March First Fridays Guide

Local artist Eliza Evans has been painting acrylic portraits from real-life scenes since 2006, and she always tries to capture a good likeness as quickly as possible so the subject doesn’t get uncomfortable sitting. Her latest exhibit is a collection of self-portraits along with some portraits of her close friends and family on canvas, wood […]

February First Fridays Guide

Artist Sharon Zarambo founded Bellozar Studio in 1987. Though she has explored a range of mediums, she has worked in mixed media for the past eight years. Inspired by the work of surrounding artists, Zarambo has created a number of striking totemic works, along with sculptures and wall art, which reflect a blend of influences. […]

January First Fridays Guide

Local artist Aaron Eichorst believes in the power of a positive perspective on influencing personal success. His exhibition, “Inner Outlook,” is an artistic manifestation of his personal attitudes and temperaments over four years, and follows a previous series that featured a style called grotesque—an intricate incorporation of fantastic human and animal figures interlaced with architectural […]

December First Fridays Guide

Sculptor and painter Aggie Zed sees all of the beauty and strangeness in her imaginative ceramic and copper works as alive. Her complex elephant creations often feature elements of low-tech industry like wheeled carts that intricately express the physicality of the pachyderms. Zed names wings, particularly “clumsy, comic, metal wings,” as a part of her […]

November First Fridays Guide

In her non-traditional photography, local artist Cary Oliva manipulates instant film (namely Polaroid) formats to create phantom-like images with textural imperfections and light flares, reminiscent of watercolors. Oliva enjoys working with early art forms and returns to the motif of age often: “I feel like an old soul in general,” she says. “I’d rather buy […]

October First Fridays Guide

Local visual artist Allie Kelly has a keen eye for capturing beauty in the world around her. She appreciates observing natural splendor and producing its likeness with equal vigor, expressing a joy in “watching light as it changes” and seeing “lines that curve and carve.” Experience the manifestation of Kelly’s perceptions through her brush at […]

September First Fridays Guide

En plein air, a French expression meaning open air, is used to describe the act of painting outdoors. Artist Meg West prefers the form, the environmental immersion and challenge that comes with it. Living in Virginia, she says she benefits from being able to “breathe, see and experience the view large all around,” and see […]

August First Fridays Guide

Much of Charlottesville resident Stephen Kern’s new exhibition at SCS gallery, titled “Where Light Comes From,” is derived from the young artist’s submission portfolio that gained him entry to VCU Arts for the upcoming fall semester. The works are imaginative scenarios illustrative of curious fantasies, often illuminated with dangling lamps that pierce Kern’s nocturnes with […]

July First Fridays Guide

Local poet Judy Longley often feels like she’s drowning in words. After years of letting her poetry consume her, she’s learning how to revel in silence with a new skill set and a new name. Working as Juliet Da Luiso, Longley unleashes her joy and curiosity in highly abstract oil paintings rather than verses or stanzas. […]

June First Fridays Guide

Richard Freeman is one of Virginia’s little-known art institutions. His frame shop sat stalwartly on the Corner for most of the last century, after opening under print-loving Paul Victorius’ ownership in the late 1930s. When the ’60s rolled around, Victorius took notice of Freeman, a former naval officer running a small art gallery in the […]