Monica Exum and David Barkhau - Aloft RDU

Monica Exum and David Barkhau - Aloft RDU

10020 Sellona St, Raleigh, NC 27617

March, 2018 - June, 2018

New Urbanism

New Urbanism

Robert Aiosa

February 15 - April 7
Artist Talk - April 7 

BIO

Robert Aiosa (b. 1982 Smithtown, NY) earned is his M.F.A from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a B.F.A from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Aiosa’s art practice is rooted in the constantly changing urban landscape, and how the transitional state filled with uncertainty can affect our communities. He recently attended the Haystack School of Art and Crafts, Open Studio Residency in Deer Isle Maine. Aiosa recently participated a group show SKYWAY at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida and Simulations, at Art, Literature + Lab, in Madison, Wisconsin. Aiosa is currently a faculty research associate/head of sculpture production at the University of South Florida’s Graphicstudio in Tampa Florida were he collaborates with leading contemporary artist to produce 3d editions and unique works.


Artist Research Statement

Neighborhood identities are evolving as buildings become renovated and repurposed for new activities and cater to an influx of different class demographics. My work is inspired by this transitional state of limbo filled with uncertainty, excitement, and trepidation. By abstracting the built environment and mixing vernacular, high style and urban planning, with historical and iconic forms, I aspire to showcase the diversity of class that make up our environments. I create these structures with off the shelf building materials such as Oriented Strand Board, Plywood, Pine 2x4s and in techniques that are common to the construction industry as a stand in for the common man, DIY aesthetic and pride in labor, all attributes found in our changing environments.

Susie Silver - Aloft Raleigh

Susie Silver - Aloft Raleigh

2100 Hillsborough street, Raleigh
10-4 Monday-Sunday

Jan. 15-April 15, 2018

“I eliminate all or most realistic imagery from my paintings. My goal is to give my viewers a pervasive sense of calm and to offer a moment of escape from our everyday “noise” when they engage with my work. I focus on the manipulation of many different media while immersed in the process of creating. Pieces are actively layered with media such as ink, watercolor and acrylic, and constructed over time through multiple working sessions. The inspiration for my imagery, and for this layering process, comes from the natural movement of liquids, rock formations and aerial views of land and water. I use minimal tools in the process of creating pieces often using my hands, fingers and even my breath to guide mediums around the working surface. Spontaneous and unplanned moments occur in every piece, which is exhilarating and challenging to me. 

After years of dormancy, I have finally revealed work that is authentic and genuine. As I moved into my professional teaching career (2003), the artist side of me started to dwindle. Educators strive every day to inspire our students to find their own personal voice in their artwork, but educator-artists often struggle with finding that very voice in our own work. I found myself at an aesthetic crossroads, feeling that 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. However, over the past two years, I have revisited my original artistic influences like Georgia O’Keeffe, Wassily Kandinsky and Frank Stella, and have opened up again to the mindset I established over twenty years ago that successful art does not necessarily have to be realistic. The subject matter, style and media of my work are now my confident choices, not decisions that I feel were made for me. I get lost and feel freed in the process of creation and media manipulation.”

Serving Life: ReVisioning Justice

Serving Life: ReVisioning Justice 

January 5 - 25 

This exhibit follows the lives of 15 men on death row in North Carolina. Hidden Voices and VAE worked together to pair local artists with incarcerated participants. Artists created work that represents the personal narratives of the incarcerated individuals, shedding light on generational trauma, compounded layers of systemic oppression, and the social and systemic forces that result in a lifetime in prison, or death row. Serving Life creates pathways for empathy and compassionate action.

Hidden Voices is a radically inclusive, participatory, and co-creative collective committed to creating just, compassionate, and sustainable relationships. This network of relationships connects communities across difference and provides pathways for global change.

Multiples

MULTIPLES

Artwork Drop-off November 22, 24, 25
December 1 - 23

MULTIPLES is a show of works in multiple. We are looking for artists to create editions of 25 identical or nearly identical works, which would be available for individual sale. Editions can be traditional like an edition of 25 Intaglio prints, a drawing or painting of the same composition done 25 times, 25 monotype video pieces (you can figure out what that is), or anything in between! 

ACCEPTED WORKS

Amy Andorfer  Jake
Annette Buckner Hall Unravelling
Caroline Coven Parenthesis
Jose Cruz VLEY
Leroi DeRubertis Untitled 
Jessica Dupuis 10.27.17.01
Aaron Earley Boeing B-17
Britt Flood The Realization
Amy  Friend No...I'm not fixed yet
Lloyd Konneker Bell Pagoda
Ndidi Kowalczyk Bloom
Cindy Morefield TM3R7
Chelsea Raflo Lost/Found
Dolores Santos Priego FLAMENCO
Leah Smith Drift Algorithm
Michaela Sparks Daruma Doll, Death Head
Richard Stickney Untitled
Anna Valvo Just speak your mind
Nathan Verwey The Unveiling
Chris Vitiello The phone inside you
Zak Weinberg Square Series

Jane Cheek / United Arts Council

Jane Cheek

United Arts Council
November

BIO

Jane Cheek is a mixed media artist who works in an abstract expressionist style. She enjoys working with bright colors, metallic accents, and texture to create art that plays with whimsy and elegance. Jane is interested in using the balance of artistic opposites to represent the balance of emotions she has as a survivor of child abuse with a happy life as an adult. She finds joy and inspiration in nature, her three exuberant children, her amazing husband, and the wonderfully supportive and loving people in her life. When you look at Jane's work you might notice the unmixed colors of Fauvists like van Gogh paired with the simplistic playful shapes of expressionists such as Miró and Kandinsky. In her works with craft and sculptural elements, you may see influences of Janet Echleman and Juame Plensa. Jane's work is a daily practice of seeking and creating joy.

Jane attended North Carolina State University where she received a BA in Visual Arts Applications. After graduating, Jane taught art for five years at a K-8 charter school in Durham while working in her home studio and began selling work at local art fairs. She took a few years off while her children were newborns and then resumed work in her home studio. Jane’s work is currently on display at Read With Me, Emily & Co, and Lavish. When she isn't working on art, she and her family can be found living the unschooling life at local parks, and museums, and traveling as often as possible.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In this collection I am exploring contradictory artistic elements. I am working with the relationships between opacity and translucency; two dimensions and three; structure and complete abstraction; whimsy and elegance. I have used these elements to explore the contradictions between my own past as an abused child and my present as a happy mother, wife, and artist. I used bright colors and metallic accents to create happy expressionist work because I have chosen to seek and create joy in my life.

Cathy Foreman / Aloft Raleigh

Cathy Foreman

Aloft Raleigh
October - December

ARTIST BIO

Cathy is not, nor does she proclaim to be, a music connoisseur but what she will say is she appreciates a good groove and if it offers up a funky bass-line, then all the better. It is that very groove that guides her along in the process by which she creates her Art. 

At the base of each piece of Art is her photography. The majority of Cathy’s work stems from photographs she has captured at live music events. And on occasion she has been so moved and inspired that she captures a screenshot from her television and proceeds to turn that into a piece of Art.

In 2011, Reflections by Cathy Foreman was created and she hasn’t looked back. Currently a resident of Raleigh, NC, by way of Tillery, NC, Cathy has carved out her own space in which she comfortably sits – but it didn’t happen overnight. In what she says seems like a long and arduous road, she started simply by shooting small get-togethers with her girlfriends and high school classmates. After that, she started going on “shoot-abouts” and capturing the people and things in her surroundings. In 2012, a connection to a local non-profit focused her talents as she slowly integrated texture into her work. She was cautious as she was unsure how it would be accepted, but in 2014, she realized she has always beat to a different drum, and firmly planted her feet in what she now calls “Photography to Art”.

Through music, Cathy has found that the animation of Artists, affords her a unique opportunity to interpret their performance and energy, it has helped to mold her creative style. Once she narrowed the area of which she wanted to concentrate, she delved further into the manipulation of the photograph thus creating these photographic works of art.

Today, Cathy primarily photographs live music events, but she continues to hone her craft by staying true to her grassroots and doing shoot-abouts in whichever city or town she happens to be. Her heart lies with creating Art and it is those artistic pieces you will often see.

Sleight of Hand

SLEIGHT of HAND
a collaboration

Addison Brown | Brooke Caudle | Heidi Kirkpatrick | Tobia Makover | Lori Vrba

Exhibition: October 6-26, 2017
Opening Reception: October 6, 6-10pm

Project Statement

An exhibition of photo-based object works where each piece requires a physical action from the viewer to be fully experienced.  This art is made to be touched.  The exhibition features the one-of-a-kind assemblage and installation pieces by Addison Brown, Brooke Caudle, Heidi Kirkpatrick, Tobia Makover, and Lori Vrba. 

Anthony Garcia-Copian / HagerSmith

Anthony Garcia-Copian

September/October

When I paint, I paint abstract memories. Sometimes the memory is foggy and has been replaced by an imaginary sediment, a residue that has made one memory solid and the other fluid.

Everything in art is a memory.

I have empathic traits, therefore I paint the images of the emotions that I am able to absorb from strangers and from those who surround me.

The only expectation that I have from my art is pleasure.

- AGC

Katie Ree / AJ Fletcher

Katie Ree

AJ Fletcher Foundation
August - October

I am a wanderer, explorer, and experience-r of nature. I interpret the landscape around me and try to express the wonder and beauty I feel surrounded by. I currently work in and around the Durham, NC area and love the forests, rivers, streams, and creeks. I often start a painting on location and finish in my studio. My needs are minimal - some watercolors, a nice rock, sun if I’m lucky, paper, and ink.

My work is a deeply spiritual experience for me. I endeavor to capture not only what I see but that which is unseen. There are lines connecting us all and I try to share them. Each painting is both a meditative experience and a means to push myself to notice more. What colors are really in a sky, a field, a river, a mountain? What lines and spaces make up a tree? How do you express the gentle breeze, the whispering of trees, the sound of a peaceful sky? How do you be still and one with yourself and the world around you?

I hope to create images and objects that people want to live with. That speak to them as creating them has spoken to me. Most importantly, I hope to share my love of nature and landscapes. I hope to inspire others to look around more closely. To see the beauty we are surrounded by. My hope is that we can all come back to ourselves, our best selves, in nature. 

soundCARVING: a self-portrait by Dana Raymond w/ Robert Bailis

soundCARVING: a self-portrait

Dana Raymond with Robert Bailis

August 23 - October 7

ARTIST STATEMENT

My artwork includes static and dynamic objects, installations, and performance. Underlying all my creations are systematic structures ranging from graphic to mechanical and musical to conceptual. The rhythmical expressions I achieve are the result of an imaginative merger of the rational and the irrational.

My main objective is to activate space. I fabricate forms, however, they play a supportive role to the empty volumes I energize and shape. My forms are as necessary as the sounds a musician creates in and around silence. My passions are ultimately derived from shaping the emptiness of spatial voids.  
 
A secondary objective is to explore the relationship between part and whole. My intrigue with integral components, independent and interdependent, stems from my desire to conceptually understand a whole solely through its compositional parts.  
 

Hearsay

Hearsay

September 1 - 21

Hearsay is an exhibition to look at the state of current events through the critical lens of art. 

Raed Al-Rawi
Michael Baum,
Kristen Baumlier-Faber
Joseph Bigley
Monique Cleveland
Mila de Sousa
Linda Hames
Jeanne Hearn
Andea Horton Morton
Leatha Koefler
Nicole Lawson
Nat  Lazakis
Larry Lean
Maria Lindseth
Babatola Oguntoyinbo
Nancy Ping-Robbins
Nicholas Portanova
Leah Preiss
Caroline Redding
Jennifer Seaver
S.K. Simmerman
Debra Singer-Harter
Natacha Sochat
Jusmeily  Tejada
Martha  Thorn
Charles Tipton
Robin  Wright  

Kelly Sheppard Murray / UAC

Kelly Sheppard Murray

United Arts Council
August - September

Artist Bio/Statement

Kelly Murray has been working as an artist, educator, and designer for more than 20 years. Since 2000, she has taught studio and art appreciation to adult learners of all ages at Wake Technical Community College. By teaching art majors and students with limited knowledge of the arts, Kelly has observed how people interact with and appreciate visual culture. She has supported hundreds of students in finding their own creativity to employ for personal and professional pursuits.

Kelly’s teaching informs her approach to her fine art and design. By working with audiences of varied aesthetic perspectives, Kelly is prepared to find a way to meet a client’s or community’s needs and purposes. For the last 15 years, Kelly has worked with numerous design and fabrication companies to create sculptures, dioramas, small models and murals for nature, science and history centers.

Environmental issues, land development and the relationship of human activity and nature has been a core interest for Kelly throughout her career and the primary focus of much of her personal fine art production.  Kelly has been exploring encaustic wax painting for the last 10 years.  This passion for molten wax is derived from years casting metal using lost-wax metal casting. Encaustic painting was a natural way to bring her sculptural background and pursuit of painting together because it can easily translate into two or three-dimensional compositions.

Kelly is interested in exploring the ways her experience as an exhibition designer, fabricator, sculptor and painter can be brought together for clients on commercial, public art and fine art projects.

indelible marks: what we’ve been, or might, or never will

indelible marks: what we’ve been, or might, or never will
Eliza Kiser | Emily Malpass

August 4-24, 2017
Opening Reception: August 4, 6-10pm
 

Project Statement:
When we see the word “collaboration,” we think of each other. Throughout changes to our families, identities and approaches to art-making over the last four years, we continue to share ideas and dream of our future as artists and friends. The work you see around you is our attempt at using our art-making to work through the questions and struggles in our lives at this moment, and to explore ideas about the identities and veneers we have worn, shed, cultivated, lost, clung to, or will never experience.

Rick Carlson / UAC

Rick Carlson

United Arts Council
August

Artist Statement

Twelve years ago I started my own graphic design business. In-between design assignments, I paint. Contemporary impressionism best describes my style. Like the early Impressionists, it is my fascination of how light interacts with form and color. The final result is not a representation, but instead my interpretation of the subject. Simplifying the moment and making the most impact. As an artist, I try to embellish on this and create a piece that is unique and appealing to the viewer.

Randy MacNamara / Aloft RDU

Randy MacNamara

Aloft RDU
August - October

Artist Statement

“It is like being lost in a jungle,” Dr. Mirzakhani said, “and trying to use all the knowledge that you can gather to come up with some new tricks — and with some luck you might find a way out.”

MAKING
my mind moves in the cool muck
at the bottom of a dark and tan creek
slipping through
 
mud molds my thoughts into holes
they collapse as I withdraw
pulling up roots to wear as a wig
 
stripped I splash about
in colored light biting the edge
shadows bend my vision  
 
my instincts feel rugged resistance
a stone pried and plucked from suspension
plumes of sediment bloom downstream
 
I chase after a billowing liquid cloud
expanding in pools then riffles
rocks and gone
 

bloomed

bloomed

Sarah Tector @ Art of Style

Sarah Tector has taken over Art of Style's front window in conjunction with VAE's upcoming call Multiples. 

Working with my hands has always been a natural fit and source of fulfillment. While deciding where to go in life and what to study I was fortunate enough to have parents that said to pick a field that would make me happy. Metalsmithing satisfied many parts of my creative brain; designing and making in 3D, using mixed materials, and fantastic tools. And while I have made silverware, bowls, and pendant lights amongst other things, jewelry is the most recognized form of what I can do. Treating it as small-scale sculpture,  my pieces catch the eye when on the body or not. I create clean, geometric, and architecturally influenced pieces in sterling silver, cast bronze, powder coating, and other mixed materials. These are mainly one-of-a-kind, limited edition, and production pieces of jewelry and most recently collaborations, allowing me to push myself out of my creative comfort zone and the opportunity and challenge of artistic evolution. 

Copy Center

Copy Center 

An off-site group show curated by J.S. Wright and Kyle Hazard

@ 17 East Martin Street
    Raleigh NC, 27601 

Artists

Sarah Parker
Derek Wycoff
E. E. Keely
Ricardo Vincent Jose Ruiz
J. S. Wright
Alec Castillo
Tyreese McDurmont

MEZCLA

MEZLCA

August 4 - 24

Curated by Claudia Coreletto MEZCLA is an exhibition rooted in the principle that Hispanic and Latinx artists are the only authors in shaping the narrative of how Hispanic and Latinx culture is formed in the United States. 

Claudia Corletto was born in New York City and raised in Houston, Texas. She divides her time mentoring creatives and teaching art to children in communities where access to art by people of color is limited or non-existent. She has participated in group exhibitions at the Carrack Modern Art Gallery (Durham, NC), Pleiades Gallery (Durham, NC), East End Studio Gallery (Houston, TX), ARTernate (New York, NY), Halle Cultural Arts Center (Apex, NC). Claudia was the resident artist for Playdate with an Artist from September to October in 2015 at Marbles Kids Museum. She created a modern mola installation with kids, which still hangs in the museum, teaching them about the traditional art form from Panama and Colombia, and helped us celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month. Claudia is also a member of the collective the Mamis and the Papis, a collective of womxn, femmes, and gender nonconforming folks that play music and raise funds for non-profits doing work that matters in the community such as The Carolina Abortion Fund, NC Field's Poder Juvenil Campesino Program, and SONG (Southerners on New Ground).

Accepted Artists and Works

Olisa Corcoran - Beneath/Within, Flora from Fauna, Hunger
Michelle Durango Lopez - Arraigado, Arraigado
Hayden Folger - Head First, Morning at the Market, The Laborer
Anthony Garcia-Copian - Mangos y Platanos
Ernesto Hernandez - Mi Madre y Yo
Rosemary Meza-DesPlas -Two Women Walk into a Bar, Peck, not Prick I'm Your Green Honeycreeper, Baby
Vanessa Morales -Radio Active Confetti,  Shards
Karen Rose -Mexican Poppies,  Burros Crossing
Jeannifer Jean Sandoval - Dulce de Algodon, Molcajete
Dolores Santos Priego - Purple Hair
Natacha Sochat - Move Over Andy, Un Pajarito Errante, American Hispana III
Michael Tolleson (Robles) - Her Moment, Taken Out For a Spin, Carnaval
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        

Ray Pfeiffer / HangerSmith Design

Ocean Study: Meditation #22

July-August

Songs Without Words: Meditations 

For me, music and photography have always been inextricably linked. Artists use both forms to tell stories, elicit feelings, or otherwise express the inexpressible. This idea was stated quite succinctly by Graham Nash who once observed: "To me there's absolutely no difference between photography and music. After all, I'm just playing with frequencies: light or sound."

The “Meditations” series, represents the ways photographs, like music, can tell stories without the need for words. Each image is a visual representation, or meditation on an idea expressed in much the same way as if improvised by a musician. Expressing thoughts that are often difficult to put into words.

These images are an exploration of musical meditations represented by the never-ending ebb and flow of ocean waves as they caress the beach. Classical composers would often create works intended to put the listener in a state of thoughtful calm or meditation. Music designed for the listener to relax and explore their inner thoughts. For me, listening to the ocean will produce the same effect. I approached this series in the same vein, listening to the sounds and recording my responses as I listened.

About Ray

Ray is a Visual Anthropologist based in Raleigh, NC. Rather than use words, he creates images to illustrate an idea, or create a narrative for the viewer to follow. When not searching for stories to tell, Ray has guest lectured, taught photography, and understanding creativity, for many educational and civic groups. In addition to serving on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Panorama Photographers, he is also the moderator for the photographers’ forum at Visual Art Exchange, as well as an event/exhibition coordinator for the annual Click! Photography Festival. He also bakes great cookies.