Mother-daughter art show and other First Friday happenings

Annette Chenault has been passionate about art for as long as she can remember, but didn’t seriously pick up a paintbrush until she was 18 years old.

Inspired by her mother, also an artist, Chenault began working with oils, but has since painted with watercolors and, for the past five years, pastels.

“It’s really allowed me to evoke this dreamy state I have in my paintings,” she says. “What really shocked me was the boldness of color you can get. Everybody thinks of pastels as pink. But you can create some vibrant colors. It just does what I’ve always wanted to do with art.”

Her 23-year-old daughter, Jacquelyn, is also immersed in the visual arts, but it was photography that captivated her.

For her, the appeal is simple: it’s “capturing the moment,” she says. “You always have it to look back on.”

In some of her work, Jacquelyn uses a technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR), a process of combining different exposures of the same composition to produce one image.

Both women are inspired by landscapes — be it the nature scenes depicted in Annette’s paintings or the cityscapes Jacquelyn so often photographs around the Hill City and in day trips to Charlottesville or Washington, D.C. — and each other.

“I certainly can’t do what she does. It takes a lot of talent, and it takes being able to really see things,” Annette says. “I’m happy for anything (my children) do as an artistic endeavor.”

The mother/daughter duo will show their work together in a new exhibit opening at Hardwick’s in The Galleria on Main Street.

A First Fridays reception for the show, which is called “Two Perspectives,” is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m., and the exhibit will remain up through Oct. 16.

Here’s what else First Fridays has to offer:

The Academy of Fine Arts, 600 Main St.

The Academy Gallery will feature an exhibit of oil paintings and sculptures by Ross Arkell, called “The Blue Ridge & Other Inventions,” while the Up Front Gallery will show Carter Wingfield’s photographs of India. The reception, which goes from 5 to 8 p.m., will feature Celtic music from Riddle on the Harp and hors d’oeuvres from Avenue Foods.

- Avenue Arts Studio Gallery, 1206 Rivermont Ave.

Mike Twery’s “Mikigami” — glow-in-the-dark shapes inspired by folded candy wrappers to create objects that, at first glance, look very abstract and can change depending on the viewer’s imagination — will be on display alongside Larry Bowden’s paintings. Bowden describes his work as a balancing act of lines, forms and color that he hopes creates a quiet place free of clutter, distraction or pretense. His work, inspired by a devotion to Zen and Modernism, plays in the ambiguity between abstraction and design.
The reception will run from 6 to 8:30 p.m.

- blackwater creek gallery, 845 Belmont St.
The gallery will show new work by various outsider artists, with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m.

- Dancing Leaf Gallery, 409 Fifth St.

“Nude … Not Crude!” will feature the brightly colored pop art, nudes and abstracts of Shiloh Ewers. The reception, scheduled from 5 to 8 p.m., will have light refreshments and music by jazz guitarist Brian Graham.

- The Firehouse Gallery, 1210 Rivermont Ave.

Local photographer Nancy Marion is hosting the exhibit,“Mystery Picture of the Week — The Rest of the Story,” from 5 to 8 p.m.

Marion has scanned and digitized more than 10,000 photographs from Lynchburg’s past.

- Light Wings Gallery, 849 Belmont St.

Former Lynchburg resident Chris Noel is presenting what he calls “debris paintings,” collections of discarded elements that take on new meaning when reassembled and brushed, rolled and dabbed with color. Noel isn’t a painter by trade, but has always been fascinated with abstract painting and thinks his work blurs the line between fine art and design. The reception is set to run from 5 to 8 p.m.

- The Lynchburg Art Club, 1011 Rivermont Ave.

“Bristles and Pixels” will feature the work of Nancy Wood and Jeff Sharpe, as well as a retrospective showing of the watercolors of Jennifer Crispen, who died of cancer last year.

Wood, an art club member, does mostly abstract and geometric acrylic designs, with a few landscapes and still lifes thrown in. She also works with oils and mixed mediums.

Sharpe is a photographer who returned to his craft after becoming a stay-at-home dad last year. His subjects range from landscapes to wildlife.

A First Fridays sneak preview goes from 5 to 8 p.m., with an opening reception from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

- Rivermont Gallery, 1204 Rivermont Ave.

Ann Glover’s metal assemblage collages and sculptures will be on display, with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Glover, an artist-in-residence in the Virginia Museum program and a lecturer at Hollins University, will also be on hand to talk about her work at 11 a.m. Saturday.

- Riverviews Artspace, 901 Jefferson St.

“Patterns of Love and Beauty” features several installation pieces — including a freestanding room in which every object is covered inside and out with drawings — created by Virginia Center for the Creative Arts artist Barbara Bernstein. She has also created a large-scale installation directly on the windows of the Craddock-Terry Gallery.

Riverviews will also host two other exhibits, as well as its monthly Urban Art Bazaar.

The Coop Gallery’s latest is “Feeling Alive,” with new featured artist Judi Noon, who moved to Lynchburg from Massachusetts a year ago. Working in clay since 1992, she produces primarily hand-built pottery, but has also been experimenting with found objects and mixed media.

Students from Virginia School of the Arts will take part in the third exhibit, “Living Sculpture: Bodies Transforming Space,” a non-traditional performance event in which viewers are encouraged to move through the performance space. As living sculptures, the students will base their movements on the art that is displayed, as well as music and visual cues from the gallery visitors, who can enter the space at any point between 6 and 8 p.m.

- Thomas A. Johnson Furniture Company/James River Furnishings

The newest addition to First Fridays will offer guided tours of its 75,000-square-foot, turn-of-the-century warehouse from 5 to 8 p.m.