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September 18- November 1st, 2020 at the Visual Arts Center, Richmond, VA

Soft Pleats, the emerging artist residency exhibition at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, ,showcased the work of visual artists Diana Antohe, Nicole Levaque, William Lenard and poet Rosa Castellano. Over the course of the last 11 months, these artists used the space and resources available at the VisArts Center to develop their creative practices and make their work.  Independently, these four artists address language and objects as tools for communication to navigate between materials, cultures, and bodies.

Part of the residency occurred during the pandemic, when sheltering in place and social distancing kept them from their Visarts studios and each other.  Later the relative isolation that the pandemic created was broken open by the national outcry against anti-Black violence and the reawakening of the Movement for Black Lives. While these issues and the pandemic are not the dominant subject matter of their work, these social conditions played an important role for the artists in the final months leading up to this inaugural residency program’s exhibition and subsequent poetry reading. Pushing each to consider not only how to produce but also why and where to find motivation and connection. 
-Margaret Meehan, Curator