The Émilie Charmy retrospective currently on display at the Fralin Museum of Art is perplexing. Most of her paintings have a fierce inquisitive quality. Her application of paint gives expressive life to simple compositions. Single thick brush strokes resolve into a small elegant wrist or a delicate twist of hair. Although a few paintings, like “Nu […]
This week we’re sharing our write-up of a studio visit with local artist Nancy Bass. On a grassy knoll just south of town sits Historic Anchorage House, a landmark on the National Historic Register of Places. Built in 1825 by John White, this beautiful building now functions as the studio space of local artist Nancy […]
This summer, I’ve noticed art in unlikely places around town: local hospitals. McGuffey Art Center member artist Lindsey Oberg had new mixed media works on display at Martha Jefferson Hospital in June. “In the Country” by Richard Bednar and “Sightings,” a collection of photographs by Frank Feigert, have been featured in UVA Medical Center’s Main Hospital lobby […]
An Op-Ed style manifesto and general response to the McGuffey Summer Show Art in Charlottesville can be characterized by a sort of conservative tameness. Local artists combine quaint country craft with universally pleasing aesthetics to create an experience that is enjoyable but limited to a limbo world of perpetual charm. Limitless talent is channeled into oil, […]
The abstract and stylized tapestries of Klaus Anselm and Joan Griffin, currently on display at the McGuffey Art Center, are indisputably beautiful objects. They have clear pleasing palettes, unexpected bright intense colors, soft surfaces, and an odd but familiar resolution. Anselm’s tapestries are mostly geometric abstractions, overlapping squares, curves, and quadrilaterals that fill each composition. Griffin’s […]
What is perception? Philosophers, psychologists, and ophthalmologists have studied this question for years, but none have studied as vividly or exhaustively as visual artists. Subtle nuances of memory, culture, and aspiration within us dictate how we see the world and how we respond to it. In this way, every artist sees the world differently, but also […]
The objects and contraptions assembled in the main gallery at Chroma Projects seem like props from a wild Terry Gilliam film. The sculptural collages are built from found materials, mostly things which look salvaged from roadsides or abandoned lots. Dymph de Wild has made the objects appear functional, meaningful, bizarre, and beautiful. Some of them even […]
When first observing the “Black Prints from Cicada Press” at the Kluge Ruhe, the print “let’s be polite about aboriginal art” by Vernon Ah Kee jumps out and sets the stage for the exhibit. The print is a simple black square with an aesthetically arranged column of text. The font is simple, it looks like Arial, […]
For the month of July, five paintings by Rob Browning will be on display at the Warm Springs Gallery alongside other works by Andras Bality and Liz Price . Browning’s paintings are figurative, illustrative works, magnetic from a distance. They appear through the gallery’s window like surreal images from a fantastical children’s book. His works […]
The Telegraph is unique in Charlottesville for its wide selection of zines, indie comics, and small press books. Among these are several works by local artists, including a short comic by the young artist Francesca Rowan titled Alencia. This zine-style stapled booklet contains a short sword-and-sorcery story about a young heroine who uses her skills […]