Riverviews Artspace presents Mural of the World Around Us, a collaborative mural by Laurel Regional School students.

In conjunction with Amazement Square and Riverviews Artspace, students of Laurel Regional school used adaptive arts tools to create individual works in April, 2024, as part of Riverviews’ Healing Through Arts program.

Laurel Regional School serves students with severe physical and cognitive disabilities in Lynchburg and the surrounding areas. During this activity, students used adaptive arts tools, which make it easier for those who have physical or cognitive impairments to hold and manipulate art tools, while offering rich sensory experiences. These tools can attach to different parts of the body, as well as walkers, wheelchairs, and other mobility devices.

In addition to adaptive arts tools, students were provided with communication boards while working on their canvases. Communication boards are a type of alternative communication device (AAC). They typically use pictures or illustrations to help people with limited speaking abilities express themselves. Communication boards can be used to answer questions, convey thoughts, and demonstrate desire.

Mural of the World Around Us will be on display from September 6 - October 13, Wednesday - Sunday, 12 - 4. We thank Amazement Square and Laurel Regional School for their partnership for this program.

Riverviews’ gallery is filled with extremes during MONSTROUS & MINISCULE, a print show so big it will be exhibited in two galleries. Curated by Jill Jensen, this exhibition will be held in the Main Gallery and in Gallery 108 from September 6, 2024 through October 13, 2024.

Marvel at stunning large-scale woodcuts up to 48" wide and 72" high in the Main Gallery. These massive prints were created during BIG INK—a traveling printmaking workshop we're thrilled to be hosting on October 12th & 13th!

Discover charming 6"x6" prints from across the nation in Gallery 108, made by the following invited artists:
Veronica Barzel Barker
Jay Fox
Jen Garrison
Dawn Grayford
Lyall Harris
Kristin Harris
Lotta Helleberg
Mimi King
Jill A Kramer
Perry Obee
Kim Obee
Laura Pharis
Adrian Rhodes
Elizabeth Rieben
Catherine Rubin
Felicia VanBork
Pam Wallace
Meg Weston
Rosalie White Day
Pam Winegard
Anne van de Graaf.

Prints made by our gallery visitors during the July and August First Friday events will be exhibited in Gallery 108 alongside these artists' prints.

Thank you to our sponsors, Miller-Richards Wealth Management LLC and Lynn Shapiro - A Dalton & Company, Inc. Realtor!

Emerging Artist Series: Photography Invitational on view July 5, 2024 through August 17, 2024. Opening night is Friday, July 5, 2024, 5:00 - 8:00 pm.

Riverviews’ Emerging Artist Series presents the Jubilee Student Art Show on view in Gallery 108 from May 3, 2024 through June 13, 2024.

'Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.' —Paul Brandt

Riverviews Artspace presents “The Sky is Not the Limit,”  an artistic celebration of flight in all its limitless possibilities.

On First Friday, May 3, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm Riverviews Artspace will present an exciting and ground-breaking exhibition, a celebration of flight in all its historic, symbolic, and metaphorical possibilities, sponsored by the Lynchburg Regional Airport and in partnership with Amazement Square, Jubilee Family Development Center and the Anne Spencer House.

The Riverviews Main Gallery will showcase the work of 15 significant artists, both local and national, who have competed for inclusion in this important show and juried by Lesely Shipley. Among them is a Virginia artist who creates paintings that explore the varying perspectives humans have of the planet and who has had work in a number of New York galleries and the Taubman Museum of Art. Other artists reference environmental concerns or simply the beauty of flight itself. There will be a variety of mediums including imaginative and playful 3D pieces. Lynchburg’s own NASA Astronaut Leland Melvin will be in attendance, exhibiting his amazing astrophotography from his missions on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. He will also be happy to autograph your copy of his book, Chasing Space, if you would like to bring it to the gallery.

Enjoy the Jubilee Center Student Art Show in Riverviews Gallery 108, presenting student artwork related to flight along with a paper airplane making activity and paper airplane throwing contest. At 6:30 pm there will be a special talk by the Anne Spencer House and Gardens Executive Director Shaun Spencer-Hester, titled “Who is Chauncey Spencer?” The talk will highlight the life of Chauncey Spencer, an important pioneer in aviation from Lynchburg who was instrumental in the creation of the world famous Tuskegee Airmen. Later this month there will be a special exhibit at Amazement Square concentrating on the Tuskegee Airmen. 

All age groups at opening night are invited to enjoy a Pop-Up Planetarium sponsored by Amazement Square. Step into the inflatable planetarium in Riverviews’ Gallery 108 and discover the intersection of art, science, and solar observation in a unique way. You won’t want to miss this one-of-a-kind First Friday experience! It promises to be an unforgettable evening. You will enjoy live music by Selah Vie in the main gallery, wander through the artspace and visit a number of open artists studios to see where all the magic happens. The bar will be open (cash or credit) and a charcuterie board sponsored by Isabellas promises attendees delicious gourmet offerings.

After the First Friday opening reception on May 3rd, “The Sky is Not the Limit” exhibition will be on view at Riverviews Artspace through June 13, 2024, and the gallery will be open Wednesday through Friday, from 12::00 to 4:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Donations encouraged.

Signaling Theory - Siobhán Byrns

MAIN GALLERY

ON VIEW FROM MARCH 1 - APRIL 18

Thematically, my art is an attempt to raise awareness of the fragility of nature and the human experience that longs to be witnessed.

Addressing environmental and societal issues, this work is a deep investigation into the natural phenomena of our emotional attachment with beauty, love, and connection to each other and our own histories. In these processes and expressions, I hope to understand the concept of an individual's place in the world, with a particular focus on permanence and impermanence of relationships, families, women and their connection to the environment. Through a variety of mediums and artistic, chemical and elemental techniques rooted in conservation with respect for senescence and deterioration, I want the viewer to step into the complex notions of identity.

Impermanence and decay are implicit in our lives and yet we cling to the concert of artificial perfection and youth. The work asks viewers to contemplate their roles in a broader world, their connection to the global community and the ways in which they construct a sense of autonomy within their unique environment.

Chlorophyll printing is an alternative photographic process where photographic images are developed on natural leaves through the action of photosynthesis. This organic technique does not use chemicals since the photographs are exposed directly to the sunlight on plants or tree leaves.

The main collection of this exhibition is chlorophyll prints suspended in resin and site specific installations will explore and make visible recent experiences of being in a post pandemic landscape, alongside an awareness of our entanglements to place and nature, our perception of time/immortality.  For me, this means taking time to create work using an ethical and caring framework to discuss our relationship with our destruction, over use and poisoning of the environment. As such, these works are slow, fragile, repetitive, low-tech, analogue print and photographic processes. My interest is in the intimate and ephemeral. The process for the chlorophyll prints is almost ritualistic. The work often has a stillness, a delicate presence in the dark rooms where they take their form. 

In addition to the chlorophyll prints additional series will be exhibited including pieces from 999 Problems, but a Bitch ain’t one, which focuses on the white European male gaze and structuring of Art History and museum worthy work.  These individual works are 1000 piece puzzles of recognizable painting often seen to represent “Art.”  The missing piece is representative of women, people of color, visionary artists and primitive artworks.  

The other included works in this show are “Don’t worry I can fix it.”  This series examines childhood literature that models what love or healthy relationships are to American school age children.  However when seen through adult eyes these relationships can be interpreted as abusive, narcissistic, gaslit (gaslighting) or otherwise inappropriate.  This series also ties into previous work with gold, currency, and value with the concept of kintsugi or “golden joinery”. Also known as Kintsukurio, this is a traditional Japanese art of repainting broken or damaged pottery by mending areas with gold, silver or platinum.

Photo credit: Kendall Wagner

Artist’s Bio - Siobhán Byrns

Siobhán Byrns is a Full Professor of Art at the University of Lynchburg and teaches in both the Art Department and the Westover Honors College.  

Siobhán maintains an active artistic career and has participated in numerous one-person and group exhibitions. Her current research stems from sustainable darkroom practices and alternative process techniques that focus on current social and political pressures on women and the environment.

She has an upcoming solo show Signaling Theory opening on March 1, 2024 at Riverviews Artspace, Virginia, and a solo show at the Daura Museum of Art,  Anam Cara in March of 2025.  She is also currently exhibiting at Perspectives Gallery in Chicago for the exhibit LENS 2024.  This spring she will also be participating in an artist residency with the Burren College of Art in Co Clare, Ireland.  

Siobhán received her MFA in photography from the Art Institute of Chicago and received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, focusing both on traditional and time-based new media and photography. While a graduate student, she was formally trained as a fine art restorationist and conservator in some of the country’s most prominent museums. In 2004, while working in the Museum of The Art Institute of Chicago, she assisted in the digital restoration of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.