Richmond Center for Visual Arts

Stereo Synthesis by Ryan Lewis, Associate Professor of Graphic Design, is open until June 27.

Please join us for the reception on Friday, June 5 from 5-8pm!

We are open with our normal hours (Tuesday - Saturday, 12-6pm) for the summer☀️ We hope to see you soon!

Congratulations to all of our graduates from the Frostic School of Art and a huge thank you to everyone who came out Friday night to celebrate our incredibly talented students!

Together Forever, by Sarah Webb from Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition.

"I replicate, set, and permanently seal away unassuming articles to remind myself what we take for granted. Doors we walk through to visit loved ones, drawers where we keep our most precious objects in, and decorations around houses all become sacred fixtures. Each piece I complete is tied to a memory, a place, a person that I refuse to forget. I most often remember and cherish small moments, like songs that were sung to me, and toys or food that I received. Through metal, I can keep all the most important people in my life alive longer than even myself. Preserving is how I create an everlasting physical proof of memory and love."

Congratulations to Sarah for winning the 2026 Metals & Jewelry Art Star Award!

Linger, by Emma Straka on view in Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition through Commencement day on May 2nd.

“Flowers, with their brief lives, allow me to explore how memory lingers even as it fades. I see them as vessels for nostalgia, things that are both here and gone, inviting others to feel how grief can turn into a kind of gentle comfort.

Oil paint lets me linger. Gives me space to breathe with an image, to let a memory surface and settle. Flowers become my way of holding what never stays bright, tender, already fading. Each painting is a small act of keeping a memory—a moment given time— before it slips back into the past.

Mothers are the quiet architects of who we become, and through my work I reach toward the mother I lost, honoring the shape her absence gives me. Through this work I stay in conversation with her, even now.”

Alien v. Alienation, by Jupiter Goodridge on view in Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition through Commencement day on May 2nd.

“I've never truly belonged. I process the world as if I crash-landed here without instructions. I watch others the way an alien studies a new species, trying to decode their emotions and behaviors, transmitting on a frequency I can't tune into. Others feel like a mycelial network, a vast fungal system that transmits information with electrical pulses beneath the surface, while I remain above the soil.

Books on myth and space became a sanctuary, distant planets and strange ecosystems | could breathe in. Eventually, I realized / was the anomaly. That's when the mask began, rehearsing expressions— a careful imitation of belonging, able to pass as a native to this world. The disguise eventually decayed. As I got older, it became harder to maintain. I began to understand my gender as nonconforming. I was diagnosed with ASD—the strange signals I'd always sensed finally had names. The otherness remains, but it feels less like failure and more like difference. Not part of the network, but still alive in the same strange terrain.

These experiences shape this series, jewelry imagined as artifacts worn by extraterrestrial beings moving through galaxies beyond human comprehension. Rather than pieces representing rigid technology, they represent the electrical pulses of mycelial structures. Being alienated made me feel misplaced, now the alien lets me belong to myself.”

Lost in the Nostalgia of Another World, by Claire Taylor on view in Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition through commencement day on May 2nd.

“Lost in the Nostalgia of Another World is an expression of a land that only exists in my head. It details how I have interpreted my life events into a format I can understand and cope with. Picturing myself in a fantasy space provides a hidden haven free from the pressures of the real world. I often find myself lost in a fool's paradise, only to come crashing back down when an unpleasant situation arises.

Despite the fantasy, through this body of work, I explore a world that is just as true to me as reality. The work invites the viewer to step into the scene and exist in the moment. It displays bits and pieces of a complex narrative that translates my experiences through the perspective of the characters within. Playing with traditional storybook fairytales, I subvert the tropes of princess and hero characters. I combine paint and paper to craft a two dimensional pictureplane while sculptural fabric elements encroach into three dimen-sions, blurring the lines between the two.”

Final Phase, celebrating our first graduating class of Kinetic Imaging students, is open in the DeVries Gallery through Commencement.

Please join us for a screening in RCVA 2008 at 5pm on Friday, May 1 ahead of the reception and awards announcement!

Rooted, by Gwen Marr on view in Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition through commencement day on May 2nd.

"Insects, deep-sea organisms, body fragments, fictitious entities, and natural patterning have nurtured my imagination from a young age. That curiosity and nostalgia lead me to fabricate wearable metal forms.

Rooted is influenced by encounters with both nature and visual media. Quick sketches, photographs, and found objects, build on a personal archive of textures and forms. I imagine habitats that inform each of my works. This speculative approach allows each object to feel as though it belongs to a larger ecosystem, part artifact, part organism. It also guides my material decisions, ensuring intentional use of precious metals and minimizing waste.

Often, I begin with only memory fragments. The true significance of a piece emerges through the act of making, as form, texture, and structures evolve. I am interested in drawing attention to elements of both natural and imagined worlds that often go unnoticed, revealing their inherent strangeness and making it alluring. By approaching my work this way, I invite viewers to construct their own narratives, allowing each piece to exist as both adornment and story."

Last Encore by Ben Cabel on view in Emergence: Graduating Seniors Exhibition through commencement day on May 2nd.

“take all that I feel to the stage - lights on, amps shaking - and there I am with my music playing for everyone.

The music is in my art, in the stories I tell, and in the ways those stories intertwine with the melodies that shape me.

Putting together a playlist of photos and paintings feels like building a setlist — each image backed by the music that fills me.

I feel as if I've taken on the role of a musician or producer, putting on performances with my art. Each photograph and painting becomes a window into lyrics that take on physical form.

But like any musician, there comes a moment when the performance ends, the energy fades, and only the memory of a melody remains.

My time here is no different. I played my sets, toured large and small venues, collaborated and performed solos, and now it's time to give my crescendo. I'll play the new, the classics, the crowd favorites, and the personal ones — a final set that lets everyone come to terms with what comes next.

Then comes the ending: a goodbye to the show, to the moment that brought so many together. But there is a bright side — the memories made, the experiences shared, the emotions carried, the music saved, all wrapped in the love letter of a final song.

This has been Ben Cabel. Thank you, and goodnight.”