Ray Kass lives and works in Christiansburg, Virginia and is a Professor Emeritus of Art at Virginia Tech. He earned his MFA in Painting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later founded and directs the Mountain Lake Workshop, a collaborative art project drawing on the customs and environmental resources of the New River Valley and Appalachian region. His work is in the collections of the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA; University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC; University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA; Boston Public Library, Boston, MA; Phizer Corporation, all, New York, NY; and Medical College of Virginia, SunTrust, and Ethyl Corporation all, Richmond, Virginia. He recently published The Mountain Lake Symposium and Workshop: Art in Locale with writer Howard Risatti.

Applying layers of ink washes on glossy and sometimes translucent paper, Amie Oliver creates compositions conveying movement, time and earthly elements. She allows her marks to be affected by the humidity and looseness of her hand on water-resistant paper, where ink can flow or disappear.

Amie Oliver received her BA from Mississippi State University and MFA from Bowling Green State University. She completed post grad course work at Tyler School of Art of Temple University and at the Visual Studies Workshop through the State University of New York, where she studied with acclaimed Book Artist Keith Smith. Oliver previously taught in VCUarts’ MIS Degree and Studio Arts Foundation Program and served as Associate Professor at Longwood College and Mississippi State University. She is currently a teacher at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and serves on the Board of Directors of 1708 Gallery. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Try-Me Collection, Capital One, the Medical College of Virginia of Virginia Commonwealth University, all, Richmond, VA; the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Washington, D.C.; and the Oberpfalzer Kunstlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany, to name a few.

Elizabeth Gilfilen paints airy and delightfully rough abstract oil paintings. She embraces a sense of frenzy in her strokes, amplified by loose waves of pigment colliding with tighter line markings. From the lines emerge abstractions of figures, trees, and unknown forms. Her compositions are at once volatile, sophisticated, and atmospheric. Gilfilen earned her BFA from College of D.A.A.P. at University of Cincinnati, and MFA from VCUarts (1997, 2001). She has mounted solo exhibitions across the east coast as well as an international show in Brisbane, Australia (2018). She currently resides and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Born in 1957 in Lima, Peru, Javier Tapia grew up in a tumultuous period as guerrilla warfare dominated political and social movements throughout the country. He moved to the United States in the 1980s, having witnessed the many binaries of humanity: good and evil, intellectual and primal, connection and detachment. His work explores how these opposites manifest in life; abstract shapes and broad strokes become metaphors for chaos and control, or structure and disorder. Much like traditional Peruvian weaving, Tapia overlaps, subtracts, and reworks layers of watercolor, creating dynamic compositions which emanate physicality.

Tapia earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at Austin (1984, 1987). He has exhibited at the Embassy of Peru Art Gallery, Washington, DC; Museo de Osma, Barranco, Peru; Bloom Gallery, Milan, Italy; Hunt Gallery at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA; 1708 Gallery, and the Anderson Gallery, both, Richmond, VA. He currently lives in Richmond, VA and works in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Painting and Printmaking, where he has taught since 1988.

Carlton Newton’s interest in science, nature and technology weaves itself into his Sumi ink drawings on paper which render imagined subjects both organic and manufactured. His precise black forms appear specimen-like; self-contained clumps of undulating lines and intertwined structures contrast a pristine white background as though laid out for careful study and inspection.

Born in 1946, Newton currently lives and works in Richmond. After teaching at the College of William and Mary and Princeton University, Newton joined VCUarts Department of Sculpture and Extended Media from 1987 to 2017. He received both his BFA and MFA degrees in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute. His work has been exhibited at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; Danese/Corey Gallery and the New Museum in New York; the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, D.C; the Peruvian North American Cultural Institute, Lima, Peru; and the Keith Talent Gallery, London, England, among others. Newton’s work is included in the collections of several major corporations including Markel, Altria, and Dominion.

Spending time in Japan, California and New York, elements of Western and Eastern culture weaves itself into Jack Wax’s obsessive, back-painted drawings. Thin lines of ink form delicate patterns both organic and geometric, creating visions of nets, intricate specimens, or imagined cages. Across all works, his subjects are mysterious yet seemingly living; each form conjures natural elements of the land or body, emitting its own personality.

Wax was born in 1954 in the Hudson River Valley region. He received his BFA from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and MFA in Sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design (1978, 1983). He has held teaching positions at the Tyler School of Art, Ohio State University, The Cleveland Institute of Art, RISD, and Toyama Institute in Japan. Currently, he is a professor in Richmond at VCUarts, where he is head of the Glass Department in Craft and Material Studies. His work is held in numerous collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum, CA; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY; Tittot Museum, Taipei; Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC; Altria Group and Markel Corporation, both, Richmond, VA.