WPA Studio | WPA - Work Program Architects

Chrysler Museum of Art Public Sculpture

Written by WPA on October 30, 2020. Posted in Arts & Design District, Chrysler Museum, Civic, Downtown Norfolk, NEON, Norfolk, Public Art, Virginia, WPA, WPA Studio.

Construction is complete! A colorful 32-foot sculpture at the corner of Brambleton Avenue and Yarmouth Street, and just across from the York Street light rail stop, will announce Norfolk’s rich art culture, directing attention to the Chrysler Museum of Art and the adjacent NEON Arts District. The location will raise awareness of Norfolk arts to thousands of people passing daily through this busy corridor.

From a conversation with Artist Tommy Fox

What do you hope people will take away from this work?

“I honestly can’t anticipate what people might take away from the viewing the piece, but generally I hope it makes them happy. I also hope it engages the realization of a middle ground between pure realism (classical statuary) and pure abstraction (rusty steel I-beams welded at right angles). Somewhere between there is a lot of playfulness and room for material exploration. I would like the viewer to simultaneously think, ‘I could have thought of that,’ and ‘I have no idea how they built that thing.’ There is no right or wrong way to engage with it.”

See the blog post written by Thom White on the Chrysler Museum’s Torch: Stories from the Chrysler blog.

The Next Wave Campaign with The Elizabeth River Project

Written by WPA on June 17, 2020. Posted in Blog, Civic, Education, Educational, Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Uncategorized, WPA, WPA Studio.

The Elizabeth River Project is taking up position on the frontlines of the international quest to combat impacts of sea level rise on urban waterfront communities. WPA is proud to be designing the first facility on the East Coast intentionally to be constructed as a resilience model in the urban flood plain.

OpenNorfolk — A Toolkit to Help Restaurants and Small Retail Businesses During COVID-19

Written by WPA on May 22, 2020. Posted in Civic, Downtown Norfolk, Norfolk, Parklet, Re-imagining, Uncategorized, WPA, WPA Studio.

Work Program Architects is leading an effort to OpenNorfolk, as cities and towns around the world try to imagine living with COVID-19.

Inform Magazine: Designer Q+A with Thom White, AIA

Written by WPA on April 23, 2020. Posted in AIA, Blog, Downtown Norfolk, Hampton Roads, Norfolk, WPA, WPA Studio.

AIA Virginia’s Inform Magazine is back in action and WPA’s Thom White was interviewed for this issue’s Designer Q&A.

Transformation

Written by WPA on April 16, 2019. Posted in Blog, Burn, Downtown Norfolk, Educational, Event, Exhibit, Glass, Hampton Roads, Model, Norfolk, Public Art, Structures, Virginia Burners, WPA, WPA Gallery, WPA Studio.

Thank you to all of the artists and guest for a fantastic opening of TRANSFORMATION.
The exhibition will be on display until May 24^th at the WPA Gallery. The gallery is located in the historic Monticello Arcade at 208 E Plume Street, Norfolk, VA.

#transformation

#burningman

#tidewaterburners

Transformation

Written by WPA on April 12, 2019. Posted in Burn, Downtown Norfolk, Event, Exhibit, Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Public Art, Structures, Uncategorized, Virginia Burners, WPA, WPA Gallery, WPA Studio.

Opening April 12, 2019 6:30 – 9:30

Exhibition April 12- May 24, 2019

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Tidewater Burners, the local Burning Man Regional Community, in partnership with WPA Gallery presents Transformation, an exhibition in celebration of change. As the Virginia Burner group experiences its own form of growth and transformation, we want to recognize the transformation happening in the lives of those around us and in the communities to which we belong. Transformation is a juried group exhibition featuring artists from across the country that explore a wide range of topics related to change, with each artist contributing independent and unique ideas based on personal experience.

The artworks included in the show address physical and emotional change, as it relates to the life cycle including the undeniable impact of birth and death. They address changes in our environment, both through perception and reality. They capture society’s impact on personal growth and the effect of technology on human development. All of the works on view originate from a personal perspective yet are relatable on a much larger scale. They convey an understanding and acceptance that transformation is unavoidable. Exhibited together here, they have the potential to raise awareness and help us better understand ourselves, our relationship with others, and our relationship with our environment.

KATHERINE TZU-LAN MANN | VEGETABLE VALLEY

Written by WPA on October 1, 2018. Posted in Downtown Norfolk, Event, Exhibit, Norfolk, Public Art, Uncategorized, WPA Studio.

presented by popblossom
208 East Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510
Showing: Oct 12—Dec 28, 2018
Opening: 6:30-8:30pm, Friday, Oct 12

popblossom is pleased to present, Vegetable Valley, recent works by Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann. Please join us for the Opening Event, Friday, October 12 from 6:30 – 8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.

With roots in the traditions of Chinese landscape painting, DC based artist, Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann’s paintings and installations evolve a fantastic, abstract vision of the natural world. Monumentally scaled, Mann chooses to paint her lush, densely patterned landscapes on paper, a tradition in Chinese painting. Mann regards paper as “a medium of vulnerability and expansiveness, susceptible to crease and tear as well as to collage and collation;” these qualities are palpable throughout her large exuberant compositions, layered with paint and paper and brimming with motifs of vining ribbons and delicate flora entwined with broad meandering bands of color.

Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann is a graduate of Browne University in Providence, RI and the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD where she received her MFA in 2009. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies. Her paintings have been widely exhibited in the US and abroad and are held in private and public collections. Mann is currently an instructor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

BRITTON + SAUNDERS | WABI-SABI

Written by WPA on July 2, 2018. Posted in Blog, Downtown Norfolk, Event, Exhibit, Monticello Arcade, Norfolk, Public Art, WPA Gallery, WPA Studio.

BRITTON + SAUNDERS | WABI-SABI
Alternative Perspectives

presented by popblossom
208 East Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510
Showing: July 6—Sept. 1, 2018
Opening: 6:30-8:30pm, Friday, July 6th

popblossom is pleased to present, WABI-SABI (Alternative Perspectives). Please join us for the Opening Event, Friday, July 6th from 6:30 – 8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.

Sculptor May Britton and popblossom’s Lorrie Saunders have come together in a collaborative effort to explore exhibition as medium. Seeking an alternative to the traditional mode of art and exhibition-making, Britton and Saunders blurred the lines between artist and curator by eliminating prescribed or defined roles—their goal, to create a co-authored and co-produced exhibition as a single work of art. With creative energies fused and armed with a non-traditional approach, Britton and Saunders thought it fitting to construct an installation inspired by an unconventional point of view—they settled on wabi-sabi—the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature.

Turning to the natural world for inspiration as well as material—wild grape vine and flowers—Britton and Saunders’ installation reflects the rustic simplicity of the wabi-sabi aesthetic while acknowledging beauty in imperfection.

May Britton is a fine artist whose figurative and abstract sculptures and site-specific installations have been exhibited widely with many works held in both public and private collections in the US and abroad. A registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-500), yogic philosophy and teachings continue to influence her life and approach to art-making.

Former gallery owner Lorrie Saunders is the founder and director of popblossom. She has curated over 50 successful exhibitions of various media by artists of regional, national and international acclaim and whose works are held in public, private, and museum collections.

ELIZABETH DORBAD | THE ARCADE

Written by WPA on March 30, 2018. Posted in Downtown Norfolk, Event, Exhibit, Monticello Arcade, Norfolk, WPA Gallery, WPA Studio.

popblossom is pleased to present THE ARCADE, selected works from the series, ITINERANT ARCHITECTURES, by Elizabeth Dorbad. Please join us for the Opening, Friday, April 6, 6:30-8:30pm at WPA Studio + Gallery, located in The Monticello Arcade in Downtown Norfolk, VA.

In the ongoing series, Itinerant Architectures, Elizabeth Dorbad ponders the impermanence and mutability of architecture while engaging the notion of architectural time. Using abandoned architecture as subject matter and material, Dorbad produces works across a range of media including, photography, drawing and video as well as sculpture created out of the rubble of discarded mobile home trailers.

Dorbad considers architecture a transient sculptural system and recreates the structural identities of buildings through what she calls, architectural intervention, “the direct actions of cutting, superimposing or adorning,” the resulting sculpture or installation is then captured in a photograph.

Based in San Francisco, Elizabeth Dorbad’s work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries. Her global project, ITINERANT ARCHITECTURES, with iterations in Memphis, Baltimore, San Francisco, Oakland, Berlin, Kassel, New York, and Los Angeles, continues with the latest iteration, THE ARCADE, in Norfolk.

Crawling out of the Cubical

Written by WPA on March 26, 2018. Posted in Downtown Norfolk, Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Public Art, Uncategorized, WPA Gallery, WPA Studio.

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