Marrakech

archival pigment print on Museo silver rag paper

41 x 30 inches

Courtesy of Reynolds Gallery

Guest curated by Alice Livingston

Special thanks to the artist for this 100% donation

In addition to his day job as the Director and Chief Executive Officer at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Alex Nyerges is an internationally award-winning photography, curator, author, and photo historian who has exhibited across the United States, Australis, and Europe. His work is in collections in New York, Washington DC, Virginia, Ohio, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Tampa, Richmond Budapest, and elsewhere. His work has been exhibited in Atlanta, Budapest, Canberra, Houston, Richmond, Vienna, and Washington, DC, among other places.

A native of Rochester, New York - the home of George Eastman and the Eastman Kodak Company - he grew up with a family tradition in photography and music. For more than 40 years and digitally since 2002, he has been creating photographs in 35mm, medium, and large formats.

Seeking out the elements of beauty that surround us, so often unseen and neglected in the built and natural worlds, his work uses sunlight and its shadows to create works that are both modern and timeless.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' recent exhibition, "American, born Hungary: Kertész, Capa, and the Hungarian American Photographic Legacy" was curated by Alex Nyerges. This exhibition of more than 170 photographs plus related ephemera examines the works of Hungarian-born American artists and their influence on photography since the early 20th century. Before opening at VMFA in October 2024, the exhibition opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest in April 2024 marking the grand opening of their newly renovated exhibition space. After its run at VMFA, the exhibition will travel to the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, where it will open on September 26, 2025.

Ciphers

fabric, machine embroidery, hand embroidery

29.5 x 14.5 inches

Guest curated by Shane Prada

"Through my art, I engage in world-making through the process of play and material-errantry. My form of world-making uses craft traditions as a flexible constraint; I collaborate with materials and colors to achieve a coherence and consistency finely attuned to my intuitive judgment. I look for openings in the making process where I can ply confident imperfections and deviations, subverting fixed expectations of the tradition or technique at hand. I often use bright colors and repeating patterns as a way of injecting each project with evidence of the exuberant aliveness I feel when making art. My practice seeks to alleviate daily doldrums and spiritless ways of living - instead, transforming objects and spaces into paratelic experiences. I gift these works to the viewer as an optimistic nudge towards joy, connection and a playful awareness of how the larger world could be."

Tower Vessel Pair

slipcast porcelain

4 x 4 x 17 inches each

Originally from Madison Wisconsin, Daniel currently lives in North Carolina, where he is a long term Resident Artist (21'-24') at the Penland School of Craft. He holds a BFA from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2011). Daniel was Core Fellow at the Penland School of Craft (15'-17') and participated in a variety of residencies including the Jentel Foundation, AZ West, The Bright Angle, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Western New Mexico University. His work has been shown throughout the US in a variety of group and solo exhibitions.

Daniel Garver is a clay artist, his work consists of functional and sculptural slipcast ceramics. The studio work is focused on creating systems which result in iterative processes that investigate structure and form. He has constructed a comprehensive library of interchangeable plaster mold parts from which he can compose a wide range of ceramic slipcast forms that are unique from, yet also related to one another. The work is pushed further through the use of color and pattern in relation to the structural composition. For source material, Daniel researches cast concrete, mid modern design, brutalist architecture and industrial design to inform his work. Daniel is currently a long term resident at the Penland School of Craft.

This collection of work is all made from slipcast porcelain. The process of slipcasting utilizes plaster molds in which liquid porcelain (casting slip) is poured into the molds, and the plaster pulls the water content out of the slip forming a shell which is the resulting form, object or pot. This method was developed to readily recreate identical forms in a reliable fashion, I use the same method but have altered the process in such a way that I can construct a variety of forms from the same mold parts. This collection was been designed and constructed from a library of interchangeable plaster molds parts that can be assembled in a variety of forms which makes them all related to one another for a cohesive collection of functional ceramic pieces. Furthermore the molds were designed so that I can work into the surface of the pots by inlaying colored or black and white porcelain to compose some striking patterns.

Tainted Oasis 16

ink and acrylic on panel

30 x 30 inches

Courtesy of Quirk Gallery

Guest curated by Sarah Irvin

Suzanna Fields grew up in Appalachia, where the strange beauty of nature seeped into her hyper-intricate paintings. A recipient of a Bethesda Painting Award, a Liquitex Purchase Prize, a finalist for the Trawick Prize, and residencies at Mountain Lake Biological Station, the Studios at Key West, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Field's art is in collections including: VMFA, the Eleanor Wilson Museum, Capital One, Philip Morris, the Kimpton Hotel Group, Bill and Pam Royall, and Shepard and Amanda Fairey. She has been recognized in the Washington Post, New American Paintings, the Roanoke Times, and Art Papers Magazine. Her work has been exhibited at the Taubman Museum of Art (Roanoke, VA), the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach, VA), the Weatherspoon Museum of Art (Greensboro, NC), The Swan Coach House Gallery (Atlanta, GA), the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art (Laurel, MS) and Quirk Gallery (Richmond and Charlottesville, VA). Fields received her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BA in Art and English from Mary Baldwin College and lives in Richmond.

When I First Met You

collage, acrylic, oil, oil varnish

60 x 44 inches

Josh George is a contemporary realist painter, with an emphasis on draftsmanship and an unconventional mixed media approach. He has enjoyed a successful gallery career for 20 years, with representation in New York City, Richmond, VA, Denver, CO, Raleigh, NC, Tulsa, OK, Kansas City, MO, and other markets. His art career also includes seventeen years' experience teaching painters, illustrators, and designers at Virginia Commonwealth University and Pratt Institute and as a guest lecturer for several degree-granting arts institutions.

Though primarily a contemporary realist painter, his work hints at the surreal and
incorporates an expressive palette. Using an aggressive collage sensibility, he creates cityscapes, architectural portraits, and figurative snapshots of everyday life in the American city. He aims to capture the rich texture of these places and moments-the humor, drama, despair, and surprising beauty. Along with narrative and conceptual content, technical mastery and innovating materials drives his work.

George has mounted 45 solo exhibitions and 88 group shows with commercial galleries in New York City, Boston, Scottsdale, Kansas City, Richmond, Raleigh, Milan, Italy and other markets, and his work has been featured in the Aqua Art Fair and Scope Art Fair
in Miami for the last six years. His paintings are part of numerous private collections and the corporate collections of Sony Music, Nissan, Sheraton, Warner Brothers, Dominion Energy, Altria, and Capital One.

Sit together or apart

wood (imbuia, walnut and tiger maple)

40 x 26 x 38 inches

Special thanks to the artist for this 100% donation

Based in Richmond, VA, Mark has worked in wood for over 40 years. His work has included traditional designs inspired by antique furniture, contemporary pieces and furniture using repurposed materials. Mark has built custom furniture for several churches throughout Virginia, including altars, ambos, presider's chairs and other pieces. In the last several years, a portion of his work has migrated toward natural edge furniture design, exploring the integration of the wood's innate form with the functionality of art furniture. Most recently, he has been developing his "Twisted" series which incorporates bent and twisted laminations in everyday furniture pieces. He teaches woodworking at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and The John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. Mark's studio is in Richmond where he shares his space with talented woodworkers, furniture makers and a luthier. Beautiful furniture and music emanate from his studio as a result.

Gatsby Girls

acrylic and graphite on canvas

28.5 x 36.5 inches

Courtesy of Pamplemousse Gallery

Kevin Sabo is a painter living and working in Richmond, VA. His colorful, character-driven works use exaggerated proportions and distinct fashion choices to define his figures. Men in suits serve as symbols of masculine tropes in American culture-nodding to the corporate world and the twisted nature of manhood. In contrast, the feminine figures embody playful heroines, often seen stomping on these suited men with high heels, playfully subverting traditional gender dynamics. Sabo has had successful solo exhibitions internationally; most notably New York City, Paris, Brussels and San Francisco. His work has been featured in publications like Architectural Digest and Metal Magazine.

Study IV, Southside

cyanotype

30 x 22 inches

Em White is a photographer and visual artist, specializing in vintage photographic processes and large format work. Raised in rural Virginia, much of her work emphasizes personal relationships to land and the ways in which environment informs the emotional self. Drawing on her background in sociology, White examines how natural environments function as community spaces and the ways that they can connect and transform. Primarily self taught, White's approach to photography has been shaped by personal experimentation and opportunities to learn from established artists. She works with analog processes, valuing the ability to produce by hand, for the slow movement they require and the present state of mind they demand.

Today she lives and works in Richmond, Virginia with her two dogs, Sadie and Gus. She runs a portrait studio where she collaborates with members of the community to produce tangible works in a digital era. She has taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Penumbra Foundation and various community arts organizations.

Grounding

oil on hardwood panel

40 x 30 inches

Special thanks to the artist for this 100% donation

"I used to design things. Custom rugs mostly. Also mirrors, lamps, plates, furniture, and even scarves. The years spent in the high end home furnishings market trained my eye and taught me much about the detail and discipline required to develop design strong enough to translate through the many phases of development from sketch to final manufactured product.

But now I paint. My designer eye responds to line, form, and certainly color. I look for the color and structure hiding beneath the surface of things. I push the world I see into an abstracted, but recognizable play of color, texture and geometry - afresh, fun, modern take on the classic genre of landscape painting. I plan a little, play a lot, listen to music and let my instincts lead the way. This is about joy - in both the visual experience, and the creative process as it unfolds.

As much fun as it is to loosen up and play with paint, the designer in me is alive and well. I'm attracted to clean composition, color, pattern and texture. Afteryears of the controlled specification required for production of custom rugs and other home furnishings products, I enjoy the immediacy of paint on my brush, color at my fingertips, the smell, the feel, and the constant surprises that lead the way. Painting, for me, is a rewarding form of down and dirty magic.

I'm a native Richmonder. A VCU Arts alumnus. The CEO of the former Sarah Gayle Carter Design Studio. Living and working now in Lexington, Virginia, surrounded and endlessly inspired by these gorgeous, layered fields and old blue mountains. Life is good."

Blue Cubes

shellac, acrylic, oil pastel, oil stick, conte crayon

70 x 54 inches

Courtesy of Quirk Gallery

Guest curated by Margaret Meehan

Special thanks to the artist for this 100% donation

Aimee Joyaux received her MFA in photography in 1995. She has shown work at the Center for Book and Paper at Columbia College, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Center for Book Arts (NY), The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Nexus Press in Atlanta and locally at the Taubman Museum, MOCA, Quirk Gallery, The Valentine, and Try-Me. Her work is in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Center for Book and Paper at Columbia College, Indiana University East, Penland School of Crafts, Dominion, Capital One, Altria, and Reynolds Community College. Joyaux received a CultureWorks Equity Grant in 2019, a VMFA Professional Fellowship in 2017, an Illinois Arts Council Residency Grant and an Individual Artist Grant from the Indiana Arts Commission in 1999.

Girl Sailor

oil on canvas

48 x 36 inches

Courtesy of Reynolds Gallery

Andras J. Bality is a fine artist painter living in Richmond, Virginia. He has a BFA from VCU and completed post graduate studies at the Cyprus College of Art. His works are in many public and private collections throughout the United States including the Federal Reserve Bank, Markel Corp., UVA Children's Hospital, MCV, Jersey Shore Medical Center, and Gloucester Museum of Art. He has received The Pollak Prize in Painting and a VMFA Professional Grant in Painting. He is represented by Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, Blue Print Gallery in Dallas, Texas and the Willard Gallery in South Portland, Maine.

Funky Form No. 10

blown and coldworked glass

8 x 8 x 36 inches

Guest curated by Asa Jackson

A musician who fell in love with studio glass, Cedric Mitchell is no stranger to sampling a wide range of influences in his practice. His Modern Funk series combines the bold attitude and eclectic style of 1970s and '80s funk music, the playfulness of Memphis Milano furniture, the aesthetics of 1990s toys and street art, and the minimalism of modern design into one-of-a-kind sculptures and vases. He forges each geometric component with precision and dedication in a saturated candy-colored palette. Mitchell then mixes and matches the pieces into stacking whimsical tabletop sculptures. He also makes functional wares that similarly engage color and shapes. Mitchell navigates his growing career while developing a social practice as an organizer and educator with dexterity.

For the past ten years, he has actively supported emerging artists and disseminated knowledge about making glass art through his involvement with youth organizations in underserved communities that have historically not had access to art education. He is also on the leadership team of Crafting the Future, an artist-run organization that provides scholarships for young artists of color to connect with craft-based educational opportunities. Mitchell is looking to shatter the glass ceiling of the art world for generations to come.

The Window

charcoal and collage on paper

42 x 65 inches

Guest curated by Michael-Birch Pierce

Born in Santiago, Chile in 1982. Federico Infante works predominantly in the medium of painting, he received his BFA from Finis Terrae University (Santiago, Chile) in 2002 and graduated in 2013 with his MFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He was the recipient of the Uanlane Foundation Scholarship (2012), the Conicyt Scholarship (2009), and the Juan Downey Grant (2004). He has had several successful solo and group exhibitions in Chile, New York and Italy and his work has been adopted into private collections around the world. In 2015 he illustrated Nabokov's masterpiece, Lolita, edited by The Folio Society. Currently Federico's work can be seen at Punto Sull'Arte Gallery (Italy), I'll Corregio Museum (Italy), Hugo Galerie (New York) and Animal Gallery (Chile). Federico is currently living and working in Richmond VA.

In Cotton We Trust

archival pigment print

21.25 x 29.75 inches

Kat Thompson is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Washington, D.C. She received her BFA in Photography from George Mason University and her MFA in Photography & Film from Virginia Commonwealth University. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at The Anderson Gallery in Richmond, VA, Fenwick Gallery and George Mason University, both in Fairfax, VA. Kat's work has been featured in numerous group shows in the DC Metro area including Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art and the Congressional Black Caucus Creator House, among others. She was recently selected for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship, a two year program for emerging visual artists seeking to establish and sustain a professional art career.

Connect the Dots: 2022

archival ink on paper

36 x 36 inches

Courtesy of Bond Millen Gallery

Guest curated by Ashley Kistler

Sarah Irvin earned a Master of Fine of Arts from George Mason University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia. Irvin has been featured in more than twenty solo shows, as well as more than fifty group exhibitions, across the United States and abroad. Irvin's work is included in the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Capital One, Four Seasons Hotel, Federal Reserve Bank, and Royal Caribbean, as well as the private collections of Quirk Hotel and the University of Richmond. She is the founder of the Artist Parent Index, a searchable database of artists making work about their experience with reproduction and caring for their children. Irvin is represented by Page Bond Gallery in Richmond, and Kathryn Markel Fine Arts and Massey Klein Gallery, both in New York City. She is an independent curator and an adjunct instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Portal 3

mixed media, crocheted fiber and glass

30 x 26 x 3 inches

Guest curated by Tracy Stonestreet

Franchell Mack Brown is an artist employing an amalgam of materials in her practice. From the pliancy of crocheted ribbon to industrial cording and the solidity of welding, she juxtaposes soft and hard, exploring the dualities of being. Undulating forms and dripping tendrils suggest movement evocative of Nick Cave's Soundsuits. Color and texture prevail in ecstatic collision, echoing her fascination with Egungun masking traditions and Native American tribal ceremonies. With her background as a jewelry designer, she features semi-precious gemstones, particularly freshwater pearls, in much of her work. The pearl embodies individuality. Each is a unique speck emerging from metamorphosis as an exquisite gem, a metaphor for the development and full expression of self.

Harvest Moon

stained ash and acrylic

24.5 x 29 x 2.5 inches

Guest curated by Ted Elmore

Leigh Suggs is a Richmond-based artist whose practice exists at the intersection of craft, painting, and sculpture, engaging with the themes of perception, ambiguity, and transformation. Her intricate works, created through a process of drawing, painting, and hand-cutting, transform the modernist grid into a site of tension and exploration, oscillating between positive and negative space, structure and fragility. Suggs' process is deeply tactile and methodical, combining layers of painted paper with painstaking cuts that evoke woven textiles or radial webs. These patterns mutate and evolve, engaging with light, shadow, and reflection to create works that shift and transform with the viewer's perspective. Rooted in the tradition of process-driven, labor-intensive craft, Suggs reimagines the grid as a flexible and ambiguous framework, asking viewers to remain active participants in their experience of the work.

Suggs' work is held in prominent public and corporate collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Weatherspoon Art Museum, and Deutsche Bank. She has exhibited widely across the United States, with solo and group exhibitions at venues such as the Mint Museum (Charlotte, NC), Massey Klein (New York, NY), Abigail Oglivy (Los Angeles, CA), and Reynolds Gallery (Richmond, VA). Through her explorations of material and process, Suggs creates works that act as meditations on endurance, fragility, and the risks of desensitization in an overstimulated world. Her practice invites viewers to engage deeply with the interplay of structure, pattern, and perception, offering a reflective space to consider their own relationship to form and the act of looking.

Daniel Rickey has been making furniture in Richmond, VA since 2012. Daniel and his team of specialists design and build furniture that incorporates clean lines, is built to last, invites touch and is pleasing to be around. In addition to his one-off originals, he designs and builds custom pieces for residences as well as corporate clients both domestic and international.

Necklace + Earrings set

sterling silver, 18k gold

Necklace: 17 x 0.75 inches; Earrings: 2.25 x 0.75 inches each

Guest curated by Ashley Williams

Gabriel has maintained a successful jewelry-making practice for more than fifty years. He graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in English literature. During his last two years of college, he became interested in making jewelry. Unable to land a prep school English teaching job, Gabriel traveled to a craft show in Danville, Virginia, and made $400 in two days.

This eye-opening commercial success sparked the beginnings of a solo and largely self-taught career designing and making gold, platinum and silver jewelry. Over the next few years, he traveled throughout Virginia to rural craft fairs and then expanded his schedule to larger events on the east coast. With the help of workshops with Hekki Seppa and Ronald Pearson and a gem-setting class at the Revere Academy, he started to articulate his design ideas and form a cohesive body of work. His lack of extensive formal education in metalworking became a strength; he learned through trial and error often using tools and materials in non-traditional ways.

Today, although more conscious of maintaining design continuity, Gabriel still uses tools in an unconventional manner and mostly designs by trial and error. Sometimes playing around directly with the materials can produce some surprising "aha!" results.

Buttermilk Trail, Following a trail of Elvin Jones light speckled cymbal drops around tree trunk bass notes, scattered brush, and thorn snare hits

acrylic on canvas

60 x 48 inches

Ed Trask is a musician, painter, and muralist whose work has been collected into many permanent collections. Trask earned a BFA in Painting & Printmaking from VCU and while in school, he transformed many of the dilapidated buildings around Richmond City into his very own art gallery through painted murals. After graduating in 1992, he continued painting illegal murals around the world while on tour with different punk rock bands and friends. Trask has since become involved with bringing creative changes to Richmond and other cities through public art. He co-founded the RVA Street Art Festival and served as a commissioner for Richmond's Public Art Commission. He is a past board member of the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and has lectured and facilitated creative consulting programs for numerous corporations while working with community nonprofits to bring creative, inclusive public art throughout the city. Ed Trasks' paintings and murals appear in many permanent collections, including the Modern & Contemporary Art Collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Ed lives in Richmond VA with his wife and two children.