Janice Caswell is a collector of images. In her daily interactions with New York City she takes photographs of the manmade landscape—not necessarily things that would jump out at anyone—but objects and arrangements that strike a chord with her. These photographs become the starting point for her work. Using flat white paint, she covers much of the image allowing just a particular area to remain visible. What’s left of the original image becomes flattened and abstracted through this process. The subject is vaguely familiar though removed from its original context it’s mostly unrecognizable. At this point, she adds collage, ink, and other materials, which imbue the work with abstract power. “Through this process I discover objects hidden in the everyday that have their own beauty, character, and newfound purpose.” http://janicecaswell.com/

Photographing in black and white without the benefit of staging or manipulation, Shigeki Yoshida is after recording that elusive, intangible substance, light. In many of his photographs, he allows lush blackness to almost overtake the scene, adding a velvety moodiness to the work. Many strike a nostalgic note, seeming to reference a long lost era. Shigeki does this in an oblique manner and so the work doesn’t come across as hackneyed or sentimental. Shigeki distills his images down to the barest minimum, conveying so much with very little. Take the photograph of people crossing the concourse at Grand Central. We get the sense of hustle and bustle from the figures and a cavernous space that continues on beyond the confines of the image, a glimpse of light fixtures and window locate us, but that is all. Another, of a wall and parked cars suggests a great city. A dress in a window evokes bygone elegance and luxury. Two images, one of a sliver of sunlight hitting th...

Simen Johan has published a large format book containing twenty-eight photographs featured in his 2013 exhibition  Until the Kingdom Comes . Simen combines highly accomplished technique and inventive artifice to produce mysterious and evocative images, which invite the viewer to look at nature anew. Whether it’s the flock of yellow-headed blackbirds alit among a blackened, evil-looking, landscape, or the greedy Cotton Headed Tamarins joined by a scattering of snails, attacking the overripe fruit on a pomegranate tree, or the foundering rhinoceros in a desolate expanse of desert, these are unsettling images suggesting an out-of-sync world. The matte finish adds to the dreamlike, nostalgic quality, and, in the case of the rhino, augments the sere heat suggested by the photograph. The images are made more powerful through judicious manipulation, which Simen generally uses in some fashion. This allows for the unlikely pairing of species and backgrounds, and the emphasizin...

On March 26, following the VCCA spring board meeting at Mt. San Angelo, the VCCA community gathered to honor Craig Pleasants with the dedication of a visual art studio in his name. VA6 will now be known as the Craig Pleasants Studio. A beloved member of the VCCA Family, Craig first came to work at VCCA in October 1989. He and his wife, Sheila Gulley Pleasants (VCCA's Director of Artists' Services), raised three daughters in the Studio Barn apartment where they lived for 17 years, before moving off the property in 2006.  An acclaimed sculptor, Craig brought an artist’s sensibility to VCCA along with vision, hard work and dedication, building relationships with organizations, supporters, and artists including Cy Twombly and the Twombly Foundation, the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Cave Canem, and Riverviews Artspace. His research and proposals also helped VCCA to secure the Governor’s Award for the Arts and the...

VCCA Fellow and Resident Director of the Moulin à Nef in Auvillar, Cheryl Fortier just completed five weeks at Mt. San Angelo. Cheryl is known for her love of nature and her evocative and poetic paintings of water. In these works, Cheryl deftly conveys the way water looks in its myriad states, while masterfully capturing its elemental wateriness. While at VCCA, Cheryl found herself moving away from water for the most part, painting a striking series of interior views of other Fellows' studios after they'd been vacated. Not surprisingly, the paintings all have a watery quality. This is particularly noticeable in the view of a desk before a window, where sprightly brushstrokes and the play of light and shadow on the floor seem to suggest a limpid pool. Part of the works’ appeal is their large scale and the scaled down compositions which allow us to focus on color and technique and to admire wonderful little passages: a pair of rubber gloves, eyeglasses on a shelf, pain...

Prilla Smith Brackett’s paintings will be featured together with Amy Ragus’s photographs in Fractured Visions  curated by Michele Cohen at the DanforthART Museum in Framingham, MA through May 15. Prilla approaches landscape conceptually employing fragmentation and the insertion of random objects that resonate with meaning to amplify the work’s effect. http://prillasmithbrackett.com/

Jackie Hoysted’s work is included in Ne Pas Sourire  at the Arts Club of Washington through March 28. Curated by Christopher With, the exhibition also includes the work of Sandra Gober and Blair Jackson.  Jackie’s portraits are both intense psychological studies and visually arresting compositions of color and line. Her models are positioned against a richly hued monochrome. Jackie pares the figure down allowing the focus to zero in on the deeply expressive faces. http://jackiehoysted.com/