QUIRK STAFF SHOW: PINK GALLERY
EXTENDED: JANUARY 19TH - MARCH 13TH
Featuring both past and present employees of Quirk Hotel & Gallery, this group exhibition highlights the range of creativity and artistic expression exemplified by the team members of Quirk Richmond and Quirk Charlottesville.
Carol Barber
“Three decades ago I began my professional career as a digital artist. While working on the computer, I strived to make art as natural as possible by incorporating transparent layers of photographed texture and scanned marks. When I went to graduate school, I wanted to move away from digital tools and return to the process of mark making by hand that I experienced as a child. However, my thinking about working in digital layers never left me even after twenty years of painting in acrylics and mixed media. The reintroduction of transparent substrates with my gestural work reflects my experiences living in our modern times. Painting on clear acrylic sheets is a tangible expression of my thoughts of traversing between the digital and physical worlds. It also creates an artwork that continues to mix realities as it interacts with the environment through reflections, shadows and allowing surroundings to show through the piece.”
Carol Barber | Gallery Associate (Charlottesville)
Carol Barber is an abstract painter living and working in Barboursville, VA. She paints and draws with acrylics and mixed media on paper, canvas and transparent substrates. Her work begins with quick sketches done observing nature; giving her final pieces a feeling of color in motion. Barber’s solo exhibit, A Year in Gestures was held at the Welcome Gallery, presented by New City Arts of Charlottesville, VA in 2020. Her work appears in collections across the United States and is featured on Chestnut Oak Vineyard wine labels. She received her B. F. A. from James Madison University and a M. F. A. from Radford University.
Erin Kirkendall
“Based primarily in abstract oil painting, my body of work surveys a feminist perspective of women in domestic space versus the workplace, as well as the institutional space of museums and galleries. Conventionally feminine materials such as yarn often associated with comfort and domesticity serve as a method to critique the role of domestic crafts within fine arts. The juxtaposition of these historically feminine materials with traditional techniques such as oil painting assists in further recontextualizing the history of women and their role within the fine arts realm.”
Erin Kirkendall | Gallery Associate (Richmond)
Erin Kirkendall graduated from VCU Arts in 2021, receiving her BFA in Painting and Printmaking with a minor in Art History. Immediately drawn to Richmond’s vibrant artistic community, the aspiration took hold to find a career within the local Contemporary art scene. Erin currently holds a Gallery Associate position at Quirk Gallery’s Richmond location where she is able to pursue her goal of promoting the artistic community through hands-on exhibition preparation and ongoing communication with local artists. Outside of the gallery, you can find Erin painting alongside her dog on the porch or creating jewelry incorporating found objects and curated vintage pieces.
Brienna Kane
““Brienna Kane is Raleigh based photographer and printmaker who utilizes unconventional materials and analogue processes to explore preservation and storytelling. She is interested in the influence photographs have on recollection, and whether the memory of an occasion is solely based on a photograph. Inspired by conversations with family, false memories, pen pals and her environment she often combines text, photography, screen printing, and installation. Materials she’s worked with include: blackberry jam, screenprints, linen, sugar, cyanotypes, fishing lure, inkjet prints, family archive images, and found objects.”
Brienna Kane | Former Gallery Associate (Richmond)
Brienna Kane is Raleigh based photographer and printmaker who utilizes unconventional materials and analogue processes to explore preservation and storytelling. She recently attended an artist residency in rural Pennsylvania, working with her newly acquired tabletop letterpress printer and making cyanotypes with plant matter from the surrounding gardens.
*Original cyanotypes not for sale, please inquire about reprints.
Madeline Silk
“My process is very sporadic and impulsive, bright and abrupt. I let my intuition guide me and I tend not to focus on the outcome of my work. Focusing on what I feel while making brush strokes I believe creates a much more honest and emotional piece. I like to let my paintings speak for themselves and I enjoy hearing how others connect with my work. To me, my art reflects a release. Each painting is inspired by what I feel each day that I paint. Art is an emotional experience and I encourage all my viewers to interpret my work however they please.”
Madeline Silk | Gallery Manager (Richmond)
Born in Toronto, Canada. Madeline moved to Richmond, Virginia for school graduating in 2020 with her BFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University. Madeline works as the Gallery Manager for Quirk Gallery Richmond. Madeline has worked for Quirk Gallery for a little over two years now, in addition to freelancing for the past six years.
Chloe Landry
“Historically, I have painted with acrylic on canvas and have focused on playful interpretations of real images. More recently, I have taken that style and brought it into three dimensions in my pottery. The images in my work are focused studies of life embellished with humor and sometimes a bit of silliness. I genuinely find joy in the process of creating art and want others to experience a bit of happiness and maybe a giggle.”
Chloe Landry | Lobby Bar (Richmond)
Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, 21-year-old Chloe Landry moved to Richmond Virginia for college. She is currently a senior at VCU and a student of the Advertising school. She has been painting her whole life and recently started pottery, which has helped reignite her creative side after being stuck with online asynchronous courses since COVID. When not creating, Chloe loves snuggling her cat, Pablo, traveling, and visiting her family back in Charlottesville.
Drew Rainer
“Depression and anxiety have always been constant factors in my life, as well as many of my loved ones, so finding an outlet to express how I viewed the world was very important to me. I began collaging at a young age, starting with me begging my mom to buy me magazines so I could cut them up and glue them all through the night to make inspiration boards for myself. But as I continued I began to see the beauty in what I was creating, I started to be more thoughtful with what I was trying to convey with each creation. Every piece of paper is thoughtfully cut out and intentionally placed to make you feel a range of emotions, as I did while making them; the goal being to show a glimpse into my headspace at the moment of its conception and to invoke a similar feeling within you. Many of the themes that are represented throughout my work through the years come from countless literary collections, and their social commentaries, yet another inspiration to rediscover beauty from old forms.”
Drew Rainer | Quirk Hotel (Richmond)
Currently based in Richmond, VA, Drew Rainer is a mixed media artist, blending her passion for literature, experience writing poetry, and her artistic abilities to create beauty from what she once thought mundane or unattractive, from the scope of a young, bi-racial woman in America. Her mediums range from collages of many different styles, oil and acrylic paintings, pen and ink drawings, as well as jewelry making and performance art projects including theater and hula-hoop performances.
The Quirk Staff Show will open Thursday, January 19th at 5pm and will be on view through March 4th, 2023.