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VAP2021-Q1 Words and Pictures

Keep it dumb and casual: about Cal Robb’s art

Written by Charlie J Meyers and Sarah Rose Jansen. Gazing at Cal’s work, mulling over our email discussion of it, a memory of one of the best art moments of my life surfaced. I went to an art show and saw three abstract paintings of women eyeballing me from their perch around the gallery’s internal […]

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VAP2021-Q1 Words and Pictures

Time warp dreamscapes: the resilient paintings of Lindsey Kircher

Written by Catie Dillon. When Lindsey and I studied in Florence, the sunlight would stream through our apartment windows and we would read and draw in the warm Italian light. Then we would wear matching butterfly gems and mini skirts and go clubbing until our eyes burned from the neon strobes. We did mediocre performance […]

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VAP2021-Q1 Words and Pictures

The painted portals of Catie Dillon

Written by Lindsey Kircher. Taking in the terracotta reds and yellows of Catie Dillon’s most recent work, I am reminded of the city of Rome. The recurrence of archways or portals, and the overlapping layers of translucent paint further evoke the collaged architecture, history, and culture of the city. Conversely, the saturated blues and neon […]

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VAP2021-Q1 Words and Pictures

The medium is the message: things I think about while looking at the work of Charlie J Meyers

BASED ON SKYPE CONVERSATIONS WITH THE  ARTIST DURING THE WINTER OF 2020/2021 Written by Cal Robb. LIFE is a tender collection of pornographic moments. Water is ALWAYS TOUCHING ITSELF and never another water. Water on water is just water.  Bodies of water can be joined together. Not unlike a STRAIT.  Gregory Corso said: ‘fish is […]

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VAP2020-Q4 Words and Pictures

The tender discord of dystopia: Fiona Buchanan

In her paintings, Buchanan is acutely conscious of not wanting to pander to the eye in any conventional, beauty queen kind of way. Her palette is notable for its difficult combinations and non-decorative hues. She describes it as “semi-garish,” even when it leans toward muddy, referencing synthetic food, artificial substances, and what she calls the […]

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Words and Pictures

Transforming and transcending trauma in the work of Qinza Najm.

Qinza Najm is an interdisciplinary artist with a practice rooted in her background as a Psychologist studying interpersonal relationships. In her art practice she seeks to uncover aspects of transformation and trauma in mind and body that remain hidden yet affect all aspects of society.  Najm’s most recent works respond to our current moment which […]

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VAP2020-Q4 Words and Pictures

Intimacies in absentia: Cole Bourgeois.

The work of Cole Bourgeois constitutes an investigation into intimacy, utilizing color, space, and the energy as co-conspirators. In her work, one is first taken by the strong use of black, often occupying a large portion of the work, if not all of it. We often see this blackness intersticed by bright, colorful fruits floating […]

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VAP2020-Q4 Words and Pictures

Interrogating timelines in the work of Sophia Reed.

Sophia Reed’s most recent work is an invitation to interrogate timelines. Looking at narratives that sit at the center of America’s hegemonic belief system, Reed takes viewers through worlds that feel quite familiar. Stories of knights, and angels, jesters and a phoenix, Reed evokes images formed from early western societies. Reed explores what pieces of […]

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VAP2020-Q4 Words and Pictures

Conversations with the past: Sara Minsky

Using embroidery, photography, drawing, and memory, Sara Minsky engages in a conversation with her past. Minsky sits down with her memories, combs through them and speaks directly to her former self. She wrestles with heavy thoughts often unexplored and brushed aside. She sorts through the murkiness of memory, rather than suppressing its persistent tides. Time […]

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Words and Pictures

Intimate Space: The Visual Works of Alley Horn

Alley Horn’s drawings, pastels and paintings pull us into personal spaces, into moments of intimacy and moments of silence — mid-movement, mid-thought, mid-sexual act — giving them back to us to hold, to see, to contemplate. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say to inhabit, since whether we find ourselves in the stale air […]