercolor images of Albemarle County; in the Downstairs North and South Hall Galleries, “Pink,” a group show of 11 artists examining how pink is relevant to their work; in the Upstairs North Hall Gallery, “Under Pressure,” an exhibition of experimental monotype prints by Polly Breckenridge; and in the Upstairs South Hall Gallery, “untitled,” featuring works that are an offering of witness, compassion, and protection for all those who suffer in the world, by A. Faith. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. An exhibition of original works in oil on canvas by Kris Bowmaster. 7-10pm.

Music Resource Center 105 Ridge St. “Meditative Reflections,” a show of work by Sara Gondwe, who uses crayons, an iron, and fabric paint to create her pieces. 5-7pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Art of Marion Roberts,” featuring photo manipulations. 5-7pm.

Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of work by Laura Heyward, who creates in oil, acrylic, pen and ink, printmaking, and collage. 5-7:30pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “OBJECTify,” a joint show of work by painters Michael Fitts and Megan Read; and in the Dové Gallery, “Michelle Gagliano: Murmurations,” an exhibition of paintings that also features sculpture by Robert Strini. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “NewArt,” featuring paintings by Ell Tresse. 6-8pm.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Recalibration: New Paintings by Mike Ryan,” in which the artist explores pattern and shape, creating without restraints. 5:30-7:30pm.

VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Myths, Monsters, and General Mayhem,” an exhibition of acrylic works on masonite board by Sara Knipp. 5:30-7:30pm.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Sculpture and Color,” featuring works by sculptor Robert Strini and painter Ken Horne. 5-7:30pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “A Place To Call,” a show of photography and mixed- media pieces by Alden Myers and Liza Wimbish. 5-7pm.

WVTF RadioIQ 216 W. Water St. “Love Breathes in Two Countries,” featuring work by local landscape artists Christen Yates and Brittany Fan. 5-7pm.

Other April shows

Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. A show of paintings by Jane Skafte and Sue DuFour. Through May 26.

The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Desencabronamiento,” an exhibition of Federico Cuatlacuatl’s sculptural kites and video that explore tradition and culture as political weapons. Kite workshops, exhibition, talk, and mural paintings throughout the week of April 8, in conjunction with the Tom Tom Founders Festival. Exhibition officially opens April 14, 7-10pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “The Ten,” featuring multi-media abstract paintings by Philip J. Marlin.

Commonwealth Restaurant 422 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Linear Motion,” featuring illustrations by Martin Phillips.

Connaughton Gallery McIntire School of Commerce at UVA. “Looking In and Looking Out,” featuring works in watercolor, pen, and ink on canvas by Kaki Dimock, and works in acrylic on canvas by Brittany Fan. Opens March 18.

Crozet Artisan Depot 571 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Jake’s Clay Art: Animation and Energy,” a show of Jake Johnson’s colorful pottery.

Fellini’s 200 Market St. “Owned,” an exhibition of pastels by Cat Denby.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Pompeii Archive: Recent Photographs by William Wylie,” through April 21; Vanessa German’s installation, “sometimes.we.cannot.be.with.our.bodies”; “The Print Series in Bruegel’s Netherlands: Dutch and Flemish Works from the Permanent Collection”; “Of Women, By Women,” an exhibition curated by the University’s museum interns that explores the power inherent in the act of taking a photograph; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Java Java 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. A multimedia show by the members of the BozART Fine Art Collective, including Carol Barber, Randy Baskerville, Betty Brubach, Matalie Deane, Joan Dreicer, Frank Feigert, Sara Gondwe, Anne de Latour Hopper, Julia Kindred, Julia Lesnichy, Amy Shawley Paquette, and Juliette Swenson.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW “Deborah Willis: In Pursuit of Beauty” examines how beauty is posed, imagined, critiqued, and contested. Through April 27.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Kent Morris: Unvanished,” a series of digitally constructed photographs that explores the relationship between contemporary Indigenous Australian identity and the modern built environment; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States.”

Random Row Brewery 608 Preston Ave. A show of mixed media works in crayon and fabric paint by Sara Gondwe.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Awakening,” Sandra Luckett’s multimedia exhibition that is a monument to spiritual rebirth. Opens April 6, 5-7pm.

Tandem Friends School 279 Tandem Ln. The Charlottesville Area Quilters Guild Biennial Quilt Show, featuring work from more than 135 members from four area chapters. April 6 and 7.

Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. A show of watercolors, some incorporating calligraphy, by Terry M. Coffey.

Woodberry Forest School Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry Forest. “Seasons Of and In Mind,” featuring paintings by Linda Verdery.

Categories
Arts

First Fridays: January 4

Kelly Lonergan paints with personality and an insight to human relationships in “And Then There Were Two,” opening Friday at McGuffey Art Center. Photo by Martyn Kyle.

By Sabrina Moreno

If you ask Kelly Lonergan, he’s not a figure painter. The figures he paints on 48 by 60 inch canvas—a scale that excites him—are slightly awkward, clunky. But to him, that’s the best part. It gives them a sense of personality for viewers to cling and relate to.

In his show “And Then There Were Two,” on view at McGuffey Art Center this month, 10 paintings display the fascination with dance, anatomy, and human relationships that led Lonergan to explore figure painting 30 years ago. An idea that flourished from day-to-day “whimsical” sketches became a series of modernized, diverse depictions of Adam and Eve.

The process quickly became a rich and challenging experience for the artist. He noticed that the expulsion from the garden paralleled the beginnings of humankind, with the couple gaining awareness of a world outside themselves.

“I realized I couldn’t think of this as Adam and Eve without becoming much, much more astute in what I was doing,” he says.

Lonergan thought about the misogynistic practices, racial portrayals, and attitudes toward gender that are commonly associated with the Adam and Eve story. The series then became about communicating individual details—poses, body language, skin color, and clothes—in a way that would offer viewers different looks at the frequently painted couple.

“I guess yeah, I am a white guy and what can I say?” Lonergan says regarding race and gender. “But I like to think I’ve been trying to improve myself and inform myself, be inspired and be enlightened as a human being.”

For Lonergan, this story is one of a shared human experience and the liberation that comes with conscientiousness. With the recurring placement of the male and female figure, a chain link fence, and a brick pathway, Lonergan views Adam and Eve leaving the garden as empowering—regardless of where they go, the barrier has been broken.

January gallery shows

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. A show of acrylic and collage works by Judith Ely, and watercolors by Chee Ricketts. Opens Saturday, January 12, 2-5pm.

The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Signs of Change,” featuring work created by a group of jury-selected artists highlighting moments in Charlottesville black history. The work will also be on display in an outdoor gallery near City Hall on the Downtown Mall. 5:30-9:30pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Hope: Prepare the Way,” featuring work by BMEC artists.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Of Space and Matter,” featuring drawings, prints, and mixed-media works of Jennifer Printz in the front gallery; and “Looking Just Past The Sky,” a series of manipulated photographs by Dan Mahon in the mezzanine. 5-7pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Studio Sale,” during which many items in the gallery are on sale.

Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Winter Solace,” an exhibition of Melissa Malone’s oil and acrylic paintings on canvas of various bodies of water.

FF Fellini’s Restaurant 200 Market St. “The Motion and Emotion of Life,” featuring photography by Jacob RG Canon. 5:30-7pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Pompeii Archive: Recent Photo- graphs by William Wylie,” opening January 18; “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Unexpected O’Keeffe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings”; “Camera Work: American Photography of the Early 20th Century”; “Highlights from the Collection of Heywood and Cynthia Fralin”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Green House Coffee 1260 Crozet Ave., Crozet. “On Our Way,” an exhibition of paintings by Judith Ely.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW “(W)here To Stay?!,” An exhibition of Magnus Wennman’s photographs of Syrian refugee children accompanied by artwork and writings by Charlottesville High School students. Through January 19.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Freshwater Saltwater Weave,” a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello, through January 7; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States.”

Martha Jefferson Hospital Cancer Center, Second Floor 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. “Sunrises and Sunsets,” featuring work by Randy Baskerville.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, Kelly Lonergan’s “And Then There Were Two,” featuring paintings of Adam and Eve outside the gates of Eden moments after the expulsion; in the downstairs and upstairs North and South Hall galleries, an exhibition of work from McGuffey’s newest members. 5:30-7:30pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Summer Days,” featuring oil paintings by Blake Hurt.

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Bold,” featuring acrylic paintings on canvas by Novi Beerens.

Piedmont Virginia Community College, V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Possibilities,” featuring ceramic vessels and objects by Tom Clarkson; in the South Gallery, works by PVCC art faculty such as Fenella Belle, Ashley Gill, Lou Haney, Will May, Beryl Solla, Jeremy Taylor, and others.

Random Row Brewing Company 608 Preston Ave. Ste. A. “Still Life: Love of the Familiar,” featuring paintings by Randy Baskerville.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Attraction,” an exhibition of new botanical work by John Grant; in the Dové Gallery, “TORN,” an exhibition of work focused on the modern portrayal of women by photographer Scott Irvine and artist Kim Meinelt, who together work as WAXenVINE. January 11, 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. The annual winter contemporary juried exhibition, this year titled “Women’s Work” and featuring work from Inez Berinson Blanks, Colleen Conner, Eileen Doughty, Sarah Lapp, Peg Sheridan, Astrid Tuttle, and others. Through January 19.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. Downtown Mall. “From Alberta to Victoria,” a show of photography by Rob Myers. 6-8pm.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Dear Lilith: A Body of New Work. Sincerely, Sam Gray,” an exhibition that shares the unfolding conversation between the artist and Lilith, ancient mother goddess, proto-feminist, and original wife of Adam. 5:30-7:30pm.

UVA Medical Center Main Lobby 1215 Lee St. “Distant Worlds,” an exhibition of 15 deep space paintings by Patty Avalon, through January 10; and “Plant Life Up Close,” featuring 36 of Seth Silverstein’s close-up photographs of plant life, seeds, flowers, and more. Opening January 11.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “2019 New City Arts Artist Exchange,” featuring drawings, sculptures, embroidery, photography, and prints by Annie Temmink, Frank Walker, Golara Haghtalab, Grace Ho, Kaki Dimock, Karina A. Monroy, Matt Eich, and others. Pop-up exhibition opens January 9, 5-7:30pm.

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