Fellowship Exhibitions

What Most Are Waiting For
Jeff Majer, American, b. 1976
February 28 – June 25, 2012  |  Richmond International Airport

This series of works by Jeff Majer features a subject matter with which we all are familiar: laundry. Majer, however, transforms such recognizable items as a sweater or a pair of pants, into works of art. Without glamorizing or idealizing — but inserting an undeniable levity — Majer invites the audience to see a mundane cardigan or a lowly sock in a new light.

Majer notes that the repetition of subject matter both reflects the actual nature of laundry and inspires a new perspective.

Jeff Majer lives and works in Richmond, Virginia, and is a recipient of a 2010 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. 

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Richmond International Airport partner to present visual arts exhibitions throughout the airport. Designated or select displays feature work of VMFA Fellowship recipients or VMFA exhibitions that travel across Virginia. 

A New Naturalism
Shaun C. Whiteside, American b. 1978
Mar 5 – Jul 8, 2012  |   Amuse Restaurant

Whiteside’s work explores the metaphysical realm of emotionality through a painting and drawing process that employs physical forces. By working on vertical, horizontal, or slightly inclined surfaces, the artist uses gravity itself as a medium to develop imagery that is directed by natural law. Water erosion and sedimentation also determine parts of the visual outcome, as pigments are swept away from certain areas and deposited in others where water accumulates and evaporates. Whiteside uses the visual forms that develop to depict emotional forces and energies that are unseen but very real powers in the world.

Says Whiteside, “Both the emotions I depict and the process I use are rooted in natural energies; therefore, I refer to my work as a New Naturalism. Rather than using ‘naturalism’ in the traditional aesthetic sense, in reference to a precise duplication of nature’s outward appearance, I explore a concept of naturalism that involves obedience to natural forces.”

Whiteside recently received a master of fine art from Radford University and is the recipient of a 2011 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship. 

Fecundity’s Magic Carpet
Janet Grahame Nault, American, b. 1963
Mar 24 – Jul 22, 2012  |   Pauley Center Galleries

The collages in this exhibition are often mistaken for fabric at first glance. However, they are actually made of multiple pieces of hand-printed paper. For nearly a decade, Nault has created these paper microcosms by machine stitching on densely layered bits of etchings. Some assemblages are palm size, while others are so large that the artist must stand on a ladder to see the composition emerging on the floor below.

In this most recent endeavor, Nault generates captivating patterns and visual seams without relying entirely on her zinc etching plates and thread. The works explore the artist’s progression from small paper collages to large-scale layered canvases, all of which give a busy impression that hints at a playful collective. The sailing rectangle shape that appears in some pieces can be likened to a magic carpet journeying through the fecund imagination. Often the artwork is completed by a gritty border that corrals the intricate chaos.

Of her images, Nault says, “Flickers of reality intermingle with the imagined. This is the way my mind recalls and remembers; how it visualizes and beholds: not in whole pictures with singular objects or views, but in flashes of fragments that are combed through, connected, and clung to.”

Nault lives and works in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is the recipient of a 2010 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship.