Every Second Friday
7 – 10 pm, FREE
Enjoy gallery talks, artist receptions, music, live performances, hands-on artmaking, and three floors of open artists’ studios. In February, spread love through art, music, and healing arts. We are joined by The Omi Collective. Target Gallery also hosts the reception for Ritualisms.
FREE, ALL AGES
EVENT HIGHLIGHTS
8 pm • Gallery Talk for Ritualisms
Target Gallery’s newest exhibition RITUALISMS is a group exhibition that explores how rituals are an intrinsic part of the human experience. Whether it be through personal rituals, such as daily habits or quirks, or through a larger cultural context, such as religious or cultural ceremonies, the work in this exhibition will address the universality of rituals and how they foster connection or isolation.
Participating Artists
Gail Borowski, Shelby Township, MI
Paula Brett, Roswell, GA
Elizabeth M. Claffey, Bloomington, IN
Mark Harrington, Brooklyn, NY
Megan Hildebrandt, Interlochen, MI
Sarah Hull, Washington, D.C.
Ali Hval, Iowa City, IA
Tunni Kraus, Melbourne, Australia
Savannah Loebig, Silver Spring, MD
Clare Nicholls, Baltimore, MD
re:mark, Philadelphia, PA
Kate Testa, Philadelphia, PA
About the Juror
Katy Scarlett is an Adjunct Professor of Art History and an independent curator based in Philadelphia, PA. She is interested in how contemporary artists dissect the construction of history and create awareness around historical omission. Katy has worked in accessibility, education, and public programming at several non-profit institutions including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Delaware Contemporary. She earned her MA in Art History from Hunter College, City University of New York.
PERFORMANCE: MASON ART PROJECT SPACE
The Torpedo Factory Art Center welcomes George Mason University’s School of Art MFA Program as they embark on a 6-month project space at the Art Center. Through faculty led discussions and assignments, the program will encourage students to explore and experiment with topics that emphasize new technologies, increased sustainability efforts, improved accessibility to marginalized members of societies, and other socially relevant topics. In doing so, faculty and students will experiment with ideas and potential solutions that invite cross collaboration amongst disciplines as a means of creating art and design that addresses and promotes awareness of such topics. The studio will serve as the exhibition space for these finalized works.
The MFA Candidates:
Andi Benge, Jorge Banales, Jayne Matricardi Burke, Brigitte Caramanna, Sam Fedorova, Kate Fitzpatrick, Emily Fussner, Erica Hopkins, Jennifer Lillis, Matt Nolan, Kevin Wallace, Michael Walton
Currently On View:
“Welcome to Andiland”
Installation & Performance Piece by Andi Benge
@andilandart
Performance: Friday February 8 (Late Shift: Love and Ritual)
On view through February 2019
Artist’s Project Statement
“Working in several media, I use a variety of campy materials to create a whimsical plastic wonderland of immersive installations. Through performance I embody my alter ego Bunni who invites viewers into a dreamworld otherwise known as Andiland. Here, vulnerable female nudes are surrounded by playful objects and bright colors drawn from a tumultuous adolescence. Beyond the sweet surface lies a critical attempt to confront the taboos surrounding female sexuality and celebrate it’s dangerous archetypal allure.”
About Andi Benge
Andi Benge is a first year Graduate student at George Mason University. She received her BFA in Painting and Drawing from Kansas State University, where she was awarded several grants and scholarships, including the Dale Weary Clore Scholarship. Her work has been featured in many national exhibitions including THE LITTLE BIG ART SHOW at La Bodega Gallery in San Diego, CA, INK ’n’ IRON KULTURE KLASH ART SHOW on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, a FIRST FRIDAY solo show at Bailiwick in Anchorage, AK, and has work in many international private collections.
About George Mason University’s School of Art MFA Program
George Mason University’s School of Art MFA Program seeks to develop in students a self-directed studio practice, derived simultaneously from an earnest personal search and an engagement with contemporary discourses and practices. Housed in a small community of studios, the MFA program offers an environment that fosters the deepening of a student’s individual practice in the context of shared experience and dialogue with peers. Daily studio practice is supplemented by courses in research, writing, and contemporary critical theory. Regular formal critiques with peers and faculty track student progress, while training them to articulate ideas relevant to the production of their work. Visiting artists, monthly trips to galleries, and suggested supplementary lectures at local venues contribute to the student’s ability to contextualize his or her own work and process within the larger conversation of contemporary studio practices.
STUDIO VISIT: POST GRAD STUDIO (319): WINTER 2019 POST GRAD STUDIO RESIDENT – MICHAELA JAPEC
Michaela Japec recently graduated from George Mason University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree. She is the first of 4 artists selected for this residency program. Stop by her studio from 7-10 pm to meet the artist and see her work in person.
Artist’s Statement
Michaela Japec struggles, as many other people do, with body image. In recent years, Michaela has begun to use her insecurities as fuel for her artistic work. She now explores her own perceived physical flaws in her creative process, revealing and highlighting these “flaws” in her work. Michaela finds that exposing her anxieties, which have haunted her since a young age, is healing for both herself and the viewer. Creating art featuring her physical imperfections allows others to see their own flaws in a more accepting, tangible, and beautiful way.
About Michaela Japec
Michaela Japec was born in Alexandria VA. Although being born in the States, she grew up in a small village in Sweden, named Forssjö and didn’t move back to VA until 2008. Michaela graduated from George Mason University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree. She has exhibited in Virginia with Art League Gallery in 2013, Delray Artisan Gallery in Spring of 2013 and 2014, Richard J. Ernst Community Cultural Center in Spring of 2016, and she participated in the all female Inner Demons exhibition at Epicure Cafe gallery in Summer 2018. Outside of school Michaela teaches an Art’s Foundation course to to kids through George Mason Arts Academy on Saturdays, she also takes portrait commissions to help finance her schooling.
Studio 24: Farewell Reception for Susan Greenleaf
Join the Art Center in bidding farewell to Studio Artist Susan Greenleaf with this closing reception in Studio 24. See new and classic works from her time at the Art Center and meet the artist. 7-10pm
Art League Gallery: Art Demo and Patrons Show Preview
Stop by the Art League Gallery to get a preview of their Patrons Show Exhibition before the big event. Take part in a hands-on activity with artist Julie Flanagan.
7 – 9pm
“LOVE AND RITUAL” HIGHLIGHTS
7 – 7:30 pm • Opening Ceremony by The Omi Collective
:: beaming from the wake of the aquarian new moon and the half way between solstice and equinox, we enter into an alternate dimension, a space that functions as an energetic field –deeply activated by universal love and ritualized by the dance between worlds ::
- An authentic immersion into celestial knowledge through sound and a ritual performance journey.
- Heart-opening ceremony
- A ritual performance journey
- Sonic alchemy
7:30 – 10 pm • A Mystic’s Playground & Healing Bazaar
☽ live 2D and wearable art in studio 5 and unicorn rainbow gallery @omiexperience
☽collaborative moon goddess art by @nicole_the_african & @lisaschumaier
☽ alchemical potions (tonics, tinctures, and beyond) and tarrot @brownsugarvoodoo
☽ collaborative mandala activation by @monica.vercillo
☽ self-love fragrance parlor with aromatherapist @essentialbotany
☽ crystal healing pod @crystal_illuminations
☽ sound baths by @heatherluna__
☽ dream interpretation & spoken word @codename.zodiac
☽ self-love poetry pod by @moonlit_dc
☽ art displays @mel.bikowski @chronicallycosmic @broad_ross @belinda.cathy @byunnaturalcauses @arsfauna
HANDS-ON WORKSHOP WITH THE MOBILE ART LAB
Join Alexandria’s very own Mobile Art Lab for Reiki Healing with Cierra Ross
WINTER SEASONAL ART INSTALLATIONS
The Torpedo Factory Art Center presents the work of artists Edgar Endress and Marly McFly for our Winter Seasonal Art Installations on view throughout the Art Center from December 9, 2018 – February 25, 2019. The Winter Seasonal Art Installations exhibition was curated by Jaynelle C. Hazard, who is the Director of Exhibitions at the Workhouse Art Center. Check them out in the Grand Hall and on the smokestack on the 3rdfloor.
