Opening reception of HOME

Saturday, May 18, 2024
12:30 - 3 pm | Ruffin Gallery

In celebration of the 2024 Studio Art graduates and Aunspaugh Fellows of the University of Virginia’s Department of Art, the Ruffin Gallery presents the exhibition HOME

 

The graduating class of 2024 began their college experience online, and conflicted feelings surrounding the idea of “home” emerge in their art. The place that once hosted the most personal moments of their lives was suddenly on display to classmates and professors. “Home” became fraught with paradoxes: private yet public, safe yet compulsory, familiar yet strange, calming yet discomforting. For many students, “home” became less physical and more conceptual, embodied by family, friends, memories, and identities that were clarified in moments of quiet (or perhaps unquiet) reflection. At the close of their time at UVA, the artists can look back at several events on Grounds that underscore the conflicts surrounding “home” in the university community. 

Such complicated feelings and experiences are laid bare in HOME. The artists on display ask us to consider our own meaning of “home”: is it a material place? A feeling? A group of people? Or has our own definition of “home” yet to be realized? 

Curated by Abigail Bradford and Dustin Thomas (PhD candidates, Program in Mediterranean Art and Archaeology) 

HOME is on view from May 18 to June 14, 2024.