by Jeff Maisey | Aug 23, 2024 | Art, Art News, Art Reviews, Current Exhibits
(“Talking Heads”) By Betsy DiJulio Jackie Merritt puts color where it doesn’t exist. But where it most surely lives. Recently, as I perused some 20 of her portraits (and one still life)–rendered in chalk pastel, charcoal, and watercolor—I smiled to myself...
by Jeff Maisey | Aug 1, 2024 | Art, Art News, Art Reviews
(Anthropocene Reliquary: ebonized ash, crushed coal, found bone, digital image) By Betsy DiJulio I look at my work as a distillate of experience. Life events, travel, relationships, politics and dreams all condense to varying degrees into my sculpture. I synthesize,...
by Jeff Maisey | Jul 15, 2024 | Art, Art News, Art Reviews, Current Exhibits
The cash-award winning mural went to “Bull” by Nico Cathcart. (Photo by Nikki Park.) By Betsy DiJulio “Portsmouth is dope.” You don’t hear that often, laughed Nikki Park, one of the 4-member subcommittee of Support Portsmouth Public Art (SPPA) who recently mounted...
by Jeff Maisey | Jun 24, 2024 | Art, Art News, Current Exhibits
(“Mr. President” by Sam Hundley) By Betsy DiJulio For their summer show at Assembly, Asa and Kira Jackson of the Newport News CAN Foundation (Contemporary Art Network) assembled three Hampton Roads-based artists who have long made art from found and manipulated...
by Jeff Maisey | Apr 21, 2024 | Art, Art News, Art Reviews
By Betsy DiJulio If you are an educator—or even if you’re not—and find yourself envious of this capstone assignment for art students at Virginia Wesleyan University (VWU), the brainchild of Professor John Rudel, you would be forgiven that deadly sin. How he managed to...
by veermagmain | Mar 16, 2024 | Art, Art News, Art Reviews
(Avery Keys’ Static ) By Betsy DiJulio “Is it my imagination or is ODU student work considerably stronger than in the past?” I asked John Roth, professor and chair of the ODU art department, via messenger, pressing further, “If the latter, to what do you attribute...
