V Gallery in Omena held its opening show for its first group exhibition, “Night of Nudes,” last Friday evening featuring 24 artists’ original work on display until Sunday, August 11. The artwork, which had a focus on night scenes and the nude form, appeared in the forms of paintings, sculptures, photography, textile, and jewelry.
Hillary Voight, who has been operating the V Gallery with her husband, Matt, since they opened in June, said they were excited to feature not only artists that were already on their roster, but also guest artists who don’t normally show in their gallery space. Highlighting the “night of nudes” theme was important to Voight as well after speaking with artists about their needs when working with galleries.
“We’re excited to even see a deeper extension of collaboration and getting artists included,” Voight said. “We were trying to come up with a fun concept that would have a little edginess to it, and it also made sense when we were talking with artists about what their wants and needs were…” Alyssa Smith, who works at V Gallery part-time, was one of the featured artists and helped set up for the opening show at the group exhibition on Friday. Smith chose to display two small original pieces made via oil on panel, both depicting night scenes, the nude form, and imagery of the moon. Smith describes her paintings as monochromatic as they incorporate subdued blues and grays which helped to make a glowing effect.
“That’s been something on my mind for awhile, I’ve been painting moons for the last few months… then when the opportunity for this show came up, it just felt like a natural fit to kind of keep going with the moon theme,” Smith said. “The nude is such a complex subject. Nude doesn’t necessarily mean specifi cally female, but specifically female nudes, it’s a pretty controversial subject in the art world…” Many artists, especially those that are featured in galleries on the peninsula, tend to focus on landscapes, Smith explained, adding that it’s a natural theme and inspiration for people that admire the area. However, V Gallery’s exhibition showcasing work with nude and night themes gives audiences and artists the chance to engage with art in a different way outside of their normal subject matter.
“I think it’s engaging both for artists because it gives us some different things to work with that we wouldn’t normally get to explore as much. For the audience, it’s opening up the possibilities of imagery for people to think about and look at… I really love the combination of ‘night of nudes’ because I think nighttime imagery also isn’t very common,” Smith said. “Typically, if you go into a gallery up north, there’s going to be a lot of landscape and it’s going to be during the day. So having that combination of nighttime and figure work really brings together two subjects that aren’t going to be your common go-tos.”
V Gallery is located at 5039 N West Bay Shore Drive in the former Tamarack gallery building. To find out more about the exhibit and what the gallery features, go to www.v-v-v-v.com.
