When you’re enjoying the revelry of First Fridays this week, be sure to check out the most unique gallery in Jackson Ward.
When you’re enjoying the revelry of First Fridays this week, be sure to check out the most unique gallery in Jackson Ward.
Art 180’s “Faces of RVA” exhibit will open August 5, featuring the portrait work of area high school students in the organization’s Atlas gallery. https://www.facebook.com/ART180/?fref=ts
The show is the product of a class taught by renowned Richmond-based artist Noah Scalin of Skull-A-Day fame, and Sheila Gray. In it, Art 180’s Teen Leadership Council made portraits of historical Richmonders and others using materials ranging from buttons to cereal to sequins.
The use of everyday materials in portraiture is something Scalin has been doing in his own work. And while he’s supported Art 180 and its mission for a long time, it was the first time he’d ever taught a class there.
“They had gotten a grant specifically to bring in artists to teach classes,” Scalin said. “They reached out to me directly and they said, ‘Hey we’d love for you to teach.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay, what should I teach?’ And they said, ‘Whatever you want.’”
The show will feature two portraits from most of the class, which picked out images of everyday historical Richmonders from the Valentine Museum archives and recreated them using the techniques taught by Scalin.
Then, the young artists built on that work with portraits of people they chose, whether themselves, friends or famous people.
“There’s images of people that are unidentified or not well know, basically they might have a name or they might have nothing,” Scalin said. “And so giving the students an opportunity to dig through those archives, find people who interested them, these were mostly people of color from Richmond, historically, and then create stories about them. So there was an opportunity to think about what you get from a portrait, to look at an image with no information, what can you contextualize from that?”
Scalin said teaching the students how to use different materials for their portraits demystified the process to a degree. Portraiture can be very difficult, so rather than going right to teaching how to draw faces, having the teens learn how to replicate them with materials like Cheerios made the whole process a bit more accessible.
And according to Scalin, the young artists excelled.
“It allows them to be less precious about portraiture,” he said. “If I said, ‘Draw a very accurate, beautiful picture of this person,’ you’d lose most of the class. … And I think because nobody knows how to use the materials they just kind of dove in.”
For Chris Bolling, a 17-year-old Open High School student who’s particpated in their program the last six years, using those different materials was the best part.
“The highlight for me was watching materials become a face while I was creating it,” he said. “For this project, it was more about putting stuff down and moving it around and trusting the process.”
The class also gave the students some context on the history of portraiture, giving Scalin an opportunity to explain the significance of portraiture historically and how it’s changed.
And Scalin himself reflected on the significance of selfies, seemingly every teens favorite kind of photo.
“I thought portraits would be interesting because selfies are so big right now,” he said. “This idea of selfie as this term for self-portraits that people are using with their phones whereas traditionally a portrait was a big deal. So getting an opportunity to talk to them about the value of portraiture historically, how modern artists have been approaching it.”
As part of the program, some of the students’ work was put on display for a day at the VMFA for an event relating to the Kehinde Wiley show. https://rvamag.com/articles/full/26181/a-look-at-nationally-known-artist-kehinde-wileys-a-new-republic-ahead-of-opening
Scalin said Wiley himself took to the work.
“Apparently he was really attracted to the work and enjoyed seeing it,” he said. “And so that’s so good for them, to feel like, ‘Wow, what can we accomplish if this is what we can do now?’”
Elle Cosby, a John Marshall High School graduate, liked the idea of her work hanging in the museum as well.
“I was more than excited to have my art in the VMFA,” she said. “It’s {the} VMFA. I’m a recent high school graduate. It was awesome. Not many people can say that.”
Art 180’s “Faces of RVA” show will run until August 25 at Atlas, 114 W. Marshall St. in Jackson Ward.
