1708 Gallery is pleased to announce its third biennial juried exhibition, FEED2013, on view September 6 through October 19. Join us for an opening reception and gallery talk with the artists and jurors on Thursday, September 5, from 6 to 8 p.m. The talk will begin at 6:30 p.m.

FEED2013 features five artists selected out of 377 national and international submissions by jurors Sarah Eckhardt, Assistant Curator in Modern and Contemporary Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Corin Hewitt, Assistant Professor in Sculpture + Extended Media, Virginia Commonwealth University. The exhibition provides selected artists with well–deserved exposure while serving as a springboard for their artistic careers. The five finalists include Eleanor Aldrich of Knoxville, TN; Joshua Haycraft of Washington, D.C.; Raewyn Martyn of Richmond, VA; Michael Mergen of Farmville, VA; and Lior Modan of Richmond, VA.

The FEED2013 artists’ works are topical and compelling, addressing issues that range from the domestic residue of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to Orwellian virtual realities to medium-specific inquiries. At different turns tongue-in-cheek and melancholic, these artists’ works act locally and think globally, engaging overlapping problems of art and life through poetry, a little mischief, and acute attention to form.

JURORS

Dr. Sarah Eckhardt became Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in 2011. There she manages the early 20th-century European holdings as well as the mid-to-late 20th-century and 21st-century collections, including photography and the sculpture garden. Before serving at the VMFA, she worked at the Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and at The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas. Eckhardt holds a PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Corin Hewitt is Assistant Professor of Sculpture + Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. His work has been shown widely in the U.S. as well as Europe. He has had several US solo museum exhibitions including the Whitney Museum of Art, Cleveland MOCA, and The Seattle Art Museum. Hewitt received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011/12 and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2010. He is represented by Laurel Gitlen Gallery in New York.

ARTISTS

Eleanor Aldrich’s paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has an MFA from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME in 2012. eleanoraldrich.com

Joshua Haycraft attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME in 2013 and holds an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. His digital animations and installations have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Haycraft was a Sondheim Prize semi-finalist in 2012 and 2013. bhbitb.com

Raewyn Martyn completed her MFA in Painting and Printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University in May and will join the art faculty of Antioch College this fall. Her works bridging painting, sculpture and installation have been featured in numerous solo, group and print exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia, and the US. walkerfalls.wordpress.com

Michael Mergen’s photographs blend techniques from photojournalism and the narrative impulse of early 21st century fine art photographers. His work documenting sites of civic engagement and memorial have been featured in Slate, Time Magazine’s online photography feature, Lightbox, Once, Harper’s and Mother Jones. He holds an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. mimages.com

Lior Modan lives and works in New York City. Modan grew up in Tel Aviv and received his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013. He has exhibited nationally and internationally. Following a residency this fall at the Vermont Studio Center, Modan will be  2013-2014 Artist-in-Residence at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency. He has exhibited most recently at Art Helix in New York City and Reynolds Gallery in RIchmond, VA, and will be exhibiting at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art in Herzliya, Israel in 2014. liormodan.com

 

 

FEED2013 is generously sponsored in part by Jay Barrows.

1708 Gallery’s 2013-2014 exhibition season is dedicated to Cindy Neuschwander and is generously supported in part by Jay Barrows, Molly Dodge and Bruce Schaub, Geraldine Duskin, Edward Elmore, Suzanna Fields and Richard Douglas, Susan and John Jamieson, Andrea Levine, Lucy Meade, John and Lisa Moerner, Vickie and Jim Quigg, Gabriel Ricioppo, Bill and Pam Royall, John Ryan and Wesley Chenault, Geoffrey and Jennifer Sisk, Chip and Lynn Spitzer, Maria Tabb, Rob Tarbell and Anna Von Gehr, Laura West, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.