The Power of the Feminine

Opens March 5, Friday: 12noon - 7pm
Runs: March 5 - March 28

VCA Gallery is celebrating Women’s History month, with “The Power of the Feminine”, a group show with art by Beverly Naidus, Carol Rashawnna Williams, Cyra Jane, and Kristen Reitz-Green. Viewing each piece is a moment of inspiration. As we continue to navigate the healing from divisiveness and anger – women continue moving towards peace and unity and express this power in their art. The show is about hope for a better future and ways to navigate toward that.

VIRTUAL TOUR 

VCA is showing two collections by Beverly Naidus. “Healing Deities”  is a series of digital paintings, where Beverly explores very contemporary interpretations of Buddhas, boddhisattvas, pagan gods, goddesses and yoginis, many of them breathing and/or sitting in the midst of challenging environments and social circumstances. These paintings were inspired by the words of her son, Sam, when he asked her at age 4, “why are you always painting sick people?”  At the time, Beverly was recovering from an environmental illness caused by exposures to pesticides and was painting the portraits of the other sick individuals she was meeting in clinics. Her son’s question inspired her to shift gears, and focus on the healing journey. As she transformed her work, she began to get well. She saw this work essential to not only the healing of individual trauma, but the collective trauma of our ecosystems and the living beings with them who are being assaulted by violence and pollution.

The second collection “Curtain Call: Portable Altars for Grief and Gratitude” is a series of cloth/paper hangings. Each one focuses on a different endangered creature or element, from honeybees to old growth trees to clean air. While standing with the altars, the viewer has an opportunity to be with the stories of their own grief and gratitude. 

Beverly’s art is a genre of contemporary art that is content-based rather than form-based. While there are many artists who perfect their craft in one medium, mastering a medium has not motivated Beverly’s creative process. Instead, she works with ideas and scavenges the materials necessary to make what she needs to say. In this series what is consistent to all of the altars is a central Xray image of the artist’s spine and other parts of her interior. 

Seattle artist Carol Rashawnna Williams deeply believes in the power of art to build community, bridge community relationships and create authentic space for healing. “Reconstructing the Goddess” is a missed media triptych representing each cultural trinities: Africa -Horus, Isis, Maat; India -Kali, Kalica, Kali; Gaya- Mother, Maiden, Crone; Christianity -Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Her “Tree of Humanity” is based on the tree of life through the eyes of an African American gene pool.

Paintings from Cyra Jane’s Fire Liken series are a series of active expressionist paintings that focus on the power and magic of femininity.

Kristen Reitz-Green’s “We Rise” is a sea of pink pussy hats that she witnessed when she marched at the Seattle Womxn’s March, January 21, 2017. It is demonstrative of the power of numbers, and was the start of four years of a tumultuous presidency. That presidency is over, and this piece marks the start of a new beginning. And an eye towards restoration and unity.