Tag Archives: Featured

The Late Shift: Habitats

Second Fridays through October

The Art Center’s signature evening series features eclectic art and activities. In among three floors of open artists’ studios, find gallery receptions, stimulating artist talks, pop-up performances, hands-on projects, lively music, and more.

Celebrate the opening of Habitats in Target Gallery. This group exhibition that explores the relationship between humans and nature, creating a dialogue on the impact that we make on the earth and our environments. Gallery talk is at 8 pm.

Pre-registration Requested

Register Now

Download the night’s Schedule and Map

Receptions

Target Gallery:Habitats

RECEPTION: 7–10 pm
ARTIST TALK: 8 pm
This group exhibition that explores the relationship between humans and nature creating a dialogue on the impact that we make on the earth and our environments. Juror: Ellyn Weiss, DC-based artist and curator.

Site 2: Art Enables

RECEPTION: 7 – 9 pm
Art Enables is a gallery and vocational program creating opportunities for artists with disabilities to make, market, and earn income from their original and compelling work. Stop by Site 2 to view a collection of works created by artists from the greater DC/Virginia/Maryland community. Curated by Allie Frazier, Gallery Director of Art Enables.

Mason Arts Project Studio (Studio 8): Zia Palmer and Katana Lippart

RECEPTION: 7 – 10 pm
ARTIST TALK: 9 pm

Stop by the Mason Arts Project Studio (MAPS) to view the latest art projects created by students of George Mason University’s School of Art. This ongoing collaboration will highlight projects by current MFA candidates, recent GMU graduates, and School of Art faculty to facilitate open dialogue and community growth in the greater DC Metro Area creative arts scene.

Hands-On Projects

“Sometimes I Dream in Laos” by Kim Sandara

Post-Grad Studio 319: You’re Not Alone

Queer stories of the DMV Community
Led by Kim Sandara, Summer Post-Grad Resident
Kim Sandara is a queer, Laotian/Vietnamese artist based in Northern Virginia. She is currently working on a graphic novel on her coming out story. Share queer stories in a safe and welcoming space. All are welcome to share, queer and ally stories alike. Descriptions can take on any tone/mood the storyteller wants to convey. Anonymous stories will be collected to circulate in the community.

Grand Hall: The Work of Veronica Melendez

Curator Gabrielle Tillenburg will be on hand to talk about the summer installation artworks of Veronica Melendez, an artist focused on the Latinx experience in the greater DC Metro area. Alongside answering questions about the artworks, Tillenburg will provide an interactive activity for folks to write responses based on prompts highlighting cornerstore bodegas and the relationships they form with local communities.

3rd Floor Landing: Circle of Energy Communal Spirit Stick

Led by Donna Lee Gallo and Pamela E. Underhill
Circle of Energy is an installation featuring healing sticks by Donna Lee Gallo and talking sticks by Pamela E. Underhill. Visitors are invited to work together to create one large spirit stick that will represent all of the community that attends the >Late Shift. The finished stick will be added to the artwork to represent the “togetherness” of everyone working as one to create a peaceful and beautiful spirit stick.

Studio 5: Rainbow Swirls with The Omi Collective

The Omi Collective provides artist-inspired fashion and design products to consumers seeking unique, authentic, and artful items to inspire, and add to, their personal style. They maintain mindful and conscious support for the artists who create them. Stop by Studio 5 for hands-on projects with the artists and see their brand-new mural design on the studio floor. Swirl through curated color, sound, and aroma–luring you through the mystical heart journey down the rainbow path – a dreamscape filled with Naomi Christianson’s Dragons, Unicorns, and Mermaids, Michael Fischerkeller’s cosmic truths, and Fierce Sonia’s fractal queens. There will a lounge with squishy cushions for you to get lost in a collaborative art canvas, try on love adornments with Naomi’s upscaled artful denim, deep dive into your hearts path with a tarot reading with Sanam Emami, or swirl into healing aroma with creatrix Essential Botany’s self love potion station.

Grand Hall: Paper and Plastic Creatures and Habitats Mural

Led by Natalie Ledesma
Developed by the Art Center’s public programs intern and GMU School of Art student Natalie Ledesma, this projects invites visitors to take paper and plastic recyclable materials and create an animal all of their own. This project will bring awareness of the dangers of pollution the materials cause to the environments. Then, join other visitors to create a long mural in the main hall and draw about the importance of homes or habitats.

Meet and Greet

Grand Hall: The Mason Mural Brigade

Developed at George Mason University, The Mason Mural Brigade commissions original, large-scale, and multimedia works of art by professional and student artists for the GMU campus and the greater community. They strive for a community where visual art is a source of information and fosters a more tolerant community. Through these mural experiences, they form an understanding of how individual voices and creative visions can influence societies.

Habitats

Opening Reception: Friday, August 9
Exhibition Juror: Ellyn Weiss, DC-based artist and curator

The newest group exhibition Habitats in Target Gallery, the contemporary exhibitions space of Torpedo Factory Art Center, poses the question, “What makes a habitat a home?”

The artists’ response to this founding question explores the relationship between humanity and our surrounding environments. How are we impacting the world around us? Is this relationship symbiotic or destructive? The selected artists address these questions and raise new ones. Work is presented in a diversity of media, from sculpture and photography to video and virtual reality.

The juror for this exhibition was Ellyn Weiss, a D.C.-based independent artist and curator, who formerly practiced environmental law. She selected 22 works by artists from across the United States, six of whom are local to the region.

“Each of the 22 works of art here is a truly individual response to the challenge to respond to the meaning of habitat,” she said. “From the threatening to the violent to the charming and poignant, the work spans a wide range of emotions and invites reflection on our human place in the universe of living things.”

Participating Artists:
Laura Ahola-Young, Pocatello, ID
Corinne Beardsley, Brooklyn, NY
Betsy Byers, St. Peter, MN
Ceci Cole McInturff, Alexandria, VA
Matt Coombs, Philadelphia, PA
Adam Crosson, New Orleans, LA
Delna Dastur, McLean, VA
Emily Dzieweczynski, Minneapolis, MN
Pam Eichner, Silver Spring, MD
Alice Fornari, Washington, DC
Sarbani Ghosh, Brooklyn, NY
Christina Hunt Wood, Delhi, NY
Kamille Jackson, Woodbridge, VA
Yasemin Kackar-Demirel, Westchester, NY
Pamela A. MacGregor, McClure, OH
James Maria, Reading, PA
Michael Marks, Minneapolis, MN
PJ Mills, Miami, FL
Daniele Piasecki, Martinsburg, WV
Nancy Ramsey, Alexandria, VA
Lisa Sanders, Newark, NJ
J.D. Scott, Santa Fe, NM
Bethany Springer, Fayetteville, AR

Corinne Beardsley’s Torso plays on this relationship between humanity and nature by carving out an abstracted human torso from gypsum. The sculpture looks like an excavated form. It recalls the natural cycle of life and how our bodies will one day be reconstituted back into the earth.

Adam Crosson’s video If At All is a meditative examination of relationship between humans and the Mississippi River, where the dichotomy of natural resources and industry come to a head as public and private interests collide.

The exhibition also features an interactive VR video/painting collaboration Melting the Grotto by artists Betsy Byers and Emily Dzieweczynski. It puts the viewer headlong into a swiftly melting glacier as a commentary on the destruction of natural resources.

About the Juror
Ellyn Weiss is a Washington, DC-based visual artist in two and three dimensions, as well as an independent curator, with studios in Mt. Rainier, MD and Truro, MA. She has had more than 25 solo or featured shows and has participated in numerous juried and curated exhibitions. Ellyn works in a wide variety of media; the materials used in recent shows include wax, oilbar, dry pigment, wire, plastic dip and tar. Ellyn’s work has for many years been inspired by the imagery of biological and natural structures. Much of her work love the past decade deals with the effects of global climate change.

Ellyn is committed to engagement with the world around her. Prior to becoming a full-time artist in 1997, she practiced environmental law. Her work included serving as General Counsel to the Union of Concerned Scientists, which she still serves as a member of the Board of Directors. She is also on the Boards of the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill and was a founding Board member of the Touchstone Foundation for the Arts.

About Target Gallery

Target Gallery is the contemporary exhibition space for the Torpedo Factory Art Center. The gallery promotes high standards of art by continuously exploring new ideas through a variety of visual media in a rotating schedule of exhibitions. The gallery is open daily from 10 – 6 pm and until 9 pm on Thursdays. More information is available via torpedofactory.org/target.

Image Credit: Corinne Beardsley, Torso (detail), 2018. Gypsum cement and acrylic paint.

Factory Flow Morning Yoga – August

Find inner peace and creativity in this morning series focused on art, health, and imagination. Led by certified instructor Alejandra O’Connor, sessions are judgement-free for all skill levels.

Please arrive 15 minutes early. Bring a mat, towel, and water bottle.

Pre-register for one or more classes or pay at the door for drop-in.

Cost: $10; $15 at the door

Pre-Register Now

Online registration is through RecTrac, hosted by the City of Alexandria. Use the shopping cart icon to add class(es) to your order. Follow the prompts to log in using your existing account or create a new household account before continuing with your registration.

About the Instructor

Alejandra O’Connor began regularly practicing yoga in 2014 as a way to exercise while joining her Indonesian host family in Ramadan fasting. After Ramadan was over, she was hooked on how the movement and breath combined to allow space for stillness. She earned her 200 hour adult teaching certification from Latitude Yoga Co. in Stafford, VA in May 2017; and her Kidding Around Yoga certification in March 2018. Currently she primarily teaches children. As such, her adult classes are combination of play, dance, and quiet meditation.

The Late Shift: King Street Circus

The Art Center’s signature evening series features eclectic art and activities. In among three floors of open artists’ studios, find gallery receptions, stimulating artist talks, pop-up performances, hands-on projects, lively music, and more.

Hands on projects, music, craft beer, and more light up Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Late Shift. With projects by contemporary and emerging artists Julia Kwon, Danielle Dravenstadt, Kate Fitzpatrick, Emily Fussner, Lilia Gestson,  Kerry Hentges, Jen Lillis, and Dawn Whitmore.

Pre-registration Requested

FEATURED ARTISTS 

INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES:
to Break / to Mend

Guest-Curated by Danielle Dravenstadt

What does it mean to heal? This collaboration explores the ways in which artists unearth a lost wholeness, mend brokenness, order chaos, and make the invisible visible. In to Break / to Mend, artists explore the human instinct to connect with the ground as a means of survival, respite, and healing.

Featured Artists:

  • Kate Fitzpatrick
  • Emily Fussner
  • Kerry Hentges
  • Lilia Gestson
  • Jen Lillis
  • Dawn Whitmore

ABOUT THE PROJECTS AND PERFORMERS

KATE FITZPATRICK: TIDE 

Kate Fitzpatrick

Kate Fitzpatrick is a painter, MFA candidate, and Graduate Lecturer at George Mason University. Her work challenges the viewer to think about the nature of language, symbols, and meaning. Instead of replicating known letters or rearranging words to make new meaning, she uses marks to simultaneously deny transfer of information and invite the viewer to create new meaning.  The viewer observes the “postscript” and becomes the foreigner, experiencing a new language for the first time. The unintelligible calligraphy functions as writing and it is our inability to unlock the information contained in those marks which invites a dialogue about the nature of language and meaning. We can enjoy the formal qualities of the letters and how they’re put together, but cannot fathom their intent.  Because of this, we can appreciate the text as a container but are left with letters that don’t function as they should. Fitzpatrick’s postscript invites a dialogue about the relationship between symbols and meaning that viewers can use to create a new reality.

Project Statement: “Ocean tides embody the process of movement through the rise and fall of sea levels that are caused by the powerful forces of the moon, sun, and the rotation of the earth.  Although we have no control over these ebbs and flows, they are structured patterns that can be predicted. I sometimes think of the ocean tide during yoga practice when using the vigorous breathing technique, Ujjayi Pranayama.  This breathing method is used throughout the yoga practice to warm up the body and keep the oxygen flowing to all parts of the body (prana). To practice Ujjayi, you completely fill your lungs by slightly contracting your throat and breathe out through your nose, which creates an “ocean sound” that helps me stay present and self-aware.”

 

EMILY FUSSNER

Installation by Emily Fussner

Emily Fussner is an interdisciplinary artist with a BS from Gordon Weselyan University and an MFA from George Mason University. She was born in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and grew up equal parts overseas and in the US.  Her work questions what it means to care for the stepped-over and to pause for the fleeting.  How does one mend and fill a gap? Or materially archive the immaterial? Her site-responsive practice seeks the overlooked, often filling and casting cracks in the ground with paper pulp, or tracing and capturing shapes of sunlight and shadow. By highlighting and translating overlooked spaces and fragile patterns, what is usually mundane and peripheral can envelop and confront us in new ways, inviting us to re-examine our relationship to our own daily landscape.

 

LILIA GESTSON: HEALING GARDEN

Lilia Gestson

Lilia Gestson grew up in the suburbs of DC where she cultivated her love for the visual and performing arts. As a performing artist, Lilia pursued a career in dance with Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. During her recovery from an injury, she discovered her love for the visual arts and shifted her artistic focus to fine art. She is currently living in Gaithersburg Maryland and pursuing a Fine Arts degree at Montgomery College. Most recently, she has shown her work in the Solo Lab 5 Performance Art Festival (2019), the Olly Olly Talk Show (2019), and Montgomery College’s Student Exhibition (2019). Her work has also been shown in the Print Club of Rochester’s Political Impressions international juried exhibition (2018), the VisArts NextGen5.0 juried exhibition (2018), Montgomery College’s Student Exhibition (2018), and the Baltimore Jewelry Center’s Radical Jewelry Makeover exhibition (2017). Lilia was awarded the Rockville Art Department Endowed scholarship in 2018 and is the president of Montgomery College’s Student Art League. She is currently working at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden where she continues to cultivate a love for contemporary art.

Project Statement: “This artwork will be an interactive fiber arts piece that will use the essence of nature to create a healing garden. As a performative work, Healing Garden will lay on the ground as a carpet and visitors will be encouraged to interact and contribute to the garden. Healing Garden will start as a flat lace carpet and each visitor will be encouraged to write a healing wish on a small naturally hand dyed square that will then be sewn as a 3D abstract flower onto the lace carpet. The sewing will take place either by the visitor or myself in real time during the duration of the event. As more visitors contribute there will be more flowers added and the healing wishes will be interconnected with energy form nature. The naturally dyed fabric and lace will symbolize the grounding energy from nature and will hold these wishes inside them, allowing visitors to acknowledge their pain and give it to nature for healing.”

 

KERRY HENTGES: HANGING TOGETHER

Close-up of “Collaborative Thoughts – Step 2” by Kerry Hentges

Kerry Hentges is a mixed media artist who utilizes found objects, writing, thread, and book art to confront anxiety. While anxiety motivates her studio practice, the practice in turn helps her understand and ease anxiety. According to Hentges, art is a way of understanding oneself and meditating on what is important. Hentges’ current work focuses on understanding thought pattern and emotion. According to Hentges, “thought is inherently contradictory, humans experience many emotions at once.” Hentges explores this contradiction in her work through materials like wood, nails, and string and she studies the patterns they make together. The goal of her work is for others to analyze their own thoughts and find  a source of healing.

Project Statement: “Hanging Together  is an on-site thread installation depicting the complexity of thoughts. Hentges takes a simple fabric sheet and stitches complex patterns representing different emotions. From anxious to calm, the threads work their way down the tapestry and ground themselves in an orderly pattern at the bottom. The bottom threads weave towards other works in the gallery that help viewers explore concepts of caring and healing.”

JEN LILLIS

Jen Lillis


Jennifer Lillis is an artist and administrator in Northern Virginia with an MFA from George Mason University and a BA from Marymount University in 2012. Her work focuses on deconstruction, transformation, and ritual of landscape, language and material through her studio practice. She is the co-founder of ELEMENTS and Gallery Manager at the McLean Project for the Arts.

DAWN WHITMORE: SLEEP

Detail of “Sleep,” by Dawn Whitmore

Dawn Whitmore is a Washington, DC based interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on myth and identity. She received a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art in 2005. She is presently an artist in residence at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, Virginia. Her work has been shown nationally including: the Corcoran Gallery of Art (DC), Mesa Museum of Contemporary Art (AZ), Hemphill Fine Arts (DC), Area 405 (MD), Spring Gallery (NY) and published in The Guardian, The Washington Post and The Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a recipient of the Artist Fellowship Grant from the DC Commission on the Arts.

Project Statement: “Sleep is an installation that mimics the decent and journey into sleep as the mind begins to downshift to process memories and emotions as well as healing the physical body. The soundscape begins by making audible the chattery processing of the mind (stages 1-2 of our sleep cycle), then the deep coma-like state where physiological healing occurs (stages 3-4) and finally the vivid and dream intensive REM sleep.  According to Dr. Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School, ‘we are now living in a worldwide test of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation.’ Sleep enable both the body and mind to heal – without proper sleep we would die. This work is an auditory journey into the underworld of sleep and where we mend both emotional and physical ailments.”  

ABOUT THE GUEST-CURATOR

“The Milk, the Lime” by Danielle Dreavenstadt

Danielle Dravenstadt is an interdisciplinary artist, specializing in photography, with an MA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Furman University. She is a photography instructor at the School of Art at George Mason University. Her work explores, challenges, and transforms the ordinary through photography, painting, printmaking, and installation. She transfigures mundane and transient moments into arresting and immutable artifacts, revealing nuanced perceptions of the quotidian.

EXHIBITIONS & ARTIST PROJECTS

Target Gallery: Julia Kwon

TARGET GALLERY
SOLO EXHIBITION: JULIA KWON 

PROJECT: 7–10 pm  

Target Gallery presents interdisciplinary artist Julia Kwon. Kwon creates sculpture and textile art that explore reductive representation, othering, and objectification, in relation to ethnicity and gender as a Korean American woman. Kwon was chosen from nearly 130 artists from across North America for this annual competitive opportunity for a solo show. 

“Collective Quilting,” hands-on project with Julia Kwon

The jury panel for this opportunity was: Sandy Guttman, DC-based independent curator; Michael Matason, Gallery Manager of DC Arts Center; and Terence Nicholson; DC-based artist.

From 7-10pm, the artist will be present to Collective Quilting in the Grand Hall directly in front of Target Gallery. ​

Collective Quilting is an ongoing, collaborative project where participants contribute to a large communal quilt while discussing issues regarding gender and ethnicity. Participants may bring in remnant fabrics from their own lives or embroider images and texts to share their thoughts and personal experiences of objectification. Each work is added to a larger patchwork in support and solidarity with others. The project has been hosted at Textile Arts Center (2017), Montgomery College (2018), IA&A at Hillyer (2018), Korean Cultural Center in DC (2019), and NARS Foundation (2019).

 

“Sometimes I Dream in Laos” by Kim Sandara

STUDIO 319
OPENING RECEPTION: KIM SANDARA
Summer Post-Grad Resident
RECEPTION: 7–10 pm

Kim Sandara is a queer, Laotian/Vietnamese artist based in Northern Virginia. A graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Sandara’s narrative and abstract works encourage empathy, wonder and self-reflection. Sandara’s work has been featured in many D.C. community events including a recent workshop at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She is currently working on a graphic novel on her coming out story. Stop by her studio from 7-10 pm to meet the artist and see her work in person.

 

Sissy Cutchen

GALLERY 311
SOLO EXHIBITION: SISSY CUTCHEN 

RECEPTION: 7–10 pm, ARTIST TALK: 7:30 pm

Sissy Cutchen is a contemporary American folk artist using found objects in particular windows, furniture, and textiles as her canvases. Her work is happy, whimsical, and fun.

Sissy celebrates the lives and stories of objects and their creators.  She loves to appreciate an item’s history by bringing it into a contemporary value through making it a part of her beautiful folk art. This work is repurposing in its highest form.

Exhibition Statement: “The purpose of this exhibit is to share   Information about marine life. The artist hopes to raise consciousness about sustainable seafood consumption.”

Mason Arts Project Studio: Danielle Dravenstadt

MASON ARTS PROJECT STUDIO (STUDIO 8)
Danielle Dravenstadt

OPEN STUDIO: 7 – 10 pm

 Danielle Dravenstadt is an interdisciplinary artist, specializing in photography, with an MA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Furman University. She is an MFA candidate and photography instructor at the School of Art at George Mason University. Her work explores, challenges, and transforms the ordinary through photography, painting, printmaking, and installation, articulating nuanced perceptions of everyday life.

Project Statement: In Tend, Dravenstadt transforms simple gestures of care into radical expressions of acceptance through photography and installation. Dravenstadt builds an aesthetic around the tender engagement with materials of caretakers to make care visible, mentionable, and to provoke a consideration of the transformative potential of practicing care in daily life. 

Art Lounge by the Omi Collective

STUDIO 5: HANDS-ON PROJECTS
The Omi Collective

OPEN STUDIO: 7 – 10 pm

The Omi Collective provides artist-inspired fashion and design products to consumers seeking unique, authentic, and artful items to inspire, and add to, their personal style. They maintain mindful and conscious support for the artists who create them. Stop by Studio 5 for hands-on projects with the artists and see their brand-new mural design on the studio floor.

Post-Grad Artist Talk: Nava Levenson

As her three-month post-grad residency comes to a close, Nava Levenson talks with moderator Leslie Mounaime, Curator of Exhibitions at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, about her experiences during her time at the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Hear her speak about how her residency inspired her work and process, what she’s done during her time, and what she will be doing next.

Join us in the main hall of the Art Center for her talk at 7:00pm and then a mingle and jar opening in the Post-Grad studio #319 after the talk is over.

About the Artist

Nava Levenson is a multidisciplinary artist, instigator, and collaborator based in Richmond, Virginia. She completed her bachelor’s of fine arts in 2017 from James Madison University. Her work investigates anthropological concepts such as hospitality, labor, consumption, and space making. Nava incorporates re-purposed materials in much of her art in an effort to chip away at the surplus of objects that crowd the planet.

During her residency, she plans to invite artists from the Art Center to participate in her ongoing project, Practice Preserves: Studio Dirt. In the same way thrift stores reveal things about American culture, she seeks to archive artists’ practices. She invites people to add studio scraps and discarded material in quart-sized canning jars, which she then opens, catalogs, and photographs for an anthology she hopes to publish. She already received a starter grant from Specto Artspace and this residency will allow her to advance the project.

About the Residency

This competitive juried residency provides meaningful support to emerging artists who have recently completed formal academic training in the visual arts. It is an opportunity to address the critical post-graduation juncture in an emerging artist’s career.

Residents have three months of exclusive access to a studio in the Art Center. Therein, they can create and sell work, interact with the public, and connect with other arts professionals. It’s an opportunity for professional development, networking, and a chance to define a practice outside of the academic context.

Applications are open to recently graduated students who earned a bachelor’s or master’s art degree from an accredited university. Submissions are accepted through Sunday, September 22.

Creative Writing Workshop with Community Building Art Works

As featured in the 2018 HBO Documentary We Are Not Done Yet, Community Building Art Works serves veterans, military personnel, and members of the community through generative creative-writing workshops. Led by accomplished authors, they are focused on using the written word as a tool for introspection, communication, and connection. Bring a pen, a notebook, and an open mind.

The program is free, but a donation of $10-$30 would to support CBAW’s to hold similar workshops at military hospitals.

woman dancing

The Late Shift: Summer Party

The waterfront comes to life with a big after-hours party to kick off the Late Shift Summer Series. Music, activities, and art await on all three floors.

Target Gallery joins the festivities with its 2019 Solo Exhibition reception, too.

Save the dates for more Summer Series Late Shift events on Fridays, July 12 and August 9.
 

Welcome Julia Kwon, the 2019 Solo Exhibition artist in the Target Gallery. The Art Center partners with Congressman Don Beyer’s Office to host the top twelve honoree’s of the 2019 Congressional High School  Art Competition from Virginia’s 8th Congressional District. The Mason Arts Project Studio welcomes MFA Candidate Danielle Dravenstadt and the launch of her project, Tend.  

 

Artists Strange Lens and Andi Benge are the two performance artists behind the collaborative group STRANGELAND. Tonight they present A groTEAsque PARTY, an elaborate performance featuring contributions by Jessica Kallista, Katie Macyshyn, Lilia Gestson, and Matt Nolan.  

 

Pre-registration Requested

FEATURED ARTISTS 

 PERFORMANCE: A groTEAsque PARTY 

 STRANGELAND 

STRANGELAND is a collaboration between artists Strange Lens and Andi Benge. Join the artists in the Grand Hall along with a curated assortment of guests for a series of performance pieces throughout the night, all centered around a Mad Hatter-esque tea party in the center of the Hall. 

Featured Artists: 

  • StrangeLand 
  • Jessica Kallista 
  • Katie Macyshyn 
  • Lilia Gestson 
  • Matt Nolan  

 ABOUT THE PROJECTS AND PERFORMERS

 JESSICA KALLISTA: INSTIGATING BLISS 

Jessica Kallista

Jessica Kallista is an artist, teacher, juror, curator, and gallery director. She received her MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in poetry from George Mason University in 2002. In November 2014 she founded Olly Olly, an alternative art space, in Fairfax, Virginia. She has served as Business Representative on the City of Fairfax Commission on the Arts. Jessica has taught collage at the Corcoran School of Arts & Design GW and poetry, critical theory, aesthetics, and writing for artists at George Mason University. She is Gallery Director of Buchanan Partners Art Gallery at the Hylton Performing Arts Center. Through her multi-faceted work in visual and literary art, Jessica seeks to disrupt the isolation of those living in suburbia and elsewhere by creating situations of surprise, play, and experimentation while instigating dialogue about gender, sexuality, feminism, embodiment, decolonization, commodity fetishism, spirituality, pleasure, and interconnectivity. Jessica’s work has been shown at a variety of venues including Target Gallery, GRACE, The Fridge, Tempus Projects, Rhizome, VisArts, NoMüNoMü, Fenwick Gallery at George Mason University, Galerie Kritiku Prague, Watergate Gallery, and the Margaret W. and Joseph L. Fisher Art Gallery. 

Project Statement: “Joy, Love, and Bliss are revolutionary acts. We must lay claim to the everyday moments of our lives and demand that they are filled with bliss. Rooted in the belief that what we practice we become, Jessica Kallista’s Instigating Bliss disrupts the passive nihilism intrinsic in many of our everyday lives by countering with the intentional, active, manifestation-oriented pursuit of revolutionary everyday bliss through meditation and play. She counters with tea, books, kisses, sweetness, music, light, flowers, laughter, community, consensual touch, luxury, comfort, pleasure, and sensuousness. Jessica invites you to participate in her Everyday Bliss Meditation. Take the corpse out of your mouth. Love, laugh, taste, touch, dance, play.” 

Katie Macyshyn

 KATIE MACYSHYN: SWEET GREEN KATIE MAGICIAN 

 Katie Macyshyn received her BFA, with a focus in performance art, from the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design at George Washington University. Macyshyn uses high camp to make the profane spiritual and vice versa. Her work has been included in various performance festivals, including ITINERANT, Staten Island, NY; PGH PAF , Pittsburgh, PA; Transmodern Festival, Baltimore, MD; and (e)merge Art Fair, Washington, DC. Her work has also been included in gallery exhibitions at VisArts, Rockville, MD; IA&A at Hillyer, Washington, DC; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Through workshops, creative group activities, and high camp multimedia rituals, Macyshyn’s work helps recover lost parts of the soul. Her pieces are speculative journeys that mix the sacred and profane. From a place of radical empathy, radical inclusiveness, and radical self love, the work helps overcome familial or societal guilt and shame in order to live a life of empowered self-expression and integration as simultaneously sexual, spiritual, and social beings. 

Project Statement: “In the performance Sweet Green Katie Magician performs a musical number to the tune of MacArthur Park by Jimmy Webb in the style of Donna Summer. The piece references the French Revolution as an analogy for the bourgeoisie’s blissful ignorance towards the daily lived experience of the working class. As the ballad builds in intensity, pieces of cake with green icing, as references in the lyrics, will fall from the performer’s costume.”

Lilia Gestson

 LILIA GESTSON: I AM RED

Lilia Gestson grew up in the suburbs of DC where she cultivated her love for the visual and performing arts. As a performing artist, Lilia pursued a career in dance with Pittsburgh Ballet Theater. During her recovery from an injury, she discovered her love for the visual arts and shifted her artistic focus to fine art. She is currently living in Gaithersburg Maryland and pursuing a Fine Arts degree at Montgomery College.

“I Am Red” is a performance artwork by Lilia Gestson that will be performed throughout the duration of the event. She will be dressed in all white at the Tea Party asking visitors their opinions on menstruation. The visitors will then be encouraged to write their answers on her clothing with red pens.

Project Statement: “I Am Red” is a performance artwork inspired by my own frustration with my menstrual cycle and the lack of open conversation within our society about this topic. Though we are making large strides, there is still stigma around the topic of menstruation and it causes many to feel uncomfortable and ultimately hide this aspect of their lives. Menstruation is an important part of many people’s identity and for many, including myself, it is a traumatic experience every month. As a personal aspect of ourselves and our body, we should be able to freely express this topic and be able to have these personal conversations with anyone, not only our personal friends and family. By including everyone in this conversation, I want to promote this cause and create an outlet for those who need a platform to express their feelings about menstruation. It is important that we continue to make strides to an open future where people no longer have to be discreet or worry about making others uncomfortable when menstruating. 

 MATT NOLAN: VISUAL ART PROJECTIONS 

Holding a Bachelor of Music (B.M.) degree in Music Synthesis/Voice Principal from Berklee College of Music and a Master’s Degree (M.M.) in Music Composition from George Mason University, Matt Nolan has a holistic vision for music, art, movement, and light. His programming and interactivity work has been used and performed at SICMF Seoul Korea , 2007 Florida Electro-Acoustic Music Festival at the University of Florida, Berklee College of Music, George Mason University’s Center for the Arts, The Hylton Center for Performing Arts, New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2007 at the Columbia University Computer Music Center as part of NYC Electronic Arts Festival, CHAW (Washington DC, TedX Tyson’s, The Atlas Theater, EABD (Fredericksburg), Monkeytown (Brooklyn), and his artwork was selected for The Newtown Project : A Call to Arms for the Charles Krause Reporting Fine Art Gallery in Washington, DC. His photography was featured at the Philips Collection in Collaboration with Helen Frederick.  He is the founder of the Virginia Artist’s Residency at STUD Gallery/Manahoac Farm in Catlett, VA. 

ABOUT TONIGHT’S CO-CURATOR

STRANGELAND: A GROTEASQUE PARTY 

STRANGELAND is a performance duo, made up of Bunni (ANDiLAND) and Goatface (STRANGE LENS) that explore the superficial construct of reality. ANDiLAND works with a variety of media to create her campy but whimsical immersive installations and performances. Utilizing a perverse humor she invites viewers past the looking glass of reality down the rabbit hole of her own personal female psyche, attempting to assault the norms of acceptable female behavior to subversive ends. STRANGE LENS is a mixed media artist who explores the world of dreams, nightmares and the obscure irrational of the subconscious. She recreates the experience and atmosphere of disorientation and disconnect caused by excessive vivid dreams and re-enacts them through video, installation and performance.

Project Statement: “The work consists of a peculiar tea party, an elaborate performance by the collaborative group STRANGELAND, where visitors are served riddles and inedible ephemera. With a perverse humor and provocative pleasure, this staged seductive spectacle questions the aestheticization of politics and more concerningly, violence. This avant grade fairy-tale ambiguously swerves between parody and enactment, investigating the collision and collusion of fantasy to form a new reality of consciousness.” 

EXHIBITIONS & ARTIST TALKS 

Target Gallery: Julia Kwon

 

TARGET GALLERY
SOLO EXHIBITION: JULIA KWON 

OPENING RECEPTION: 7–10 pm  ARTIST TALK: 8 pm

Target Gallery presents interdisciplinary artist Julia Kwon. Kwon creates sculpture and textile art that explore reductive representation, othering, and objectification, in relation to ethnicity and gender as a Korean American woman. Kwon was chosen from nearly 130 artists from across North America for this annual competitive opportunity for a solo show. 

The jury panel for this opportunity was: Sandy Guttman, DC-based independent curator; Michael Matason, Gallery Manager of DC Arts Center; and Terence Nicholson; DC-based artist. 

Mason Arts Project Studio: Danielle Dravenstadt

MASON ARTS PROJECT STUDIO (STUDIO 8)
Danielle Dravenstadt

RECEPTION: 7–9:30 pm  ARTIST TALK: 9 pm 

 Danielle Dravenstadt is an interdisciplinary artist, specializing in photography, with an MA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BA from Furman University. She is an MFA candidate and photography instructor at the School of Art at George Mason University. Her work explores, challenges, and transforms the ordinary through photography, painting, printmaking, and installation, articulating nuanced perceptions of everyday life.

Project Statement: In Tend, Dravenstadt transforms simple gestures of care into radical expressions of acceptance through photography and installation. Dravenstadt builds an aesthetic around the tender engagement with materials of caretakers to make care visible, mentionable, and to provoke a consideration of the transformative potential of practicing care in daily life. 

SITE 2
2019 CONGRESSIONAL HIGH SCHOOL ART COMPETITION

Cancelled due to extenuating circumstances. Apologies for the inconvenience. All artwork is still on view.

RECEPTION: 7–9:30 pm  ARTIST TALK: 7:15pm
The Torpedo Factory Art Center is proud to partner with Congressman Don Beyer’s Office to host the top twelve honoree’s of the 2019 Congressional High School Art Competition from Virginia’s 8th Congressional District.

ALL EVENING 

Post Grad Studio: Nava Levenson

 STUDIO 319 

OPEN STUDIO: Nava Levenson
Spring Post-Grad Resident 

Nava Levenson in a multidisciplinary artist, instigator, and collaborator based in Richmond, Virginia. She completed her bachelor’s of fine arts in 2017 from James Madison University. Her work investigates anthropological concepts such as hospitality, labor, consumption, and space making. Nava incorporates repurposed materials in much of her art in an effort to chip away at the surplus of objects that crowd the planet. Stop by her studio from 7-10 pm to meet the artist and see her work in person. 

  

  

Julia Kwon: More Than A Body

Julia Kwon: More Than a Body
June 14 – August 4

Opening Reception: Friday, June 14, 7 – 10pm with gallery talk at 8pm

Target Gallery presents our competitive annual solo exhibition featuring Northern Virginia-based artist Julia Kwon. Julia Kwon: More Than A Body will be on view June 14 through August 4, 2019.

Based in Woodbridge, Virginia, Kwon uses traditional Korean inspired textiles to create a dialogue on othering and objectification she experiences as a Korean-American woman. Her work touches on her minority identity and delves deeper into a broader commentary on the dehumanizing and reductive process of being categorized.

“I aim to capture the tension that arises from the divide between different social groups and the mindset of us versus them,” she said.

Kwon draws her main aesthetic inspiration from bojagi, a Korean practice of wrapping objects in cloth to protect good luck. Historically, it was a creative outlet for women in the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) who had limited contact with the outside world.

“I am directly drawing inspiration from bojagi and consider ideas such as tradition, craft, and ‘feminine’ work,” she said.

By utilizing this textile method, Kwon both honors her heritage while using it as a tool for disruption. Traditionally, common bojagi were made with patchwork cloths leftover from other projects. Kwon uses stereotypically “ethnic” textiles instead. This creates a subtle yet poignant commentary on orientalism and the perceived exoticness of Asian imagery. She calls attention to the viewers’ assumptions based on Kwon’s gender and identity.

Kwon uses these textiles as part of a larger sculptural work. She manipulates the fabric to suggest a female form trapped underneath. “Gender” is consumed and hidden by an artificially ethnic textile of “identity.”

Kwon was selected from more than 130 North American applicants as part of Target Gallery’s annual Open Call for a Solo Exhibition. The jury panel for this opportunity was: Sandy Guttman, a curatorial assistant at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture; Michael Matason, Gallery Manager of DC Arts Center; and Terence Nicholson; a DC-based artist.

According to Guttman, “Kwon stages interventions in textile and sculpture, creating cross-cultural forms that implore the viewer to metaphorically look beneath the surface and question the very limitations of identity. She leaves us to ponder our own place within society and history. In Kwon’s patterns, we find form; in Kwon’s figures, perhaps we find ourselves.”

“This hybrid approach to her works breaks the boundary on viewers preconceived notions the artists identity and background,” said Matason. “Each piece and each piece of fabric should be carefully looked at, as Julia’s works speak to race, femininity and her experiences on what it means to be Korean.”

“The beauty of the pieces almost camouflages the poignancy of the message behind them. Her experience of being looked at as ‘other’ is a theme that I think will resonate with most viewers in some way,” said Nicholson.

Julia Kwon: More Than A Body runs Friday, June 14, through Sunday, August 4, 2019. The opening reception will be Friday, June 14, 7 – 9 pm, with Kwon’s comments at 8 pm. This reception is part of the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Late Shift Event: Summer Party. Target Gallery is open daily from 10 – 6 pm and until 9 pm on Thursdays.

About the Artist

A native of Virginia, Julia Kwon creates traditional and hybrid Korean textiles through quilting and painting. Her work aims to challenge preexisting notions of what it means to be Korean and feminine as well as examine the complexities of constructing identity within the contemporary context of globalism and cultural hybridity. Kwon also explores community and personal relationship-building through collaborative projects such as communal quilting, one-on-one portrait drawing, and building a community that shares local artist talks.

She is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in New York City and the D.C. metropolitan area. She earned her Master of Fine Art at Tufts University’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and her Bachelor of Arts at Georgetown University. She has had numerous solo exhibitions and won various awards such as the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University’s Traveling Fellowship as well as the artist residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Vermont Studio Center, Montgomery College, Gallery 263, and Textile Arts Center. ​Kwon is currently an Artist in Residence at NARS Foundation in Brooklyn.

Target Gallery

 Target Gallery is the contemporary exhibition space for the Torpedo Factory Art Center. We host eight exhibitions annually featuring a variety of themes, artists, and media focused on the latest trends in contemporary art.

Visit Target Gallery on Pinterest

Explore past exhibitions, staff favorites, exhibition inspiration and more!

Visit Target Gallery’s profile on Pinterest.

2019 Congressional High School Art Competition

Opening Reception

Friday, June 14 • 7-8 pm
Opening Remarks at 7:20 pm

 

The Torpedo Factory Art Center is proud to partner with Congressman Don Beyer’s Office to host the top twelve honoree’s of the 2019 Congressional High School Art Competition from Virginia’s 8th Congressional District.

 

Honoree’s

Zachary Bobeczko (12, Washington-Lee High School)
Kalista Diamantopoulos (12, T.C. Williams High School)
Xander Chiaramonte (12, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School)
Khulan Erdenedalai (10, H-B Woodlawn Secondary)
Julianne Joven (10, T.C. Williams High School)
Catherine Owens (12, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School)
Gummy Nichols (12, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School)
Owen Plimpton (12, Yorktown High School)
Lars Rosen (11, McLean High School)
Clara Sandall (11, Yorktown High School)
Quinten Staples (12, St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School)
Vy Tran (11, Hayfield Secondary)

ALX Pride 2019 Mix & Mingle

Kick off the start of Capital Pride with a special evening mix and mingle for Alexandria. Get to know others from the local LGBTQIA community. Stop by for music in the Grand Hall, drinks and snacks, and open artist studios and projects.

RSVP Now

Participating Artists and Activities in the Grand Hall

EXHIBITION: ALX Pride Artist Row
Curated by Michaela Japec 

 

Michaela Japec

Michaela Japec is from Alexandria, Virginia. She recently completed her bachelor’s of fine arts in 2018 from George Mason University. Through her art, she works through conflicting thoughts she has about her sexuality, body insecurities, and feelings of oppression. She recently completed her Winter 2019 Post Grad Residency at Torpedo Factory Art Center.

Though Michaela was born in Alexandria, she grew up in Forssjö, Sweden, and lived there until 2008. She has been active in the Alexandria visual arts community for many years, exhibiting work at The Art League Gallery and Delray Artisan Gallery, as well as other locations in Northern Virginia including Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center in Annandale and Epicure Café in Fairfax.

PERFORMANCE: Nava Levenson: Practice Preserves: Studio Dirt 

Practice Preserves: Studio Dirt is an ongoing participatory investigation into art making scrap and material waste. Operating at the intersection of curating and art making, this project aims to archive practices of a group of artists through cast offs and material waste similar to the way we understand american culture through junk and thrift stores. Post Grad Studio Resident Nava Levenson invites participating artists to fill a quart size canning jar with scraps and studio trash to be later archived at a jar opening.

8 pm – 9 pm: Jar Opening of Tyler Stoll
North Hall 

Nava Levenson

Nava Levenson is an artist, organizer and collaborator based in Richmond, VA.  Rooted in ritual and collection, her practice investigates domesticity, objecthood and the human condition. Trained in sculpture and fibers, she utilizes these mediums as tools in performance and process. Her work is comprised of installations, performances, gatherings, and her own a brand of food. Nava has been a resident at Elsewhere Museum (Greensboro, NC) and Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA). Recent exhibitions/performances/workshops include Heavily Processed at VALET Gallery in Richmond, VA and “A Jar Opening” at Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA. Nava is the recipient of a CVPA Research Grant and the 2017 David Diller Outstanding Student in Studio Art Award at James Madison University where she received her BFA in Sculpture. Currently her work deals in curating, material reuse and gendered labor as it relates to construction and homesteading.

ALX Pride Bar

Stop by the Grand Hall for a glass of beer or wine, courtesy of our friends at Port City, NOVA Pride, and Safe Space NOVA! Support LGBTQIA efforts in the DMV area while unwinding with friends.

About our Collaborators

Port City Brewing Company

Port City is an award-winning brewery — brewing, serving and shipping  beers to the DC and Mid Atlantic market. They brew an exciting lineup of year round brews, as well as an innovative slate of seasonal and occasional beers. Find them on tap all over the DMV or stop into their Tasting Room, which is open 7 days a week.

 

 

NOVA Pride

NOVA Pride is a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a mission to cultivate and grow a coalition to educate, advocate and celebrate in service to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community of Northern Virginians and our straight Allies. A young, grassroots, 100% volunteer-run organization, NOVA Pride provides a unified voice for, and a local base to, LGBTQ+ Northern Virginians – enhancing our visibility and relevance in the DMV region. NOVA Pride brings a sense of community to families, youth, and people of all scenes and sexualities through its year-round activity, including an annual festival every fall.

 

 

 

Safe Space NOVA

Safe Space NOVA is dedicated to providing a safe, accepting, and supportive environment to combat social stigmas, bullying, and other challenges faced by LGBT+ youth.