Tag: public art

MING YING HONG | CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY

MING YING HONG | CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY
presented by popblossom
208 East Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510
Showing: Feb 2—March 16, 2018
Opening: Friday, Feb 2, 6:30—8:30pm

Ming Ying Hong’s beautifully rendered charcoal and graphite drawings explore the limits of our knowledge and experience by questioning the way we define and categorize states of being. Her bodily forms—masculine and feminine, dead and alive, aggressive and delicate—her explosions—teetering on the razor-thin edge of dissolution and whole—are common themes throughout her work. According to Hong, by “combining these seemingly contradictory elements, opposites which once defined each other overlap, ultimately dismantling the system in which one definition is privileged over another.” Through this integration of forces, Hong encourages us to examine the in-between spaces of these binaries or areas of uncertainty. As a result, a more complex spectrum of experience emerges.

Ming Ying Hong is an interdisciplinary artist based in Norfolk, VA. She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and in 2015, received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. She has exhibited in galleries and institutions throughout the United States, including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and Ice Box Gallery in Philadelphia. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, most recently in MANIFEST Gallery’s International Drawing Annual 11. Currently, Hong teaches in the Art Department at Old Dominion University.

BOYER + VITALE | FADED BY THE SUN

BOYER + VITALE | FADED BY THE SUN
Presented by popblossom
208 E Plume St, Norfolk, VA 23510
Showing: Nov 17—Dec 31, 2017
Opening: 6:30—8:30pm, Friday, Nov 17

Like the physical universe in which we live—immeasurable, mysterious, unfathomable—so too the personal universe each of us inhabits and like the physical realm, we have an innate longing to understand it. In their two-man exhibition, FADED BY THE SUN, Hampton Boyer and John Vitale explore the personal universe, contemplating the intimate relationship between consciousness and reality as well as pondering one’s own existence and the largeness of it.

As a source of inspiration and a vehicle for filtering ideas, Boyer and Vitale turned to National Geographic Magazine.  Illustrational in style, Boyer’s compositions hint at imagery found in the magazine, albeit with a bit of humor and a pop-culture twist. His vibrantly hued paintings float on bright yellow walls, evoking the warmth and light of the sun as well as giving nod to the yellow border of the magazine’s iconic cover. For Vitale, the magazine itself becomes medium as well as representation of the ineffable nature of existence as each work’s layered composition emerges from the pages of a single issue of a bound magazine. Vitale notes that there is an element of time in the numbered pages, “individuals dissolving into environments while seeming to play with the ideas of experience and attachment” all the while moving forward in a state of wonderment.

Hampton Boyer is a Hampton Roads based artist whose works have been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions. A self-taught artist, Boyer’s artistic endeavors manifest in illustrational style graphics, vibrant paintings and youthful murals. In 2014, Boyer cofounded 670 Gallery in Hampton, VA where he served as creative director. In addition to his gallery experience, Boyer has instructed graphic design courses at Hampton University as well as working with the Contemporary Arts Network. Since closing 670 Gallery, Boyer’s focus has been his artistic practice as well as honing his curatorial skills with Thank You Gallery in Norfolk, VA.

John Vitale is a Minneapolis, MN based visual artist. His work has been exhibited in New York, Miami, Chicago, Brooklyn, Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Romania, and Scotland. A graduate of Parson’s School of Design, Vitale has worked as a published and exhibited photographer, a three dimensional designer directing creative projects for Louis Vuitton, Tommy Hilfiger, and Stella McCartney as well as received funding from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council to publish zines. After briefly curating pop-up events for VA MOCA, Vitale founded the Nobile & Amundsen Gallery in Norfolk, VA which closed in 2015. He is a practicing Vipassana meditator and works as an EMT on an ambulance.

Congratulations, Yuzhu Zheng

We are pleased to share the news that Yuzhu Zheng, Up studio, who does much of our architectural photography, has her own show opening Nov. 8, 6:30-8 p.m., at the Meyera E. Oberndorf Central Library in Virginia Beach.

The exhibition, featuring both architectural work and landscape images, will hang throughout the month of November. Yuzhu is an architect as well as a photographer. She has photographed many projects for Work Program Architects, Including award winning projects. We congratulate her accomplishment!

 

For more information: Up Studio

SOUND STRUCTURE

The Dancer and the Architect, 2016, hand woven cloth, oak, 66" x 128"

SOUND STRUCTURE
Andrea Donnelly

Showing: Feb 20 – March 31, 2017
Artist Reception: Friday, March 24

popblossom and Work Program Architects are pleased to present SOUND STRUCTURE, selected works by Andrea Donnelly, showing Feb 20 – March 31 with an artist reception, Friday, March 24, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, at WPA Gallery in The Monticello Arcade, 208 E Plume Street, Norfolk, VA 23510.

Visual artist Andrea Donnelly weaves exquisite cloths. The intricate and time-consuming processes she uses to transform thread to cloth are the conceptual backbone of her work.  She touches every inch of thread in the woven-painting-object-artifacts she creates, imbedding imagery and forming figures locked within textile structure. Donnelly paints woven cloth, only to take it apart then weaves it again.  Through unraveling and rebuilding this visual language, she excavates deeper meanings in the collaboration of tool, material, and intention.

In addition to weaving, Donnelly has recently begun working in collage and drawing on paper. Reflecting the patterning and sensibilities of textiles, Donnelly’s drawings are informed by her experience as a weaver in both process and mind state.

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The Sleeping Theater

Thom would like to thank all who came out to the opening of his first solo art exhibition, The Sleeping Theater, and also to invite you to his artist talk tomorrow evening at 6pm. More information can be found via this this link. Thom will be telling the story behind the works and discussing the various processes and methods used to make them.01-Exhibition (17)02-Exhibition (8)03-Exhibition (20)04-Exhibition (15)05-Exhibition (2)06-Exhibition (3)

 

A number of Thom’s wonderful friends, family members, and colleagues helped make the show happen. Olivia Morgan (former WPA colleague) built the “Theater Tower”, Randy Hess of NEST Home made the frames and offered invaluable curatorial advice, Dustin and Matthew Wallace of Prince Ink produced the screenprints, Cindy and Brian Leydet of Business Document Solutions (BDS) provided scanning and printing services (at all hours!), Akin Yildiz and Beau Turner of 757 Makerspace 3D-printed the  “Pulse Cubes”, Peter Johnston (WPA) helped hang the show, Peter Paik (dear friend) was kind enough to loan back a piece to show, Yuzhu Zheng of UP Studio photographed the opening (including the shots in this post), and Beth White (WPA and Thom’s wife) offered endless support and inspiration.

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