Kendra Wadsworth, VMFA Fellowship recipient in 2010, is currently included in a VMFA exhibition as part of the museum’s 7
Kendra Wadsworth, VMFA Fellowship recipient in 2010, is currently included in a VMFA exhibition as part of the museum’s 75th anniversary fellowship program that recognizes the work of a few past artists who were in the Fellowship program.
Wadsworth has taught painting and drawing to children and adults at Virginia Commonwealth University, VMFA, and other art centers and her work, along with two other artists will be on display through July 26 at an exhibition at The Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va.
She’s got quite the style that she would describe as, “as a marriage between contemporary abstraction and representational elements,” and believes that her audience is one that could “still appreciate the physicality of painting; the feeling that you get from viewing a work and feeling the artist in it.”
Wadsworth has had experience with her art in several different locations like New York, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. She said her pieces created in those different environments at different ages lead to significant changes in her work. “I’ve had my angry female times, my political times, my western times, and now my textural tar “murmurations” and gridded drill drawings,” Wadsworth said. “Creating for me is an ever changing process that is often filled with agony, wonder, surprise, change, and bliss.”
She was sure that once obtaining her BFA in painting and printing from Virginia Commonwealth University and getting her MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania, she would never look back at Richmond or Virginia overall for that matter. She managed to stay away for about 12 years and once returning, she quickly got engaged in the arts community and was amazed at how progressive and art centered Richmond had become.
This artist has been able to get her hands on a variety of projects in Richmond ever since she’s been back. “I began teaching at the Visual Art Center of Richmond and the VMFA and things just felt right,” Wadsworth said.
At VCU, she instructed Surface Research for a few semesters. With the Visual Art Center of Richmond, she taught hand building, wheel throwing, painting, drawing, and mixed media for their after-school outreach programs.
G. Baker Ellett, Wadsworth’s friend and owner of Blue Dog Properties, gave her some space on the art walk of Broad Street.
“I was able to have a studio and showcase my works at First Fridays, and this was very very cool,” she said.
Wadsworth has been a contributing artist and an artist’s board member at the 1708 Gallery [http://www.1708gallery.org/], since 2009, which she said she’s very proud of.
“An engagement that not only keeps me honest as an artist, but allows for constant artistic exchanges with a very eclectic group of passionate artists and art supporters,” she said.
Wadsworth used the money from the fellowship award to purchase materials and keep making art.
“And then I was invited to show my works at Amuse for six months during the Picasso exhibit,” she said. “What an honor!”
Kendra Wadsworth’s work will be on display through July 26 at an exhibition at The Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va.
