Double take

The exhibition “Power Play: Reimagining Representation in Contemporary Photography” at UVA’s Fralin Museum of Art brings together the work of multiple female artists as they deconstruct and condemn classic presentations of feminine identities in popular culture.  From the first moment that museum-goers enter the exhibition curated by Hannah Cattarin, Adriana Greci Green, and Laura Minton, […]

Stretching the canvas

“One of the best things about collaborating with another artist is I learn a great deal about the other person’s sensibility to materials, aesthetics, and mark making,” says artist Diego Sanchez. His work is currently on view at the Quirk Gallery, together with fellow Richmonder Mary Scurlock. In “Conversations,” each artist has eight paintings on […]

December galleries

Baker Gallery Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School. “New Works,” landscape paintings featuring scenes from Charlottesville by Richard Crozier. Through December 31. First Fridays reception. The Center at Belvedere 540 Belvedere Blvd. A small-works open exhibit featuring over 30 artists, including Meredith Bennett, Susan Trimble, Joan Griffin, Frannie Joseph, and Judith Ely. Through December […]

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. […]

November galleries

Artisans Studio Tour Various locations around central Virginia. Tour the workshops of over 30 artisans. November 12-13. The Bebedero 201 W. Main St. “Art Inspired by the Spirit.” Local artists created original art based on their experiences with mezcal and tequila. $30, November 6, 6pm. The Center at Belvedere 540 Belvedere Blvd. A small works […]

Pick: The Great Rotumpkin

Spooky, scary images send shivers down your spine at The Great Rotumpkin. The seasonal celebration blends the architecture of the Rotunda with pop-up projections to create a variety of haunting scenes featuring new designs from multimedia artist Jeff Dobrow. Eerie music accompanies visceral vignettes of dancing skeletons, ghostly graveyards, bubbling cauldrons, ghoulish pumpkins, and more. […]

Something borrowed

Remixing, riffing, playing with memes: These are artistic modes that we sometimes think of as belonging to our own time, as though it was only in the 20th century, and only in Western countries, that artists began to knowingly recycle material. Think Roy Lichtenstein, Beastie Boys, and anybody who’s used the image of RBG’s lace […]

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 […]

Life and death in Italy

From the opening lines of The Marriage Portrait, author Maggie O’Farrell does not hedge: The Duchess of Ferrara will die. As historical fiction based on the real life and death of the 16-year-old Lucrezia di Cosimo de’Medici—the details were set in stone more than 460 years ago—this new novel probes the who and the how […]