VCU news

By Leila Ugincius

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Painting and Printmaking is collaborating with two Brooklyn galleries, ArtHelix and Jackie Klempay, to provide its recent graduates the opportunity to be artists-in-residence and to show in a culminating group exhibition.   

“HAPPY HOUR,” featuring the works of the 15 artists participating in the residency initiative, runs from Friday, Aug. 28, through Sunday, Sept. 20, at ArtHelix, with a reception on Friday, Sept. 11, from 6–8 p.m.   

In addition, Jackie Klempay, of the Jackie Klempay gallery, will co-curate the group exhibition. Klempay is a member of the New Art Dealer's Alliance and the Shandaken Project.   

The initiative began as a conversation between Arnold Kemp, chair of the Department of Painting and Printmaking, part of the VCU School of the Arts, and Peter Hopkins, owner and director of ArtHelix. Kemp and Klempay developed the exhibition’s happy hour theme.  

“The question was how best to create not only an exhibition of recent MFA graduates of our department within Brooklyn’s exploding art scene but to extend the notion that the relationship of VCUarts to the students should not end abruptly upon graduation,” Kemp said.

Kemp and Hopkins developed a three-month summer residency/studio laboratory that allows the participating artists to work in situ in the gallery itself while meeting with curators, writers, established artists and VCU School of the Arts alumni who live in the area.   

“The goal is to not simply ‘deliver’ a prearranged body of work created in separate studios,” Hopkins said, “but to ‘generate’ an organic exhibition through a network of shared experience.”  

Artists participating in the residencies and exhibition are Annie Albagli, Thomas Burkett, Adriane Connerton, Philip Hinge, Michael Hunter, Nicholas Irzyk, Harris Johnson, Aaron Koehn, Mike Linskie, Christine Navin, Lee Piechocki, Jason Rood, Aaron Storck, Grace Weaver and Matthew Yaeger.