Instructors Showcase

October 9–31, 2021

Public Reception and Artist Talk: Saturday, October 23, 2 pm

For over 40 years, Montpelier Arts Center has provided the residents of Prince George's County and surrounding areas with opportunities to learn from some of the leading artists in the field. Join us in celebrating our instructor's works of art that have inspired so many.

Sharon Sefton

November 6–December 5, 2021

Public Reception and Artist Talk: Saturday, November 13, 2 pm

Sharon Hart Sefton is a multimedia artist who explores the clear and subliminal messages of nature in her wanderings near and far. Her art is often inspired by finding beauty in the ordinary and the obscure of everyday life. 

Guest Curator: Risikat Iyabo Okedeyi: The Longest Night

November 6, 2021–January 2, 2022

Public Reception and Artist Talk: Saturday, November 13, 2 pm

On December 21st in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Pole is the furthest away from the sun. On this day, known as the winter solstice, we experience the shortest amount of daylight and mark the official start of winter. In this exhibition, the symbolism of the long night is used as a vehicle for storytelling, ritual, and wonder. Drawing on ancient and modern perspectives, this show examines the transformative power of cycles and how we as humans, move in sync and sometimes against the natural order of the birth-to-death-to-rebirth cycle. Sourcing pagan, religious, and agnostic practices, the longest night is up to a myriad of interpretations that range from the mundane to the fantastical.

Guilia Piera Livi: Welcome In

November 6, 2021–January 2, 2022

Public Reception and Artist Talk: Saturday, November 13, 2 pm

Giulia Piera Livi’s artwork explores the issues of interior space, design, and how we choose to live in our homes. By interposing objects of everyday use and distorting interior spaces, she explores our ability to inhabit these spaces while merging dreamlike notions with the rigid confines of interior spaces.

Patrick Cromwell: The Last Ten Years

December 11–January 9, 2022

Public Reception and Artist Talk: Saturday, December 11, 2 pm

Patrick Cromwell has been a resident artist at Montpelier Arts Center since 2012. He studied art and architecture at Yale in the 1980s and 1990s. He is inspired by M.C. Escher where he experiments with patterns of light and dark as well as different techniques of etching a plate. Through the creative process, he often discovers and connects more with his interior life. 

Patricia Phillips Bowden: Coast to Coast and Beyond

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: UNCANNY BODIES

Virtual Exhibition

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: OFF THE WALL

Virtual Exhibition

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.

ALIZAH LATHROP: ENCROACHING INFRINGEMENT 

Virtual Exhibition

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.

ninth annual artists on the rise: juried teen exhibition

Virtual Exhibition
Virtual Juror's Talk

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.

Guest Curator, Tim Davis: The Story of Our Skin

Virtual Exhibition Tour and Artist 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. 

Julie Wills: Great Lake

Virtual Exhibition

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. 

39TH ANNUAL INVITATIONAL SCULPTURE EXHIBITION: SYLVAN COMPOSITIONS

JULIE POLT: WILD GOOSE CHASE

Virtual Exhibition Link Coming Soon

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.