Javori warren & megan richards

September 2nd- October 1st, 2022

THIS IS THE PLACE reflects on personal and collective memories to contextualize the present. Using both abstracted and figurative forms, Freeman Artists in Residence JaVori Warren and Megan Richards focus on generational, politicized traumas, articulating the violence of  cultural hierarchies that have shaped us. 

We’ve been indoctrinated with a system of hierarchies –  white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, etc., which consolidate power through institutionalized dehumanization. The assertion of these hierarchies formed an American legacy of violence that has molded both our public and private spheres. Even this land that European colonizers declared a pristine wilderness, untouched and waiting to be tamed, was actually the result of Indigenous peoples practicing controlled burning to sculpt a unique physical, spiritual and emotional place. We reject this myth of pristine wilderness, but we do not stray from this land that has been forged by centuries of our ancestors’ trauma. Instead, we burn it again. And as flames swallow false hierarchies and abuses of power, we generate creation and return stronger.

JaVori Warren’s most recent paintings expand on how racial hierarchies are established and reinforced in the public sphere. She does this by exploring the relationship between water and blackness, from the ocean during the Middle Passage to integrated beaches visited during family vacations in the South. She highlights the intense bravery exemplified by our ancestors, family members, and ourselves at sites of trauma. Warren’s paintings are about generational healing in the same places that tried to break us. Her work is rooted in her life experience and the collective memory of being a Black woman. Warren’s art serves as a form of expressing both frustration and celebration of these conditions.

Megan Richards works with abstracted forms, domestic and found objects, and videos looped on a series of 90s televisions, referencing the pull of childhood memory and the hypnotic formation of subconscious belief. She connects the tools of the media as a means of large scale political influence with the methods of social control administered in domestic settings. Richards reflects on the generational violence of patriarchal, colonial, capitalist and ableist hierarchies, and the isolation and decay of home life in the wake of severe intergenerational trauma. She observes her own patterns of dissociation and dysfunctional attachment - encompassing the grief and isolation of familial estrangement - while demonstrating that imagination is both a means of dissociative survival and the source of creative joy, which allows for connection and the generation of new forms and sensibilities.

This exhibition culminates work made over a twelve-month residency at the Freeman Artist Residency (FAR), housed at Visible Records in Charlottesville, VA. Both artists are exhibiting work that is the culmination of  self-initiated studio work and through their conversations and dialogue over this time.

FAR wishes to thank the UVA Arts Enhancement Fund and UVa Department of Art for their generous support.