Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting works currently on display here at the gallery. Follow along here and on social media for some background on each maker and their process. The call for this show was centered around 2020: what were the artists’ works-in-progress? What was that one-off piece that felt right in the moment, but didn’t fit into a larger series? What was their current reality? What were their thoughts and feelings about the future?

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be highlighting works currently on display here at the gallery. Follow along here and on social media for some background on each maker and their process. The call for this show was centered around 2020: what were the artists’ works-in-progress? What was that one-off piece that felt right in the moment, but didn’t fit into a larger series? What was their current reality? What were their thoughts and feelings about the future?

Candela Gallery is kicking off 2021 with a timely exhibition featuring works by 33 international and national artists.

Candela Gallery is pleased to introduce works created by the 2020 and 2021 graduates of the VCU MFA Photography + Kinetic Imaging Programs. Because we are unable to gather this year for an in-person presentation, we’ve mounted a virtual show highlighting current projects by our friends and neighbors at VCU. Beginning December 4th, learn about the featured artists, read their statements, and view their work online.

Artist Gary Burnley explores how we view images differently in Candela exhibit. By Karen Newton

Candela Gallery is honored to feature an installation of 3436, an ongoing project by Ohemaa Dixon. Experiencing Dixon’s work in person is essential to understanding the artist’s intention. Working as an interdisciplinary artist, Dixon’s large scale works, printed on Habotai Silk, are a direct response to the history and visual trauma of lynching.

Candela Gallery is pleased to present Stranger in the Village by Connecticut based artist and educator, Gary Burnley. Titled after a seminal essay by James Baldwin, Burnley's series, comprised of formal collages, challenges and re-imagines historical portraiture and other narrative, painting conventions emblematic of western culture and history. The artist's process is intuitive, drawing from personal, historical, and collective experiences; each piece is cut from reproductions of traditional portraits, sketches, family archive imagery and yearbook photographs, then carefully reconstructed allowing new meanings to emerge.

Candela Gallery is pleased to present an online exhibition of international artist, Shinya Masuda. A former French chef turned photographer, Masuda's series HANAFUDA SHOUZOKU features a series of digital collages built from everyday objects and brightly colored geometric shapes. The resulting sculptural forms are layered with ideas of materiality, personal narratives, and transformation. Shinya Masuda currently works as a professional photographer in Tokyo, Japan

Candela Books + Gallery is announcing a special juried exhibition: Photography is Dead…Long Live Photography!

Submissions open October 1, 2020 at 8:00am EST and will close October 22, 2020 at 11:59pm EST

THANK YOU to this year's UnBound9! participating artists and to those of you who supported our online fundraising efforts. The gallery was able to acquire 8 photographic artworks and 2 artist books from this year's virtual UnBound9! exhibition. 100% of the money raised goes directly into the hands of the artists below. We're humbled that during these difficult times we were still able to raise some funds and support artists through the mission of UnBound!

Candela Gallery is excited to announce Primitive Visions, the gallery’s debut solo show by mixed-media artist and educator, Holly Roberts. Applying both photography and painting to her practice, Robert’s newest exhibit presents dream-like portraits of the recognizable: familiar places, scenes, and subjects that have been reconstructed and embellished by Robert’s use of collage.

The team has been in a lot of discussion so far this year about the UnBound! show: how to encourage submission, how to jury, how to make the show virtual, how to fundraise, what we choose from the Collection, where the Collection should go.

In tandem with our virtual UnBound9! exhibition and limited summer hours, the front gallery space will be devoted to selected works from the Candela Collection through August 7th.

Below, we have provided a list for members of our community who want to contribute whatever resources they have available to put into Richmond and Virginia organizations. Whether you’re beginning a journey of understanding or are on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 and injustice in Richmond, we hope this list can help you find a way to connect with and uplift our community at this time, and ongoing.

Candela Gallery is excited to announce UnBound9!, our annual juried and invitational exhibition. UnBound! is the only open call the gallery holds each year and is dedicated to featuring a wide range of photographic artworks. The mission of UnBound! is to generate opportunities and exposure beyond the traditional group or juried show by providing a collection opportunity for artists.

To support our artists, photo friends, and community, near and far, Candela has put together a series of weekly virtual exhibitions called HOMEBOUND. Over the next 5 weeks we will be featuring 1-3 works from 5 different photographers, opening every Tuesday.

Before we get to the reasons for writing, we truly hope that you and yours are well. Personally, I am deleting a lot of Coronavirus related emails every day and I don’t write this one lightly. We hope the best for you and in some small way we hope to keep on supporting artists and their works, especially in this difficult time.

With that said, we’re writing because we are extending the submission deadline for Unbound9! to May 1st, to create a little room for you should you happen to need it.

AND WE WANT TO TELL YOU THE SHOW WILL GO ON.

wILD cLAY is an exhibition of artworks by Tim Roda, exploring clay and photography as artistic mediums connected by uncharacteristic utility. The works in this exhibition embrace the functional history of clay as a vessel, making photography and material a means of exploratory documentation. The vessels in wILD cLAY function as clay cameras, while also existing as fragile, earthen material and crudely created domestic ecosystems. The resulting pinhole cameras and large scale photographs present questions about freedom and responsibility, raised by curiosity and ingenuity, with regard to our constructed and natural environments.

Body, Object, Image brings together six artists, each with a history working with clay objects, photographic images, and the human body, to elevate their authentic, unvarnished female perspectives. The exhibition features works by Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Teri Frame, Julie Malen, Margaret Meehan, Claire Sherwood, and Xia Zhang.

This annual summer group exhibition is the only open call we hold each year and is dedicated to featuring a wide range of photographic artworks and fine art photography and artists' books from 40-50 fine art photographers. UnBound! generates opportunities and exposure beyond the traditional group or juried show by providing a collection opportunity for artists.