Southern Virginia’s Visual Arts: What You Missed and What’s Next

Fall ’22 Senior Art Show — A celebration of the arts in one cozy night.

In December, Southern Virginia University art students and alumni presented the culmination of months-long work. The center of attention for the night was the projects done by Brinn Willis’ Photo III students, but there were others on display as well. In addition to the visual arts, musicians took the stage and sang to their audiences gathered around the warm, crackling fires.

Jordy Gibbons, Melissa Wheeler, Julia Evans, and Sabra Lott dazzled the people gathered with a range of covers and original songs. Jordy Gibbons, an up and coming artist, can be found on Spotify.

“We learn from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that true self fulfillment and self actualization are achieved through creative endeavors. I don’t believe that ‘art’ is a hobby for some—I believe it is a need for all. Whether it’s through nature or food or music or traditional fine art mediums, prioritizing those experiences in our lives will help us tap into parts of ourselves we don’t get to often see,” Brinn Willis

Brinn Willis and her Photo III class worked really hard to pull this off. If you missed this one, don’t worry—there’s more to come. This semester, there will be both a student art show and a senior show. April 6 was the showcase of the student art show, while the senior show will take place at the end of April.

Stay updated by following Brinn’s camera crew account on Instagram.

To recap all the projects in the show last semester, read on about the students and their artist statements.

*All photos courtesy of Brinn Willis*

HIDE AND SEEK WITH ANGELS

RACHEL BYERS

J.M. Barrie, the author and playwright of Peter Pan, once said that his humble creative profession was much like playing “hide and seek with angels.” This analogy has struck me both as an artist and in life. I explored the deeper meaning of his words by depicting a range of characters, visually capturing what it would be like to play hide and seek with ones own soul.

I cannot think of angels without also envisioning light. Using heavy paper, wire, and backlit film to illuminate digital images, I created a set of lanterns crafted to compliment each subject by structure, color, and design. Each is intricately unique and yet unified at its core; each creation being light.

While navigating the development of this piece I was inspired by the overlapping symbolism of Barrie’s beloved fairytale on the enchantments of youth and his personal experience when creating the story. We are all authors of our own kind chasing adventure and seizing moments when the child inside lights us. A beautiful reminder that the angel we often seek is just a reach within ourselves.

Follow Rachel’s photography journey here.

ENVISIONS OF ABSTRACTION

NICHOLAS ODEH

When I initially started my endeavor for a photo series, I was disorientated on how to approach it. Then one night, messing around with some photos I took, I realized it was possible to transform some of my less desirable photos into works of abstraction. Through the process of cropping, zooming, and editing finesse, I was able to invoke emotion and

concepts more than the original imagery was able to do. Typically, my work consists of a movie-like plot with everything planned out, from the lighting to the props, similar to how Gregory Crewdson approaches his photography. So accomplishing this series meant going out of my comfort zone, tackling a new style of art, and learning new ways of post-processing for digital photography. I found inspiration from abstract artists that came before me, looking towards the likes of Kazimir Malevich and Frances Seward.

Learning that I need to think outside of the box when it comes to how imagery should look and feel. With that in mind, I set out to take mundane photographs, and transform them into something radically different than how they started. I recommend viewing the abstraction of the images with your imagination rather than from an analytical perspective.

VAGUE

DYLAN ANDREW

Black and white photography can help maximize the imagination. It helps the viewer focus on aspects of the image, other than color, like the texture, contrast, composition, and the emotion the image brings. This series is to encourage you, the viewer, to use their imagination. I want you to look at these images and think about what these objects looked like in their prime state. I want you to create your own story, and bring these objects to life.

When I look at “Vague IV,” I see a cozy fall evening and a gorgeous White House with smoke coming out of the chimney. I see bright orange and yellow leaves falling from the tree, and a father and son outside in the yard, throwing a baseball back and forth.

My hope is that everyone who views this series can create their own story of what once was.

Follow Dylan on Instagram here.

PERFECT IMPERMANENCE

BRINN WILLIS

Six months I spent building this garden. Eight hours to cut down the overgrowth, almost two hundred wheelbarrows of gravel to build the walkway floor. Five raised beds with wood pried from a previous structure, and four long garden rows, lined with hundreds of stones, all collected, hauled, and neatly set in place. And finally, hundreds of seeds that would be carefully planted in their tiny soil cubes and coddled for months and months before being put in the ground.

Six months I spent obsessing over this garden, and never quite knowing the “why.”

Then one night last December, I heard the lyrics of a song that talked of a young man, calling out to his mother, seeking answers, after the certainty of his life’s plans, had been challenged.

“Oh mama, I am a wounded man, help me to understand, give me something to hold onto. Oh mama, this was not my plan, but this is mine now, and I need something to hold onto.

I don’t want to bend the truth, I don’t wanna have to die, But it ain’t up to me whether I sleep though the night.

So I keep it close to you, and I take it all in stride,

Cuz you know I don’t need much, just somewhere I can hide.

And if just wanting to, could make everything alright, There’s nothing left to do, no- I’d be satisfied.

But you know it just won’t do, no matter how hard I try, Oh mama I need you, to make everything alright.”

At a time in my life, when I’d experienced my own thoughts of uncertainty for the first time in 38 years—where question marks now sat at the end of sentences that always had periods. . . . I realized the past six months had been me, calling out to a different mother. A figurative Mother who I suddenly found myself counting on in ways I never had, to offer up some kind of answer about my own impermanence.

For the next six months I watched Her take the reins of the garden, and let me reap the rewards. I walked those rows daily, trying to see Her lessons. Lessons that taught of genuine abundance, the codependent relationship of everything that lived in the space, and death, too—

I learned that everything dies. Nothing is permanent.

Yet every expired drooping flower head, now heavy with seed, now equipped to produce ten times the blooms where the initial stem once stood. If such a plan exists for a small and seemingly insignificant garden, then that was “something to hold onto.” I was learning that, and I still am.

ESSENCE OF TIME

ADAM MAYNE

Life has a way of teaching. Some lessons might be warranted, others might be a surprise. Some lessons rock you to your core, while others make it easier to take another step and continue. Everything that is experienced in this life is documented. Not by photos, videos, or books- but by time.

Time is the ultimate oppressor, the unseen judge. Time is the ultimate healer, the gracious host. Time is not numbers. It is not something that can be used. Time is not owned; it is not kept. Time is merely the utility tool that is used to archive life.

Time is ephemeral. To “make the most of one’s time” doesn’t mean to accomplish everything. Time has a way of continuing, regardless of what occurs in one’s life. This unadulterated force can teach a person (who is willing) how to develop the characteristics of itself: a flowing, constant current of experience.

I dedicate these photos to time and the essence of it. I have achieved great things. I have suffered many things. I have experienced life through the passage of time, and I have understood one thing: time passes. Moments pass. Anguish passes. Happiness passes. Friends come and go. Family is there and then is no longer. Achievements are made. Mistakes happen. Whatever happens, simply happens.

To be like time is to flow like time. Experiences come and go. Emotions come and go. People come and go. Allowing myself to accept this idea of impermanence gives myself the freedom to experience life, in all capacities. This was my approach to my photography. Every day was different, and each experience came with different emotions and mindset.

I wanted to document the experiences I had and be in the moment as much as possible. That is why I chose to shoot film, using the Yashica Mat-124. Using film, I had to be deliberate with each shot. I needed to be present, aware that this moment was just a moment. Each photograph documents a time that I wanted to remember.

Each explains an experience, an emotion, locked in time forever. And each shot allowed me to understand the fleeting minutes time gives me. I have come to realize that to experience is the essence of time itself.