En Masse

En Masse

December 7 - January 4, 2019

OPENING RECEPTION DECEMBER 7, 6-8PM!

United Arts Council
410 Glenwood Ave.
Raleigh, NC 27603

En Masse is an exhibition of VAE’s artist groups community. Over the past year each artist has attended one or more group meetings where they discuss and critique each other’s work. VAE offers five different groups that meet each month: Photographer’s Forum, Plein Air Painters, Textile and Fiber, Abstract and Contemporary, and Metalsmith. For more info on the groups check out the Artist Groups page.

ARTISTS

Lynn Alker
Sterling Bowen
Kelly R Johnston
Marie Lawrence
Patricia Ligon
Tina Marcus
Scott McRae
Jason Noble
Anna Payne Rogers
Lynn Russell
Cara Smelter
Teresa Stephens
Brooke Suffridge
Barbara Thomas
Debi Vought
Qing Wang

Carlos Vargas

Carlos Vargas

September/October

HagerSmith
300 S Dawson St, Raleigh, NC 27601
10-4

First Friday - October 5th
6-9

ARTIST BIO

Carlos Vargas was born in Miami, Florida and attended UNCC (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), receiving a B.F.A. in Art ,with concentrations in graphic design and digital media, in 2018 . His body of work ranges from graphic design to experimental video to even digital paintings . Carlos recently presented one of his video pieces (To + Fro) at the annual Digital Graffiti festival in Alys Beach, Fl. Carlos' main inspiration comes from stories. Since he was a little kid, Carlos would read fantasy stories and and analyze them. This analysis would become the basis of each and every one of his pieces. When not creating work, Carlos is playing or running tabletop games with his friends. 

ARTIST STATMENT

All artist have their own style when it comes to art. Picasso had cubism. Andrew Warhol had Pop Art. I have Ink blots. This series is an ongoing collection of self-expression. These ink blots are not created but rather form when I reach a state of relaxation. Because of this, no two ink blots are exactly the same much like no two moments in life are ever the same. My goal in this series is to present  the viewer with a glimpse into who I am both as a person and as an artist. 

Judith Bank I AJ Fletcher

Judith Bank

AJ Fletcher
May - November

Courtney Potter I HagerSmith

Courtney Potter

HagerSmith

May - June

ARTIST BIO

Courtney Potter has worked as a professional painter, photographer, filmmaker, and artist for the last decade. As a child she explored multiple art forms—performing in the St. Louis children’s touring choir, writing and illustrating short stories, and playing piano at Carnegie Hall in high school.

Courtney graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2009 with a degree in Photojournalism. Her photography projects have taken her across the world and earned her multiple awards including College Photographer of the year, WPJA, WPPI, and the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. Her paintings have been featured in art shows along the East Coast, and she’s currently preparing for three 2018 solo exhibitions in the North Carolina Triangle (Raleigh – Durham – Chapel Hill) where she lives.

Authenticity and love fuel Courtney’s work and life purpose. Just like you, she values excellence and soul: she’s not a fan of trends, tropes, or mediocrity. Your artwork won’t look like everyone else’s, because you aren’t like everyone else. You live your life boldly from a foundation of love, and you want paintings and photographs that match your truth.

Courtney helps individuals (who love themselves), couples (who love each other), and creative business owners (who love their work) tap into their own authenticity and creativity. She does this through her exquisite abstract paintings that transform your living space, honest wedding photos that celebrate your quirks and your deep love for your community, stunning boudoir photos that remind you how you feel in your sexiest moments, or soulful branding visuals that let your inspiration behind your brand really shine through.

When not painting or making photographs, you’ll probably find Courtney rockclimbing, chasing her dream to live on a houseboat with her boo, or exploring the Pacific Northwest. Her deepest joy is found in exploring (whether it’s new ideas, the world, or her own creativity) and connecting (with her community, her family, and her friends).

Also, the pelvis is her power symbol.

Bill Drewitz / Aloft Raleigh

Bill Drewitz

Aloft Raleigh
April - June

ARTIST STATEMENT

William Drewitx (Bill) is an emerging artist that has worked with ink for 35 years. Creating intricate pen and ink drawings since he could hold a pencil, he recently embraced his artistic ability to create photos that are a unique blend of color, light, and design.

Nature reflects the duality within each of us. Nature is chaotic and harmonious, violent and peaceful, tumultuous and still, cunning and innocent. 

Humans are a part of this duality, capable of malicious acts and of benevolent kindness. 

The photos of William Drewitz embody the duality of nature and humanity where chaos and harmony play together in a single photo. 

How the image affects the viewer is a reflection of the inner self at that moment. 

By mixing UV ink, solvents, and oils a pattern is created and then photographed digitally using macro-photography. The art was born from a desire to have a creative outlet coupled with a major life change. It shows the complexity, the beauty, the emotion, and the ever-changing flow of our lives. Bill hopes you find yourself in the experience of these pieces. Everyone sees something different and has a different emotional reaction to any given design. 

What do you see? 

Chryssha Guidry / Aloft RDU

Chryssha Guidry

ALoft RDU
April - June

ARTIST STATEMENT

Chryssha Guidry was born in Florida in 1991. In 2013, she
graduated from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL, with a BFA in Fine
Arts, Psychology, and a minor in Graphic Design. In 2014, after traveling
across country in a Chevy Conversion van, she landed in Asheville, North
Carolina. Finding a true love for North Carolina, she now resides in
Durham, NC.

This work started as a form of therapy, a method of release. The actions
organically evolve amongst each other, and she emphasizes these
relationships visually. Information is being obscured rather than
revealed. The continuous direction combines multiple perspectives, each
one making the last more obscure showing the whole is less than the
sum of its parts. There is a physical experience that can be considered
the peak, if not the overall purpose of one’s perception of this work. This
is experienced through relaxing and surrendering to the emotion that is
transpiring lulling them into a reflective escape.

Cindy Morefield I HagerSmith

Cindy Morefield 

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my current practice I build large wall collages, called texture matrices, from paper, tape, and other leftover studio materials, then I make rubbings from the matrices as they evolve. The rubbings are made with wax pastel, watercolor crayon, and sometimes charcoal on paper or Yupo, and then some sections are worked in more detail with colored pencil and/or soft pastel. The completed rubbings are treated with an archival varnish.

Most of the pieces in this show were made from the Texture Matrix #3, identified as “TM3” in the titles. Four of these are collages created by combining two rubbings from adjacent areas on the matrix. The remaining pieces came from Texture Matrices #1 and #2 (TM1 & TM2) which were created during a residency at MassMOCA in August of 2017.

The process of creating the texture matrices and then making rubbings from them is like hiding a treasure and then rediscovering it. Even though I create the matrix, I can’t keep all the layers and their possible interactions in working memory, so every rubbing is a discovery of what’s there, what elements will come to the fore at each stage of the matrix’s evolution. Rubbings force me to work in the realm of the hidden, and to trust what will be revealed. I am intrigued by the play between what is hidden and what is revealed, and most particularly interested in what needs to remain hidden. Just as tree roots can only function properly if they stay hidden underground, much of what is important to our inner life must transpire underneath what is visible/conscious/apparent. Like X-rays, the rubbings reveal much of what is hidden beneath the layers of the texture matrix, but there is also a limit to what is revealed.

Natacha Sochat I UAC

Natacha Sochat

United Arts Council
March

Artist Statement

Artists are part of every aspect of society, there is nothing created that does not include an artistic principle as much as it includes mathematical and physical science.
I have always merged science and art in my work. I live my life reflecting my ethical beliefs and artistic philosophy. My work embodies what I am: for good or bad, for perfect or flawed. The objects I create are imbued with my struggle to understand the unpredictability and the complexity of being human in the 21st century: as an older woman, as an American Latina, as a wife and mother, and as a believer in an ethical political/economic system for the world we live in.

This series of drawings/paintings embodies my research into the NeuroMorphic Universe that we all inhabit, playfully transcending the complexity of life.

My Hand is my Mind.

Artist Bio

Natacha Sochat was born in Manhattan, New York City. As a very young child she grew up in Habana, Cuba. Her father was a Cuban revolutionary. In later childhood, her family lived in the south Bronx. Her love of art was nurtured while growing up in the rich cultural landscape of NYC. She attended the Bronx HS of Science. Natacha lived and worked in Europe in the early 1970’s, travelling to many different cities viewing many artistic works in person. She worked as a professional photographer in Berlin, Germany, including freelance work for "Berlin Today" magazine. After Berlin she moved to Boston MA in 1974, where she attended Boston University.  She is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Boston University (BA Biology with distinction, minor art history). Her post-baccalaureate studies at Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston included painting, printmaking, photography, and video. She received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her MFA thesis embodied the NeuroMorphic Universe - our connectedness biologically and otherwise, and her work still resides in this realm to this day. She received her MD degree from Boston University School of Medicine.


Natacha met Michael Sochat in 1975 while attending Boston University and they married in 1980. While at Boston University College of Liberal Arts, Natacha met Arthur Polonsky and Harold Tovish. Their philosophies greatly influenced her decision to be an artist. She learned how to code in 1975 before the personal PC was introduced. This was the stepping stone for Natacha to the world of computers that she would later naturally incorporate into her artistic process.


In 2010 Natacha co-founded NKG (Boston contemporary art gallery, now closed). NKG gave voice to the pluralism that continually enriches contemporary art and ideas. NKG's mission was to further contemporary art by giving equal value to the mind and the hand. Natacha curated many exhibitions and works during this time. She also created and managed the gallery’s website.

Natacha has taught at numerous places including School of the Museum of Fine Arts (painting), the New Hampshire Institute of Art (drawing/printmaking), and was Master Teacher in Studio Arts at the St. Paul's School Advanced Studies Program (Concord, NH). She is an interdisciplinary thinker, curator, and artist including painting, printmaking (etching, relief, monoprint, etc), bookmaking, small sculptural objects, performance, video, drawing, and photography. Her work is in numerous collections, has won many awards and has been in exhibitions throughout the United States. She was a member of the College Board Association and served on the Board of the Woman's Caucus for Art (NH), including President and webmaster.

In 2015 Natacha left NH and moved to Raleigh, NC where she currently resides and has a studio in ArtSpace.

Susie Silver I HagerSmith

Susie Silver

HagerSmith Designs
January - February

ARTIST STATEMENT

I seek to eliminate all or most realistic imagery from my work. I acquit myself from making work that has been expected of me. I focus on manipulation of media while immersed in the process of creating. Pieces are built with layers of media, constructing the final product over time through multiple working sessions. Basic elements and principles of art such as line, shape, color and movement are key components in my current body of work.  I use minimal tools in the process of creating pieces often using my hands, fingers and breath to guide mediums around the working surface. Spontaneous and unplanned moments occur in every piece, which is exciting and challenging to me.

When I was a teenager, my attitude towards making art shifted dramatically as I let go of the notion that successful art had to be realistic. I was enamored by artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Stella and Jackson Pollock. Their work supported the ideas I had; to be focused on color, process, composition, etc. I knew that I could make tightly rendered, realistic work, but never felt comfortable with those creations representing me as an artist. I eventually listened to my instincts and started to strip away imagery, or at the very least abstract it. I allowed myself to focus on process, use of media and the basic components of art. I held onto this foundation through my college body of work, which allowed me to heavily investigate my viewpoint as an artist. I completed most of my work in clay and glass during this time (BFA, Alfred University 2002). As I moved into my professional teaching career, the artist I became started to dwindle. As educators, we strive every day to inspire our students to find their own personal voice in their artwork. As educator-artists, we often struggle with finding that very voice in our own work. I found myself back at the crossroads of feeling like I was supposed to make realistic art, as that was a great deal of what I was required to teach. I started many pieces that have never been finished and at times I was paralyzed by indecision and the pressure to be a realist. I placed a false reality on myself as a realistic artist. As a result, my authenticity and creativity suffered.

Over the past year, I have revisited my artistic influences and have opened up again to the mindset I established over twenty years ago.  I have placed no restriction on myself regarding what a final piece should look like. I get lost in the process of creation and media manipulation.  The subject matter, style and media are now my confident choices, not decisions that I feel were made for me. After years of dormancy, I have finally revealed work that is authentic and genuine.

Adam Coulter I Aloft Raleigh

Adam Coulter

Aloft Raleigh
January - March

ARTIST STATEMENT

Chaos has been defined as the first thing to exist.

New ideas emerge from it. Society moves forward because of it. Weather changes because of it. Art is created from it.

The world is full of chaos. Mental, physical, and environmental chaos comes at us at all times. But the world is also full of beauty. And sometimes this beauty is found in the chaos.

Even something as simple as a child’s Slinky toy can turn into chaos. Once tangled, it can never be returned to its original form. Why not take the misshapen, both in life and in objects, and make something out of it? You may be surprised by what results.