Montpelier Arts Center

Montpelier Arts Center’s first virtual Resident Artist Exhibition, featuring Patricia Phillips Bowden, showcases oil paintings and sketches done on-site and throughout the United States as well as several countries, including Spain, Portugal, and Corsica.

The artist has created moments in time of various locations, using a limited number of oil paints, time, all while braving the elements, and answering questions from some very friendly and curious onlookers – some practicing their English, some using their native language. It was a learning experience for all!

Corrie Francis Parks searches for life among the inanimate, endowing tiny grains of sand with their own autonomy. Drawing from the wondrous explorations of early micro cinematography, Uncanny Bodies transforms the gallery into an intricately constructed bioscope, accentuating the significance of the insignificant.

Irene Sylvester is a longtime resident artist and instructor of collage at Montpelier Arts Center. Sylvester’s love to travel inspired Off the Wall, where she explored a variety of mediums. From painted rice paper shaped into irregular wrinkled forms to represent the shape of rocks and mountains to textiles that express human presence in social graces, style, and classic beauty. There are underlying threads throughout Sylvester’s artistic endeavors, and in Off the Wall, one will see a small selection of her continued experimentation.

Blending painting and sculpture, Alizah Lathrop recontextualizes notions of decoration and personal family struggles. Her work wavers between a fragile discomfort and a sense of calm—a search for peace in the midst of destruction.

Montpelier Arts Center strives to foster a positive, creative environment in which young and emerging artists realize their full potential as creative individuals. Every year Montpelier spotlights the talents of teen visual artists (ages 13-18) from the Washington metropolitan area. At the virtual reception, honorable mentions and cash prizes will be awarded for first, second, and third places.

View Virtual Juror’s Talk

The Story of Our Skin is an exhibition of figurative works and portraiture featuring people of color. Four artists: Luis Peralta Del Valle, Al Burts, Preston Sampson, and J’Nell Jordan, draw on everyday life and historical events and icons for their subjects. The artists transform materials to create their paintings and mixed media compositions in wood, metal signs, handmade paper, and other innovative techniques. This exhibit will show the strength and dignity of people of color from the past, present, and future.

*Presenting exhibitions of artists at various stages of their career is one of Montpelier Arts Center’s core commitments. We are excited to invite an outside curator to help further this mission. We are thrilled to have Tim Davis, who is the founder and owner of the international Visions Gallery and consultants, curate this exhibition.

About the Curator: In addition to a curator and gallery owner, Tim Davis is an artist and educator; he received his Masters of Arts degree from the University of Illinois, where he studied art education and fine art. Davis has earned many honors and awards throughout his impressive career including an Arts Management fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he has worked as a consultant for numerous DMV arts organizations. Davis has also served on several boards throughout the Washington metropolitan area.

Drawing inspiration from celestial sources, Julie Wills creates mixed media drawings and installations that invoke both the rational and the magical. Choosing everyday materials for their metaphoric properties, her works explore constancy and mutability, current conditions, and hope for an unrealized but longed-for future.

Join us for an exhibition of wood-based sculptures by two Baltimore-based artists: Greg Gensheimer and Allen Zaruba. Sylvan Compositions celebrates the place where the natural beauty of wood intersects with human imagination.

Allen Zaruba Virtual Exhibition
Greg Gensheimer Exhibition

The exhibition Wild Goose Chase by Julie Polt is inspired by the constant movement in nature and her experimentation with materials to capture a moment. This exhibition explores motion and shows expressive movement as a characteristic of her current body of work.