Make plans to come to Saturday’s big show
Based in Chattanooga, VERSA Gallery is both an artistic space and creative team where the visual and the material meet to foster interaction and dialogue between art, artists, and you.
Anne Daniels, Chloë George, Alesha Lee, Stephanie Loggans, Dana Ortega, and Dylan Pew comprise the six-person collective who direct the art gallery, as well as their canine friend Kenya. All six met while studying art as undergraduates at UTC, but VERSA’s conception would not be realized until after they graduated, with their first exhibition initiating in March of 2018.
They continued with nine additional exhibitions to round out a successful first year of running the gallery, and what was once a small art gallery soon began to pick up quite an audience of art appreciators.
So far, VERSA has worked with artists on three exhibitions in 2019, with a fourth scheduled to open this Saturday, and more on the way scheduled throughout the year. The artists who house their exhibitions within VERSA’s gallery room are primarily from Tennessee, including local artists from Chattanooga as well as other states in the Southeastern region.
The works of art featured in the gallery are characterized by their open-endedness, as they typically address questions and ideas that do not have a definitive answer with abstract qualities and subjects. While the gallery celebrates both local art and art from outside the city, they’re looking into working further with local artists and organizations in an effort to positively interact with and contribute to the community as a good neighbor.
Besides exhibitions, the gallery seeks to offer workshops and art potlucks in the future as a part of this effort, which will encourage broader interaction between themselves and the community.
VERSA’s name isn’t a nod to the Nissan sedan; rather, it’s a reference to the Latin phrase “vice versa”. But VERSA does not simply mean just the name of the team to the team; they believe they carry VERSA with them wherever they are, and with whatever they are working on. They do not see VERSA as a stationary unit which operates solely in their exhibition space. Rather, their work as VERSA has no set boundaries; the work the team does together in addition to the work done by themselves is a product of VERSA.
An illuminated white room with two windows found on the second floor of the St. Andrew’s Center—the gallery’s exhibition space—is not simply a provided area for artists to display their exhibitions. Rather, the room is often an area artists shape that plays an immersive part in the exhibition. One example, for Erica Mendoza’s recent “I Hope It Doesn’t Rain Tomorrow” exhibition, the artist decided to create blinds for the space’s windows which featured lines of written poetry which are only visible when closed.
In another exhibition, David Onri Anderson painted the walls of the room a stark black for his “Smoke, Sand, Stars in Your Eyes” exhibition, which embellished the background of the selected paintings. As the VERSA team is comprised of artists themselves, they understand firsthand that artists do not particularly enjoy being limited, so they welcome experimentation with the room to meet the artist’s creative vision of the exhibition.
While on the topic of exhibitions, VERSA’s June exhibition opens this Saturday. From June 8–22, Marla Sweitzer and Christian Vargas’s collaborative exhibit “Porto” will be featured within the gallery’s space. An opening reception will occur on Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m., with the artists themselves present as you engage their intriguing paintings and stimulating sculptural work. Admission is free!
As it stands, VERSA is an impressive team of ambitious young adults breaking the traditional mold of how art is viewed and appreciated in the city. If you appreciate the arts, then there’s no excuse not to visit the gallery and view the amazing work of local and regional artists pushing the boundaries of their respective mediums forward.
VERSA Gallery is located at 1918 Union Ave., at the St. Andrew’s Center. If you’re interested in viewing the artwork on display, simply schedule an appointment with the VERSA team by emailing contact@versagallery.org.