Conjuring the curriculum

With the series of paintings that make up Kristopher Castle’s engaging show “Curriculum Vitae” at Phaeton Gallery, the artist explores Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village and his innovative ideas for education. As the title suggests, the exploration is not a discourse on the UVA founder’s achievements, but rather the artist’s deeply personal relationship to Jefferson’s ideals […]

Identity and magic

It feels like Carnival time at Second Street Gallery. Megan Marlatt’s vibrant paintings and eye-popping big head sculptures are on view and the space sings with boisterous energy. Festival themes loom large in her show entitled “Mummers,” and though Carnival doesn’t officially begin for a couple of months, its fall equivalent is happening right now. […]

An artist’s perspective

Lincoln Perry has been a prominent figure on the Charlottesville art scene since the mid-1980s. An acclaimed muralist with significant work in landscapes, figurative paintings, and sculpture, Perry’s murals grace walls around the country including the Met Life building in St. Louis and at the University of Virginia. “The Student’s Progress,” in UVA’s Old Cabell […]

Keen on Keene

If you lived in Charlottesville in the early ’90s, you’re probably familiar with Steve Keene’s art. Keene worked as a dishwasher at Monsoon Café, which opened on the Downtown Mall in 1992, and owner Lu-Mei Chang gave him free rein to paint the walls, tables, and chairs. Chang’s early efforts to promote Keene are immortalized […]

Joys and sorrows

“Polly came into this world an artist,” says Carol Grant, speaking about her daughter Polly Breckenridge. “It was apparent from a very young age that she loved creating things out of whatever was available to her. That was her joy.”  Breckenridge, who died unexpectedly on April 22, 2022, is the subject of a memorial show […]

Sense memory

With three shows scheduled for 2022, Krista Townsend found herself in an enviable position as an artist. But she had a problem: She needed work to exhibit. “I realized I had to speed up my process,” says Townsend, who’d primarily worked with oil paint. “I decided to explore using acrylic paint to block in the […]

With feeling

For Hagan Tampellini, the current Les Yeux du Monde show felt right. “Modern Alchemy: Rosemarie Fiore & Ana Rendich” is the first exhibition conceived and curated by Tampellini, the gallery’s director and daughter of LYDM founder, the late Lyn Bolen Warren.  “Many of the shows we’re having this year are ones my mother was in […]

Seeing the divine

“A few months before she passed, my mom told me she’d had a dream that she was supposed to have a show called ‘Turn on the Light!’ It would be in January of the new year, manifesting our emergence from COVID and hope for our brighter future, and she would ask each artist she represented […]

Color rush

As daily temps start to climb, and we await the vibrant colors of spring, Quirk Gallery offers a visually stunning show celebrating the work of two artists, Priscilla Whitlock and Mary Holland, whose work is guaranteed to lift winter’s gray grip.  Whether producing vignettes of her garden, open meadows, or mountain vistas, Whitlock’s “Eden” conveys […]

All the joys of life

The Charlottesville arts community lost one of its greatest champions and brightest stars in Carolyn “Lyn” Bolen Warren, who died on Sunday, November 21, at the age of 60 after a valiant battle with cancer. Warren’s art gallery, Les Yeux du Monde, has been a cherished Charlottesville institution for more than two decades, featuring beautifully […]