Richmond art institute showcases three new fall exhibitions

Natalie Crawford, Contributing Writer

The Institute for Contemporary Art is showcasing three brand new exhibitions in the Fall 2024 season: “Dear Mazie,” curated by Amber Esseiva; Loie Hollowell’s “Space Between, A Survey of Ten Years;” and Caitlin Cherry’s “Eigengrau,” according to the ICA’s press release. 

These new exhibitions are open to the public at the ICA from Friday, Sept. 6 to March 9, 2025. 

“The ICA truly wants to be this resource to the student body, where they can come and see working artists’ work on view, and that could be an inspiration to them about how they might want to show up in their future careers,” Meredith Carrington said, the ICA marketing director.

Carrington believes there is a lot of beauty in the diversity of the programs at VCUarts and in the broader community, she said.

“I hope that everyone who comes into the ICA this fall season will find a real point of personal connection — I think there’s something for everyone,” Carrington said. “We value all types of art. We value many voices.” 

“Dear Mazie” is an exhibition inspired by Amaza Lee Meredith, founder of the fine arts department at Virginia State University and the first known Black queer woman to work as an architect in the United States, according to Amber Esseiva, associate curator at the ICA.

Esseiva started with extensive research of Meredith’s archives at Virginia State University, she said. She spent approximately two and a half years there — going through Meredith’s artwork, documents, architectural blueprints and photographs.

“Then I set out to figure out what I would do with her legacy as it is left in the archive,” Esseiva said. 

Since the ICA highlights contemporary artwork in their exhibitions, Esseiva decided to use Meredith’s art as inspiration for artists to create new contemporary art pieces, she said. 

“This show does address many different disciplines like art, education, architecture, contemporary art, curatorial practice, archival practice and activism. And for that, I think this exhibition has a diverse range,” Esseiva said.

Esseiva expects that viewers of the “Dear Mazie” exhibition will be shocked if they are unfamiliar with Meredith, her work and her legacy, she said. 

“I think it will leave students with the idea that there are many different ways to be an artist,” Esseiva said. “You can be an artist and work in an administrative capacity. You can be an artist and work in the built-in environment. You can be an artist and have sensitive relationships to your students.” 

Loie Hollowell, a VCU alum, emphasizes the joys, pleasures and hardships of womanhood in “Space Between, A Survey of Ten Years,” according to Chase Westfall, the interim executive director of the ICA.

“Space Between, A Survey of Ten Years” captures the complexities of having a female body, highlighting themes of sexuality and motherhood and revealing the deep connection between these aspects and the female form, Westfall said.

“What’s really unique about her approach is that it brings sort of reverence and crassness and candor and humor and kind of rawness all at the same time — all of those flavors are there simultaneously,” Westfall said. 

Westfall hopes the recent repositioning of the ICA within the VCU School of Arts can mean even more successful, meaningful connections between VCU and the ICA’s resources, he said.

“I’m hoping that it can be really inspirational for the students,” Westfall said. “With these exhibitions coming up this fall is a great example of the kinds of synergies that have been there in the past, but can again be strengthened as we move forward.”

 Caitlin Cherry’s “Eigengrau” has strong common themes, involving social media and the way technology reflects and distorts our perceptions of the identities of women — especially women of color, Westfall said. 

Playing on this idea of distortion, Cherry makes use of hallucinogenic color as a way of nodding to the distortions, literally and figuratively, that are produced by screens, Westfall said.  

“I think that there’s something a little unsettling and something that sort of makes you feel a little estranged and surreal, and I think that’s really part of the kind of uneasiness and uncertainty that I think Caitlin wants you to experience,” Westfall said. “You know, the fantasy that becomes a nightmare of how bodies are commodified and eroticized in media space.”

Westfall also hopes VCU students viewing “Eigengrau” will reflect on these larger forces, he said.

“All three exhibitions have this in common, where we’re sort of seeing into these spaces that are normally kept out of our kind of frame of view,” Westfall said.