Chris Musina

Drawing from a deep phylogeny of cultural cues, my paintings reference animaliers, naturalists, “nature morte” painters, philosophy, hunting, kitsch, museum dioramas, and the like. Using dark humor and bright color, I am exploring the more violent aspects of humanity’s attraction/repulsion relationship to the animal world, manifested in life-size compositions of animal representation. They are loaded with allusions to specific works, places, events, descriptors of scientific illustration, or the gold-leafing of religious imagery.

Hannah Cole

I paint details from my daily surroundings that you wouldn’t normally notice—my bookshelf, the manhole cover I walk over on my route to the grocery store, my pliers hanging on pegboard.

My paintings are at once rooted in the unique experiences of my life and the larger history of American painting. If you’re an art nerd like me, you may notice some cheeky nods to our painting forefathers: Agnes Martin, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman. I make every mark by hand, without shortcuts. This practice is one part meditation, one part Yankee work ethic.

Kevin Arnold

We the people of the United States of America, in order to dismantle a more perfect Union, have elected an incompetent charlatan, a failed businessman, a narcissistic gluttonous orange buffoon who speaks in a dialect of sound bites, tweets intolerance, bigotry, fear, ignorance, and persecution of all who oppose his points of view.

Marcus Jansen

My work is centered on today’s realities and global discourse, often politically and socially charged. I’m not interested in “pretty” paintings or in aesthetic value. I’m interested in the soul and character of today’s contemporary realities and the way I experience them, while exploring painting as a medium and act of expression.

Douglas Balentine

Through work I came to understand that my interest was in the underlying elemental forces at play which are not just "out there" but also within. Quiet observation deepens experience of the immense interconnectedness of everything. Perception is no longer about "looking at" but connecting with.

Jered Sprecher

I am a hunter and a gatherer, constantly accumulating images produced by the people and cultures around me. Segments of this collection of images then emerge in my paintings. My work shows images that are revealed as fragments in the midst of change, destruction, redefinition, and restoration. The sources they are drawn from are changing and evolving and the paintings are caught in that ìstillî moment of change. They are emptied out, but still hold on to elemental details of where they came from and perhaps where they are going.

Betsy Stewart

Betsy Stewart is both a nationally and internationally renowned artist and recipient of many awards. Stewart’s works can be found in prestigious museums such as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Kreeger museum in Washington, DC. They are likewise in well-known private collections as the Bellagio Hotel, the Robert Lehrmann, Foundation, Embassy of Finland, and the Washington, DC Convention Center. Her work has also been included in many American Embassies as part of the US Department of State’s “Art in Embassies Program”. She has had over 60 exhibits.

Alexis Assam

Title: 
Regenia A. Perry Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art
Last Name: 
Assam
Head Shot: 
Bio: 
 Alexis Assam is the Regenia A. Perry Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where she is co-curating the forthcoming exhibition Pop to Present: American Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Assam joined the museum in late 2021 and organized the Richmond presentation of the traveling survey exhibition Whitfield Lovell: Passages (2023). Assam has served as a juror for The Southeastern College Art Conference Annual Juried Exhibition (2023), and the Trawick Prize (2022). Prior to the VMFA, she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as the Constance E. Clayton Curatorial Fellow (2019-2021) where she supported Contemporary permanent collection rotations, acquisitions, commissions, and exhibitions including the Philadelphia presentation of Senga Nengudi: Topologies (2021), and she organized the installation of Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk by Andrea Fraser (2021). Prior to her time at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Assam worked as the Romare Bearden Graduate Museum Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum (2018-2019), where she co-curated The Shape of Abstraction: Selections from the Ollie Collection (2019). Assam holds both an MA in Art History a BA in Art History with Honors from Florida State University.
Affiliation: 
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

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