“ Written language is nothing more than painting with sounds and ideas. The pen sets me free when the brush cannot.”
The Whole Caravansary: Exhibition Review
Exhibition poster for The Whole Caravansary, deep purple and magenta background with bright orange letters and neon green words at the bottom.
The Whole Caravansary is a group exhibition with works created and curated by members of the VCUArts Senior Degree Project course during the Fall semester of 2022. The exhibition features 12 different artists using the language of painting through experimental approaches to investigate ideas informed by technical development and conceptual layering. The unconventional employment of materials such as hair, yarn, modeling paste, pastel, and oil paint reflects these artists’ dedication to experimentation and the sophistication of their artistic lexicon throughout the semester. The Whole Caravansary serves as these emerging artists’ debut and displays the culmination of their recent urges and investigations. Take it in.
Featured Artists: Amina Coleman-Davis, Alexander Sausen, Chloe Holl, Emma Schmidt, Jose.Nolasco-Torres, Karsen Beckner, Teymura Landsverk, Nash Fentress, Grayson Cassels, Grace Martin, Serena McGowan, Samantha Van Demark
(Right to Left) Teymura Landsverk, Rabbiddogwoman, Grayson Cassels in front of Grayson’s painting.
Exhibition Review:
The Whole Caravansary was my first time being involved in organizing a show from brainstorming to install. The process involved all of my fellow artists and friends from my former Senior Degree Project course where we all were given communal studio spaces and free reign to investigate whatever we wanted! To say this process was easy would be a half truth. The easiest part, aside from coming up with the idea that we wanted our own show during the semester rather than waiting for the Senior Exhibition in the spring, was actually making the work believe it or not! We did not establish a theme beforehand, so folks just let loose and cranked out a bunch of work and that was super awesome.
(Right to left) Works by Nash Fentress, Grace Martin, Teymura Landsverk, Grayson Cassels, and Samantha Van Demark
The generative atmosphere of the communal studio caused a sort of snowball effect within each of our practices. When someone would bring a query, idea, or concern to the group regarding their work, the group would supply an endless sea of solutions that caused us all to create things we could not initially dream up without the group’s input. This allowed for immense growth conceptually and technically due to us embracing agency over our show. It was reinvigorating for a group that had been discouraged by rejections, syllabi, and censorship. Not to mention how much genuine fun it was to embrace this newfound sense of agency in other areas of our artistic development!
(Right to left) Works by Amina Coleman-Davis, Chloe Holl, and Alexander Sausen
As a result of planning The Whole Caravansary, many of my peers expressed a newfound eagerness to create work and plan shows! We shared a LOT of frustration due to what we felt were bias or lackluster critiques from professors, and constantly hearing that the things we wanted to explore were boring, overdone, or “dead in the art world”. So, it was actually super sweet to see us all come together and express that through humor and making a space for-us by-us via our imagined exhibitions. I recall Serena McGowan and I jokingly discussing a group show where all artists had to only use Cadmium Orange as a retaliation against some professor feedback. I also recalled Nash Fentress, Grayson Cassels and I discussing a show where all the works had to include at least one rendered figure (also retaliation against super biased crits and hearing from profs that “figuration is dead and boring”). Emma, AKA Rabiddogwoman, even offered her apartment space for us to do a casual showing!
Alexander Sausen preparing to hang his work with Jose.Nolasco-Torres’ work on the wall already.
The actual hard part of this…was putting the work on the wall. Believe it or not, there is a lot of math and precision that takes place behind a well-balanced, professionally hung exhibition. My group spent over two full overs curating what went where, adding hanging hardware, marking the wall, and finally putting the work up. I will say, our professor for this course, Hillary Wilder and her TA, Gilad Leiba, offered great advice and elbow grease when needed. Shoutout to Hillary for letting us do our own thing and struggle for a while before gently guiding us into success. I have an increased respect for anyone working in a gallery who does any of that manual labor kind of thing.
(Right to left) Works by Amina Coleman-Davis, Chloe Holl, Alexander Sausen, and Serena McGowan
I heralded myself as head of promotional materials and enjoyed every minute of it! From designing the posters and getting feedback on colors and fonts to printing and putting up various posters advertising our show, The Whole Caravansary! I even got to liaise with the head of VCUArts announcements via email, Kat Wilson to spread the word! It really got me jazzed to do this for future opportunities and helped me work on my own side quest of content creation and social media marketing and I got to document all of the work, its install, and parts of our reception. I look forward to being on the Marketing and Communications Team for the Senior Class of 2023’s official Senior Exhibition in the Spring!!!!!
Amina Coleman-Davis, It’s faster when it’s dirty!!!, mixed media collage, hair, embroidery, acrylic paint, wool, 36in x 48in x 1.5in, 2022, (one of the works included in The Whole Caravansary)
Nomenclature: Art Books and Intuition
As of late, I have fully re-immersed myself in my writing practice as a sort of generative meditation. I have begun to really let things flow and grow in the form of little art books! I have found the synthesis of leisurely scribbles with poignant lines to be super helpful in reminding me that art and life can be so goofy. Humor is intertwined with every aspect of life; even comedy was originally full of tragedy when it was performed in Greece way back when! Truly allowing myself to take in and reflect on the humorous random blotches of text that pour out of me during a super slow shift at the ICA or while frantically trying to create a name that sounds cool and is also relevant to my work has been so healthy. Ah! This first little art book really showed me how far I have come when it comes to allowing myself leisure, pleasure, and dumb shit (in plain language lol).
For so long, I was so uptight and strict on myself because that is what I was comfortable with; I’ve always been super critical of myself and convinced little Amina that having fun and being social was a waste of time! So for the majority of my 21 years, I was super isolated and super sad despite the immense focus and channeling of my trauma that occurred up until Junior Year of undergrad to be honest. BUT NOW! I am truly in my Main Character/Happy Montage era! Between all the random happenings that have allowed me to travel out of state and make memories with my close and extended family and all the art opportunities coming my way, I truly feel like accepting and actively participating in the “goofy casual fun of life” was one of the crucial keys to the next steps of my life.
I have taken complete initiative of my life and I am super happy to say I am so comfortable in my own skin and my abilities. I’ve gotten to participate in two shows this semester! The Whole Caravansary, a group exhibition by me and my homies in the Senior Degree Project Fall course and Nothing Personal, a group exhibition curated by Katerina Muromtseva (a shining light, amazing artist, phenomenal educator and mentor)! I’ve sold two small Scribbled with Love marker drawings and I sold Deuces!! I will be participating in 1708 Gallery’s Monster Drawing Rally on the SAME DAY I GRADUATE AH! ( I’m going to make a killing at this thing) and I get to work alongside Mary Scurlock (high school CFA teacher), Brooke Inman (phenomenal human, teacher, helping hand and screen printer I’ve known since high school), and Nico Cathcart (local artist I’ve admired for YEARS).
Graduation will truly be the beginning of the rest of my life!
