Arts Culture

The deep end

“You can’t paint swimming pools without thinking about class and thinking about race,” says Sharon Shapiro. Pools figure largely in “Social Fabric,” Shapiro’s show at Second Street Gallery. Originally drawn to swimming pools for aesthetic reasons and because “they’re fun to paint,” Shapiro began to dig deeper into their history. “We didn’t really talk about […]

Sarah Sargent | June 23, 2021

Culture

Seeing Charlottesville

Most days, Charlottesville artist Edward Thomas could be found with his folding easel, set up on a sidewalk, by the river, or at a construction site, engaged in capturing “what the world looks like from where I stand,” he’d say. Thomas died May 8, 2021, at the age of 49. “Edward had an extremely good […]

Sarah Sargent | May 26, 2021

Arts Culture

The resilience will not be televised: Three artists dig into the psyche for Chroma’s winter solstice show

Chroma Projects Director Deborah McLeod has been keeping a unique holiday tradition for the past several years. “Every year at Christmastime, I showcase Aggie Zed’s oddly enchanting work,” says McLeod. “I think of it as a modern version of the sort of folkloric forms and superstitious practices surrounding not just Christmas, but Krampus, Samhain, and […]

Sarah Sargent | December 9, 2020

Arts Culture

Kites bring attention to locally detained migrant children’s plight

In Latin America, kites are serious business, flown, depending on region, on Easter and the Day of the Dead. They’re also widely used for sport. With his “Papalotes en Resistencia” (Kites in Resistance), Federico Cuatlacuatl, an assistant professor of new media in UVA’s art department, uses the culture, heritage, and traditions of that region as […]

Sarah Sargent | November 4, 2020

Arts Culture

Act locally: Area photographers’ exhibit focuses on systemic racism

This spring, just as people were grappling with the new normal of living in a pandemic, George Floyd’s homicide threw a Molotov cocktail of anger, frustration, and heartbreak onto an already stressful situation. After Rodney and Eric, Trayvon and Sandra, Breonna and Elijah, and countless other African American lives were taken by aggressive policing, Floyd’s killing […]

Sarah Sargent | November 4, 2020

Arts

Change agents: Beatrix Ost retrospective warns of a dystopian future

Walking into Beatrix Ost’s “Illuminations & Illusions,” now on view at Second Street Gallery, I was immediately reminded of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” It wasn’t one particular painting that suggested this, but rather the cumulative effect of all the work. Like Bosch, Ost creates complicated, often fantastical tableaux of people, […]

Sarah Sargent | November 27, 2019