This past Monday, amidst a bit of precarious, brisk wind, I sat down with artist Alezendria Decking on a suncast lawn at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to chat a little bit more with her about her life, her experiences, and her art. We talked about the hidden...
“You have to be delusional to be an artist.” That’s how Peter Cochrane closes our conversation. We’re sitting across from each other in a quiet Richmond studio, the air thick with pollen and thought. The line lands not as a punchline but as a thesis offered without irony. What does it mean to believe in a practice that resists...
If you walk into the 2025 VCUarts MFA Thesis Exhibition expecting a finale or a big conclusion, prepare to encounter something else—something quieter and less resolved. A residue. A gesture mid-motion. An echo. When I walked into the opening reception on April 11, I was immediately haunted by my own MFA thesis exhibition from a year ago. I...
The curtain comes down on Stay Gold: 20 Years of RVA Magazine & Gallery5 this Friday. Huge thanks to everyone who packed the place at the opening earlier this month. Big thank you to PLF, RVA Moon Market, Gallery5, Gull, Sweet Potatoes, No BS! Brass Band and The Head & The Heart‘s Rivers and Roads Foundation for partnering with...
Walking through Frida: Beyond the Myth at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts doesn’t feel like attending a documentary screening — it feels like slipping into Frida’s world. It disorients you into her mind. You step through doorways that feel like mirrors, gaze through archways into rooms you haven’t reached yet, and find yourself caught in a...
Last weekend in Church Hill, Richmond did something that only Richmond can do — it let history walk and talk right in front of us. Inside St. John’s Church, the scene was familiar. A reenactor delivered Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech to an attentive audience, a ritual that’s been part of the city’s cultural calendar...
Merenda Cecelia, a Richmond-based artist and instructor, was recently dismissed from her teaching position at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) after reading a statement aloud in class. She describes the statement as a personal expression of artistic and academic freedom, which led to the termination of her contract just three days...
Richmond has long been home to a thriving arts scene, with well-established membership-driven spaces like Artspace and the long-running 1708 Gallery providing vital platforms for artists. However, as the city continues to change, younger creatives are seeking new ways to carve out their own space within the arts...
There’s something inherently satisfying about a locked-room mystery. The kind where you, a detective by necessity, not by choice, are thrown into a puzzle that demands observation, deduction, and maybe a little alcohol. Richmond, being Richmond, doesn’t quite have that—but what it does have is Science on Tap! at the Science Museum of Virginia,...
In the barrenness of the winter months, SCAG (Southside Contemporary Art Gallery) provides a vivid contrast. Hull Street is alive with people hustling about the red brick buildings and snow-encrusted sidewalks. The gallery itself resembles a greenhouse, its entrance enshrined by the vines and leaves of potted plants. Sunlight cascades from the...
