Artist Trisha Orr paints herself out of a corner

Trisha Orr’s complex, tour de forces of fabric, objects, and flowers have earned high critical praise for many years. They are beautifully rendered, dispassionate works, and they reveal very little about the artist except that she is technically gifted and admires beauty. Growing up in a demanding family and going to art school in the […]

Kickst-Art: Fundraiser helps Ix undergo creative metamorphosis

In the past several weeks, the Ix property between Elliott and Monticello avenues has begun to transform from a former industrial complex that’s home to retail businesses, restaurants, and the Newsplex television offices to an art park. Ix developers Ludwig and Fabian Kuttner envision a European-style piazza where the community can mingle amid a thriving […]

Jen Sorensen wins the Herblock for excellence in editorial cartooning

If you’ve heard the name Jen Sorensen, it may be because she’s the 2014 winner and first female recipient of the prestigious Herblock Prize for editorial cartooning—or because she’s been published in C-VILLE Weekly for more than a decade. “I went to UVA as an undergrad and wound up sticking around Charlottesville for many years after […]

The abundant, accessible art of Warren Craghead

“I recently saw a book of Picasso’s work where they published everything he did, and between two awesome paintings were about a hundred that weren’t so great.” Warren Craghead laughed with what sounded like relief. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, right. This is the real world. I shouldn’t feel so bad about myself.’” The Charlottesville-based cartoonist […]

April First Fridays Guide

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. First Fridays: April 4, 2014 BON 100 W. […]

Joseph Cornell plays in the shadows of the Surrealist movement

A rich and deeply satisfying show, “Joseph Cornell and Surrealism” at the Fralin Museum explores Cornell’s work in the context of the Surrealist movement of the 1930s and ’40s. Prior to seeing it, I had the common, yet incorrect impression, that Cornell was a hermit-like creature akin to Henry Darger who created his work in […]

Les Yeux du Monde welcomes color in ‘Visions of Spring’

If you’re tired of grey skies and slush, you might want to visit Les Yeux du Monde before the end of March. “When you walk in the gallery, you see a lot of color,” said Lyn Bolen Warren, the curator of the space’s current exhibit, Visions of Spring. “You see these big painted urns reaching upward, […]

Charlottesville author’s novel remembers Camille in vivid detail

Mary Buford Hitz was in her late 20s when Hurricane Camille’s devastating floods hit Nelson County on the night of August 19 1969, killing 153 people in a few hours and forever changing the mountain landscape. Hitz, a Richmond native who now lives in Charlottesville, was staying on family property in Afton that late summer […]

Must-see panels at the Virginia Festival of the Book

Each March, visiting and local literati of all ages and reading preferences fill Charlottesville for the annual Virginia Festival of the Book. History buffs and romance readers mingle with self-published writers and award-winning authors including John Grisham, Lois Lowry, and John Lewis. Attendees have lots of choices to make during the five-day festival (March 19-23). […]

Ten locals interpret written work through visual art

When FIREFISH Gallery co-curators Araxe Hajian and Sigrid Eilertson brainstormed concepts for their next collaborative project, they decided to flip the script. Rather than host a visual art show that invited verbal interpretation, they decided to ask visual artists to interpret Hajian’s short story “This is How You Open a Pomegranate.” “I didn’t see this […]