Fuego: Women set their world on fire
2024-04-05 16:00 - 18:30 (America/New_York) | mosaicARTs Gallery, 2931-B Eskridge Road, Fairfax, VA, 22031, United States
On view 4/1/24 – 5/5/24 with opening reception and artist talks Friday, April 5, 2024 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
mosaicARTs and Debra Wright Studio have joined forces to commemorate the feminist art movement. These women artists ignited a spark that inspired them to create, build, and establish a supportive art community for others. The collaboration aims to acknowledge the significant contributions of female artists while promoting gender equality and empowerment for women.
In the United States, 51% of living visual artists are women, yet only 13.7% of them are represented in galleries. On average, they earn 81 cents for every dollar made by their male contemporaries.
Apropos to the exhibition title as well as the feminist art movement, Fuego is the Spanish word for “fire.” Women artists have to kick down doors otherwise held wide open for men and, when we do, there is often backlash. Yet these misogynistic efforts aimed at undermining us catalyze our solidarity, instead.
Curator Debra Wright incurred such wrath when an enraged male artist doused her artwork with lighter fluid and set it ablaze in retribution. These actions intended to derail her backfired, generating an outpouring of support from women artists everywhere that compelled Wright to focus her future efforts furthering feminist art initiatives. Fuego is a continuation of this commitment.
As we acknowledge feminist artists of today, we also pay testament to the perseverance of those who came before us. These actions ensure our place in history. We cannot allow ourselves to be absent from the cultural record.
Lighting the torch for each other, we find our way together and inspiration ignites in each of us.
Women set the world on fire.
Image: Debra Wright, Moneyshot, undergarment and currency, 6 x 6 x 4 inches

DIVERSE. Poetics of Nature.
2024-10-17 19:00 - 2025-03-15 17:00 (America/Puerto_Rico) | Universidad Ana G. Méndez – Recinto de Gurabo, 6XRV+Q6H, Rio Grande Road, Juncos, Gurabo 00777, Puerto Rico, Gurabo, Puerto Rico
“Diverse. Poetics of Nature is an exhibition that reveals my enormous admiration and respect for nature, for its intuitive and spontaneous frankness. In times when everything tends to be the result of a construction: images, what we say, perceptions… the only thing that remains real and true, is nature.”
Jeannette Betancourt

Virtual Program: Affrilachian Freedom Dreaming: Honoring Dr. Ancella Bickley
2025-03-28 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York)
West Virginia University (WVU) Art in the Libraries’ Inaugural WVU Feminist Activist Artist Residency program presents artist Catron Booker and her project, “Affrilachian Freedom Dreaming: Honoring Dr. Ancella Bickley.”
Join Art in the Libraries and WVU Libraries on Friday, March 28 at 10 a.m. via zoom to hear from Booker about her experience as the first WVU Feminist Activist Artist Resident, her process and inspiration for exploring the Dr. Ancella Bickley archives in the West Virginia & Regional History Center and her resulting artistic product, a short film honoring Bickley.
Catron Booker, a Black feminist experimental filmmaker and performance artist, uses Afrofuturism to envision Black liberation. During the Feminist Activist Collection Artist in Residency (FAIR), she will create Affrilachian Freedom Dreaming, a short experimental film exploring Black resistance through the Dr. Ancella Bickley archival collection of the West Virginia and Regional History Center Feminist Activist Collection. Dr. Ancella Bickley (born 1930, Huntington, WV) is a historian, educator, and author known for preserving and documenting the history of Black communities in West Virginia, with a focus on oral histories, genealogy, and the contributions of overlooked Black scholars and activists. Inspired by Bickley’s focus on overlooked “community builders,” Booker will interweave archival materials with footage of the Ohio River, a historically significant landmark in Louisville. The project examines the river as both a visual metaphor and a site of historical continuity. As part of the residency, she plans a film screening and community discussion, potentially including a conversation on Bickley’s work.
To register: https://wvu.libcal.com/calendar/events/FAIR
More on the event: Art in the Libraries to host feminist activist artist to wrap inaugural residency program | Ex Libris Magazine | West Virginia University
More on Catron Booker: https://catronbooker.tumblr.com/
More on the Feminist Activist Artist in Residency Program: https://exhibits.lib.wvu.edu/special-projects/artist-in-residency

Questions: Email WVU Libraries Curator Sally Brown, sally.brown1@mail.wvu.edu.
