I don’t know about you, but I’d love for summer to take as long as possible before getting here this year.
I don’t know about you, but I’d love for summer to take as long as possible before getting here this year. The calendar says it doesn’t start until most of the way through June, but in Richmond, the heat is usually deadly by mid-May at the latest, and it only gets worse from there. This year, it’s been sunny and warm, but the outright hotness hasn’t fired up quite yet, and I for one am glad of it. It’ll surely be here before long, but not before June’s First Friday arrives–so rest assured, this weekend you can actually take in some art without sweating to death. Not to mention the fact that the VCU kids are gone for the summer, so you won’t be seeing them around as much this weekend. Rejoice or cry, depending on your point of view, but either way, get ready to explore and enjoy your First Friday on the Art Walk. Here’s some of the stuff you can look forward to seeing:
Ghostprint Gallery: Premonitions
Chet Naylor’s interest in Nature and the human psyche fuses in his intensely colorful abstract paintings. He believes the aesthetic experience can be profound, even revelatory. Quoting Constantin Brancusi, “What is so glorious as the privilege that man enjoys of being alive, and being able to see and discover beauty all around him!”, For Naylor, the act of painting is a meditative discipline which requires a deeply engaged awareness.
Premonitions will open with a preview Artist’s Reception Thursday, June 5 from 6-9 PM, followed by a First Friday reception on Friday, June 6 from 6-9 PM, at Ghostprint Gallery, located at 220 W. Broad St. Art will remain on display through June 28.
Gallery 5: Skymall
This month, Gallery 5 presents Skymall, featuring new work from Andrew Brehm, Luke Harman, Nicholas Crider, and Spencer Lee Erickson. The exhibition opens on First Friday, June 6, beginning at 7 PM, at Gallery 5, located at 200 W. Marshall St. The opening will feature music from Navi, PT Burnem, and Diamond Hairbrush. Art will remain on display throughout the month of June.
Quirk Gallery: A Measure Of Grace, His Majesty & Mary Fleming
This month Quirk Gallery features three openings: Elizabeth Kendall’s A Measure Of Grace in their Main Gallery, Rachel Rader’s His Majesty in the Shop, and new work by Mary Fleming in the Vault.
Quirk’s Main Gallery artist, Elizabeth Kendall will present clay sculptures, wall works, and vessels in her show, “A Measure of Grace.”
“I work with lush white porcelain using tools and processes that are familiar to the kitchen, the sewing room and the clay studio. As I explore the curious and wonderful properties of this ceramic material I am also thinking about my history: childhood memories of my grandmother’s sewing room, my mother’s quirky sayings, red tutus and black ballet shoes; and my current life activities: sailing, travel, family time. The shapes that emerge are a conversation between my hands and the clay. They are fabric scraps and building blocks: bricks and windows that define space and celebrate light and shadow. The forms can move and meander along the wall or my eye and hand can explore space both within and around. By combining the past and the present and by exploring repetition and variation I can tell more than one story at a time. I can create different environments and opportunities to breathe in different perspectives-perhaps, like a musical phrase, offering a brief measure of grace.”
This month’s Shop Show, “His Majesty” from Rachel Rader will present jewelry and sculptural pieces as found artifacts. “The artifacts displayed in this space are the remnants of a lost civilization. Through recent excavations in the Crystal Pyramids at the Pivos Triangle, The Ancient Truth Investigators have begun to piece together how they lived. Under the reign of King Ea (approx. 7,000 BCE) , the Sea People were a society that prided themselves on their invocations of the Earth’s energies. Every dive that the A.T.I. team performs brings us one step closer to understanding the Sea People and their connection to our Human history.”
Mary Fleming will be exhibiting new drawings and paintings in The Vault. Her work incorporates bright colors and textures with recognizable products, objects, and other visual elements that all serve as signifiers of identity; how we choose to define ourselves based on what we drink, wear, drive, use, or consume.
All three exhibitions will open with a reception on Thursday, June 5, from 5-8 PM, featuring a Q&A with Rachel Rader beginning at 7 PM. There will also be a First Friday reception on June 6 from 5-8 PM at Quirk Gallery, located at 311 W. Broad St. Art will remain on display through June 28.
1708 Gallery: Medium Crash
Harrison Haynes’ work moves between photography, painting, and sculpture and draws from his experience as a drummer. Haynes’ imagery suggests a band’s working space and engages both a material, rhythmic framework and a virtual, photographic space.
Currently based in North Carolina, Haynes received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College. His work has been exhibited nationally including in The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl which originated at the Nasher Museum of Art and traveled to the ICA/Boston. Haynes is a drummer in the New York-based band Les Savy Fav.
Medium Crash will open with a reception on First Friday, June 6, from 5-9 PM, at 1708 Gallery, located at 319 W. Broad St. Art will remain on display through July 19.
Books Bikes & Beyond: Functional Art Movement presents Trail Mix
Come dance around the fire of our collective conscious this Friday night (Richmond Virginias “First Fridays Art Walk”) from 7 to 9 at Books, Bikes, and Beyond Thrift, 7 West Broad. The Functional Art Movement is showing work from 8 talented artists! Don’t forgetchur bug sprayz!
What all of that actually means is somewhat unclear, but it seems the Functional Art Movement will be doing some sort of artistic presentation as part of First Fridays on June 6 from 7-9 PM at Books Bikes & Beyond Thrift Store, located at 7 W. Broad St. Certainly worth checking out as you wander past, if nothing else.
The Mix Gallery: Post-Pop Expressionism
This month, The Mix Gallery presents new paintings and drawings by Sam Shaban. The exhibition will open on First Friday, June 6 with a reception from 6:30-10 PM at The Mix Gallery, located at 12 W. Broad St.
EDIT: AUDACITY
This month, EDIT Gallery will be presenting AUDACITY, a group show featuring work from Ben Winans, Ginny Rush, Cassandra Collins, Corrin Brewer, Seth Remsnyder, and April Sage. Artists will be displaying finished pieces as well as creating live works during the event.
We invite you to have the audacity to break from the monotony of the commonplace. We invite you to use your soul. There is, of course, a danger in living differently, but there has always been a danger to being free.
AUDACITY will premiere with a First Friday reception on June 6 from 6-9 PM at EDIT Gallery, located at 8 W. Broad St. Art will remain on display throughout the month of June.
Atlas, ART 180’s Art Center For Teens: little BIG
“little BIG”, a selection of artwork from The Really Big Show, will spotlight ART 180’s most recent projects in creative expression. Selected pieces will highlight projects from ART 180’s recent 12-week spring programs that explore positive self-expression, identity, and teamwork.
The featured projects include:
–Kites painted with images of the people Binford Middle School artists dream to become.
–Oversized cut-outs of Thompson Middle School students depicting who they are inside.
–Family crests created by young people at St. Andrew’s School containing symbols that represent their families.
–Accordion books by young artists at Henderson Middle School who share their imaginations on one side and their truths on the other.
–Teens from our theater program will be performing their original production, “A Town of Wonders” at 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. during the opening.
little BIG will open with a First Friday reception on June 6 from 6-9 PM at Atlas, ART 180’s Art Center For Teens, located at 114 W. Marshall St. Art will remain on display through June 30.
New Normal Apparel: The Treasure Hunt
This month at New Normal Apparel, Amelia Blair Langford presents The Treasure Hunt, a solo show of new illustrations, and other work. The exhibition will premiere with a First Friday reception on June 6 from 7-10 PM at New Normal Apparel, located at 212 E. Clay St. Art will remain on display throughout the month of June.
Barcode: Absolut Incidentals
This month Barcode presents Absolut Incidentals, illustrations and film photography by Nathan A. King.
King is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University in Cinematography. His artistic ventures have had him exploring experimental photography and screenwriting. In 2012 he completed his first short animation “Monster Island”, which was selected for the 2013 Atlanta Shorts Fest.
Absolut Incidentals will premiere with a First Friday reception on June 6 starting at 10 PM at Barcode, located at 6 E. Grace St. Music will be provided by Turnstyle.
Henry Street Gallery: Sculpture
Henry Street Gallery, where I used to see punk shows in the mid-90s, has returned from its long hibernation this year and is taking it old-school with this month’s Sculpture group show. The flyer shown above (which is just a screencap from a Microsoft Word document) is the only information available about the show online right now, so I can’t tell you which artists will appear in the show, or show you any images from it. But if you show up to the First Friday opening reception on June 6 from 6-9 PM at Henry Street Gallery, located at 422 W. Broad St, you’ll be able to find out exactly what this exhibition is all about. Do it!
Anderson Gallery: Summer Shows
VCU’s Anderson Gallery presents its summer lineup of shows this month, including Guy Ben Ner’s At Home, Jack Wax’s Imbricative, and Michael Lease in the Cool Spot Lounge. All three exhibitions will premiere on First Friday, June 6, from 5-7:30 PM at VCU’s Anderson Gallery, located at 907.5 W. Franklin St. Art will remain on display through August 3.
Glave Kocen Gallery: Josephine, The Search For Knowledge
When Ed & Eleanor Trask started spinning a yarn about their characters Josephine and The Magpie, they never imagined it would come to an exhibit illustrating their tale! To add to the mystique, Susann Whittier, Tom Brickman, Steve Rogers, and Tim Skirven added their artistry to the exhibit and all of the above will be discussing the exhibit this Friday!
Also the limited addition book, “Josephine, The Search for Knowledge” will be released that evening! Beautifully bound by two laser etched wood panels, this accordion style book follows the adventures of Josephine the Blue Bird as she chases The Magpie who carries the key of knowledge all over creation and back! Does Josephine ever catch the Magpie? Find out this Friday!
This month, Glave Kocen Gallery presents a closing reception for Ed and Eleanor Trask’s exhibition, Josephine, The Search For Knowledge, featuring an artist’s conversation with Ed Trask. The conversation will take place at 7 PM at Glave Kocen Gallery, located at 1620 W. Main St.
Uptown Gallery: Richmond Sampler
In keeping with summer’s lighter approach to life, Uptown Gallery is offering an exhibit called “Richmond Sampler”. The gallery has gathered a small sample of Richmond artists, both well-known award winners and up-and-coming new artists, for its June show in the ELM Loft space. Even with a limited number of artists, the exhibit manages to offer a great deal of variety, encompassing oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, mixed media and encaustics. All the artists involved are local, and their styles range from abstract to impressionistic to realistic, with a wide variety of subject matter. Artists involved include mixed media artist Pat Angevine, watercolor painters Christopher Wynn and Anne Negus, pastelists Linda Wolitz and Carol Cullinan, encaustic artist Mary Melton and oil painter Cindy Parris.
This month, Uptown Gallery presents the premiere of Richmond Sampler in the ELM Gallery, as well as continuing exhibits of Abstract Impressions: City And Country by Mark Hierholzer and Dorothy Ellis. There will be a reception for both exhibitions on First Friday, June 6, from 5-9 PM at Uptown Gallery, looated at 1305 W. Main St. Abstract Impressions: City And Country will remain on display through June 28; Richmond Sampler will remain on display through July 26.
Page Bond Gallery: Brug Mania & Emerge
This month, Page Bond Gallery presents two exhibitions: Brug Mania, photographs by Willie Anne Wright; and Emerge, a group show by MFA candidates and graduates from VCUArts.
Willie Anne Wright, Her Hands on His Shoulders (negative), 2013, Lumen print, Unique, 18 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches
First trained as a painter, Willie Anne Wright has been practicing pinhole photography for over 40 years. Her ethereal, evocative images often combine disparate subjects and photography methods from the last 150 years. Much of her work draws inspiration from 19th century photographs and the continual interplay of past and present. “When I was a teenager,” she tells us, “an elderly relative gave me a series of five albumen prints of a group of young people enjoying a day in the country in the late 1880s. My father (who was 50 when I was born) was a young child looking on at his elders in several of the photographs. Something about the past and present being a continuum and even interfacing fascinated me.” The “lensless” technology of the pinhole is the oldest photography process; Leonardo described the principle of the camera obscura in his notebooks. Wright’s Brug Mania series incorporates another antique process: lumen printing, in which objects are laid on light-sensitive paper and printed by direct exposure to the sun. In this new body of work, she combines stunningly detailed lumen prints of the Brugmansia blossoms with pinhole photographs and images from her collection of anonymous vintage albums. In Willie Anne Wright’s work, time is not linear but circular; people and objects from different eras meet and coexist on the page. Past and present are given equal weight and are simultaneously made available to the viewer, and Wright seems to have the unique ability to access all of these moments at once.
Christine Navin, 2004SaleenS7, 2013, Graphite on paper, wood, and glass, 36 x 75 inches
Emerge is an exhibition of work by VCUarts MFA Candidates and Graduates including Evan Pomerantz, from the Department of Craft/Material Studies, and Annie Albagli, Philip Hinge, Nick Irzyk, Harris Johnson, Aaron Koehn, Christine Navin, Lee Piechocki, Aaron Storck, and Grace Weaver, all from the Department of Painting & Printmaking.
Brug Mania and Emerge will premiere with a First Friday reception on June 6 from 6-8 PM at Page Bond Gallery, located at 1625 W. Main St. Art will remain on display through July 3.
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Artists! Galleries! Would you like your future First Friday events covered in these monthly articles? We might hear about your event anyway, but why leave it to chance? Email your press releases to andrew@rvamag.com.
