VCU alumna opens exhibit at the Visual Arts Center

Patrick Maguire
Contributing Writer

This past Friday the Visual Arts Center opened the exhibit, “Where We Meet,” which featured the work of local artist Andrea Donnelly.

This was one of the many exhibits that opened during this month’s First Fridays Art Walk. Donnelly earned her MFA in Fiber from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2010 and recently completed a residency at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to assist in the formation of work by Chinese artist Xu Bing.

Donnelly lives in Richmond and currently runs a hand-woven scarf business that is run out of her apartment.

Her exhibit at the Visual Arts Center features ample sized woven textiles. One of her pieces of work, “Peer,” features a rather enormous figure’s shadow upside down.

Donnelly said she chooses to make her figures of work on a large scale.

“I believe emotions are bigger than our physical bodies,” she said.

One of her pieces, “Blot #4: Partners” is a woven version of folding an inkblot. Donnelly started by weaving the cloth and then knocking over cups of paint onto it which created a dye stain on her completed fabric. She then wove two pieces of cloth together and creating a binary blot that reveals the story of its making.

“Woven by hand, the cloth I create is both a physical and metaphorical record of my own body,” Donnelly explained in her artist’s statement.

Donnelly claims to be inspired by Japanese textile aesthetics. She is inspired by her own life through self-reflection and her figures act as a representation for an emotional and mental state.

Gerry Nixon, who attended the opening of the exhibit, said about three pieces of work, “Veiling #1”, Donnelly pointed out that her time spent at Penland School of Crafts in N.C. studying metals made her realize that she wanted to focus on weaving and textiles.

“This medium has been really fruitful for me,” she said. CT

Donnelly’s work will remain on display until Oct. 21, 2012. Donnelly’s next exhibit will be displayed at Green Hill Center for NC Art in Greensboro, NC and will be called “Two Artists One Space.” Her hand-woven scarves can be viewed online at www.littlefooltextiles.com.