Artist Austin Miles makes sure her mural measures up. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Richmond street art that began in the 1980s was at first seen by many as an intrusion and even vandalism. Fast-forward to 2018, after several iterations of festivals dedicated to its proliferation, and the Virginia Museum of History & Culture is bringing it all inside. “Fresh Paint: Murals Inspired by the Story of Virginia” started in September, as the artists began their work while visitors watched, but the official exhibition runs Oct. 27 to April 21. The opening coincides with artoberVA, an annual celebration of arts and culture in Richmond and the Tri-Cities.
The exhibition will also be the debut of a museum-in-a-book, “The Story of Virginia: Highlights from the Virginia Museum of History & Culture.”
Andrew Talkov, vice president for exhibitions and publications for the museum, explains that the show concept came out of a discussion about the painting over of a work by mural artist Mickael Broth. From this emerged the idea of muralists responding to one of the 9 million objects in the museum’s collection. The piece that moved the artist would also be exhibited alongside the work.
The invited Virginia artists range from veterans such as Ed Trask to artists of varying styles and approaches, including Broth, Nico Cathcart, WingChow, Hamilton Glass, Chris Milk Hulburt, Amelia Blair Langford, Austin Miles, Toobz Muir and Noah Scalin.
The artists were then invited to the VMHC for a tour. Each artist was drawn to a particular object. “Ed Trask wasn’t in the building for 30 minutes before he saw the 100-gallon copper still, and he said, ‘I can work with this,’” Talkov says. While touching on the culture of bootlegging that spawned NASCAR along the way, his piece will distill the history of what was once legal, then was made illegal and is now practically considered gourmet imbibing.
Hamilton Glass, with an architectural background, received inspiration through a sword from the 1864 Battle of the Crater in Petersburg. Talkov says that Glass became intrigued by the story of the United States Colored Troops, who were thrown into the cauldron of that battle, “and the discrimination shown them by both their comrades and the enemy soldiers. He’s gone in a direction we couldn’t have possibly imagined when we were looking through his portfolio.”
The surreal, bubbly oeuvre of WingChow depicts an otherworldly present. She chose as her starting point a late 19th-century photograph of the Natural Bridge stone formation. Amelia Langford felt attracted to depictions of Virginia flora and fauna. In front of her piece will be displayed a rare 1754 copy of Mark Catesby’s “The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands,” one of the first publications to identify North American wildlife.
The “Fresh Paint” murals aren’t permanent; they’re painted on a surface attached to the walls of the Virginia Sargeant Reynolds Gallery. “We’re certainly interested in finding a home for the murals afterward,” Talkov says. “But they’ll have to be up and seen to know who might be able to do that.”
"Fresh Paint" shows from Oct. 27 to April 21 at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture. 428 N Boulevard. 804-340-1800 or virginiahistory.org.