Conjurers

September 16 – December 23, 2016

Conjurers: Artists Imbue the Ordinary showcases three American artists whose creative practice transforms common objects into profoundly meaningful and awe inspiring collaged and assemblaged works of art.

The exhibition presents selected works from the past several years by Vanessa German (Pittsburgh, Penn.), Marcus Kenney (Savannah, Ga.), and Shawne Major (Opelousas, La.), and collectively highlights three unique visual vocabularies in contemporary art.

Conjurers: Artists Imbue the Ordinary from Visual Arts Center of Richmond on Vimeo.

Physically and visually dense and rich with personal, psychological and sometimes political meaning, each work evokes a sense of wonder and inspires reflection. Collecting from their surroundings, the artists adopt discarded and often mundane materials such as buttons, beads, tools, toys and tchotchkes, to create sculptures, paintings and works on paper that become greater than the sum of their parts.

These deft amalgamations of upcycled consumer culture invoke associations with identity and gender, class and geography, history and memory, as well as life cycles and the passing of time. In these works, German, Kenney and Major draw from individual experience, call upon numerous artistic styles, and adapt myriad cultural references in newly reimagined traditions.

This exhibition is guest curated by Melissa Messina.

Image Credit: Shawne Major, Maelstrom, 2012, assemblage, 81″ x 66″