Candela Gallery is pleased to open 2019 with #InHonor, a solo exhibition by Ervin A. Johnson. Spurred by personal experiences as a queer Black man and the killing of Black people across America, #InHonor is a series of photographic mixed media portraits that stand as a visceral response to racism and police brutality done to the Black body.

Candela Gallery is pleased to announce its second collaboration with One Day Projects founder and creators, Eliot Dudik & Jared Ragland. One Day Projects promotes creative dialogue by challenging artists to collaboratively produce and publish innovative projects within a 24-hour time period. And light followed the flight of sound is their third collaborative artist book inspired by both the natural wonder and symbolic possibilities of the 2017 solar eclipse. The book features photographs by 52 artists and is presented as a 30-foot-long, hand-bound accordion with an enclosed saddle-stitched zine and essay.

Candela Gallery is pleased to present ATOM | PLANET, a solo exhibition by Brooklyn-based artist, Anne Arden McDonald. Within this series McDonald creates photographic works imbued with celestial and atomic aesthetics. Approaching her darkroom process like a sort of alchemy, McDonald captures a dialogue nebulously drifting between mediums by testing materials and techniques through experimentation, noting variables, and observing the results, and amending processes.

Candela Gallery is pleased to present CHANNELS, a group exhibition featuring photographs and mixed media works by Courtney Johnson, Lisa Kokin, and Willie Anne Wright. The exhibition features three artists whose work evokes a transformative experience; each imbued with elements of salt, filament, or flora to create new forms.

CHANNELS opens September 7th with an artist reception on September 6th, from 5-8pm and runs through October 20th.

Candela Gallery is excited to announce UnBound7!, Candela’s annual juried & invitational exhibition. UnBound! features a wide array of photographic techniques from both emerging and established artists, both locally and abroad. We are very proud to bring you a compelling selection of photographic work for the seventh year in a row!

A huge THANK YOU goes out to all who have submitted work to our UnBound7! exhibition. Again this year, we had a ton of great submissions to consider and we appreciate the opportunity to bring such an ambitious show to our audience here in Richmond.

In his first solo exhibition at Candela Gallery, Harrison Walker presents his Portals project, highlighting a mix of photographic processes through a series of abstract works. In Walker’s words, the series is “an investigation of photographic chemistry, psychological perceptions, and ideas of duplication, mimicry, and the multiple.” Through experimentation and discovery the varied effects of his photographic, printmaking, and drawing techniques, seek to elicit not only an emotional but also a fundamentally experiential viewing.

Chris McCaw returns to Candela Gallery in his second solo exhibition featuring work from his recent projects, as well as new work from his Sunburn series. Over the last decade, Chris has continued to push the boundaries of the photographic medium, sharing his unconventional techniques for capturing the movement and the power of the sun as it travels through his viewfinder. With hand-built cameras and vintage photographic paper, McCaw creates unique pieces documenting the sun’s movement through illusory land and seascapes. Long exposures throughout a day, or over multiple days, materialize as marks and burns made directly by the sun’s light as it exposes the paper. As McCaw writes, through this collaborative process, “the sun has become an active participant in part of the printmaking.”

Good Thursday, All!

I want to take a moment to write a thank you and issue an update from the director’s chair. I used to write all of these Candela newsletters with an irreverent air, tucking in a photo koan or limerick but as with so many things, our operation has matured somewhat over the last 7+ years. And so have I, maybe? …pausing for the wave of existential nausea to pass… but we have been dancing pretty hard, trying to pull you onto the dance floor with us. And so, our general goal is to put out the most effective PR and messaging we can for the artists and institutions with whom we are partnering.

Candela Books + Gallery announces our seventh annual invitational and juried exhibition: UnBound7! The summer group exhibition will feature work from a wide range of fine art photographers. An UnBound7! gala event, will raise funds to purchase select works from the exhibition. Works purchased by Candela through this event will subsequently be included in the Candela Collection.

Candela Gallery is pleased to announce our first solo show with Virginia-based photographer, Morgan Ashcom. The exhibition coincides with the release of Ashcom’s recent book, What the Living Carry, published by MACK Books.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” ― William Faulkner

More than 4 months without electricity, without water — a crisis caused by a natural disaster, but made possible by over a century of U.S. colonialism. For about a million Puerto Ricans, this is still their daily reality. Without a vote in Congress, and with increasingly restrictive laws and regulation, the island has had little power in helping itself, becoming more dependent every day on outside help.

Day 155, 156, 157 is an educational experience, working to put the current crisis into perspective. The weekend programming will be composed of an exhibition of photographic and sculptural work, depicting the tragedy and the prevalent need in Puerto Rico. Proceeds from the exhibition will go toward helping small Puerto Rican farmers re-establish their farms and rebuild their communities.

Candela Gallery is excited to present the first show of the new year: Science as Muse, an exhibition featuring photographic works from Walter Chappell, Caleb Charland, Rose-Lynn Fisher, Pam Fox, Daniel Kariko, Michael Rauner, Robert Shults, and Susan Worsham.

The eight artists in Science as Muse share a particular interest in science, though their artistic interpretations vary dramatically. Included in this exhibition are artists who have been caught up in the documentation of the incredible worlds within which scientists practice their craft. Other artists use sophisticated equipment made possible only by modern scientific innovation. Some approach their creation through the foundational scientific process, asking questions and applying scientific method, producing unexpected results. Finally, there are those artists who have recontextualized science and its paraphernalia, imbuing or even circumventing the essence of time-tested practical applications with aesthetic pursuits.

Against a backdrop of ecological decline, this memoir/travelogue follows Dr. Falke (the narrator), Count Orlofsky, and Madame Lulu, three members of an itinerant theatrical troupe known as the Truppe Fledermaus, as they stage absurdist performances in various locations including Europe, England, America, and Japan. In these performances, often staged in nature with no audience, the Truppe are as apt to commemorate the passing of an unusual cloud as they are to be found documenting their own attempts to flee the rising waters of a warming planet, or using black humor to comment upon the extinction of bats or other animals.

As the General Election approaches, Candela Books + Gallery introduces STUMP; a group exhibition featuring photographic artists whose work is politically salient, couched in national issues, or generally steeped in concerns we are all facing.

With STUMP, our hope is to sponsor discussion around an array of issues at the forefront of national debates. The photographic works featured draw on our current culture and provide a lens through which to examine issues both locally and globally important.

Candela Gallery is pleased to announce By The Grace Of God, our second solo show from Richmond, Virginia based photographer, Susan Worsham.

Over the past nine-years, Susan Worsham has let curiosity and a sense of nostalgia guide her, traveling quiet roads, to warmly lit places, engaging with people she meets along the way. Her portraits illustrate collaborative reflections of fleeting moments shared between strangers. Images of backyards, shrouded by overgrowth, lush with vivid color are rich with a deeper truth. Dated facades, blanketed by dust, are each a chronicle of time’s passage. Worsham’s work often serves as metaphor for her own life experiences.

Visual storytelling is an art form unto itself. It can entertain us with fictional narrative, impart wisdom through documentation, or provide an escape just as literature does. This power of the narrative is immense. Opening November 4th, Candela Books + Gallery announces Chasing Tales, a group exhibition featuring photographic work by Daniel Coburn, Paul Thulin, and collaborators Antone Dolezal and Lara Shipley, all artists connecting the past and present fusing elements of reality with mysterious and imaginative intent.

Candela Gallery is pleased to present “Theory of Place,” a group exhibition featuring photographic work by Marcus DeSieno, Courtney Johnson, Camilo Ramirez, and Justin James Reed.

Often, we introduce ourselves by where we come from or where we live, and sometimes, by where we do not. Our environment influences our identity. Inversely, we define locations by giving names to them. The aura of a place is tethered to both physical and cultural perceptions, but what happens when this delicate balance is altered and that tether is warped or frayed at the edges?

Candela Books + Gallery is excited to announce the UnBound5! participating artists. This inaugural summer exhibition, features work from over 40+ contemporary fine art photographers! The 2016 UnBound5! exhibition will open Friday, July 1st, from 5-9pm at Candela Gallery.

Candela Gallery will celebrate the summer exhibition by hosting our perennial fundraising gala on Saturday, July 23rd from 7 to 11 pm. The proceeds raised will be used to purchase select photographic works from the UnBound5! exhibition. Our UnBound! events allow us to continually build the Candela Collection and generate unique opportunities and exposure for participating artists. Candela intends to donate the collection to a notable art institution.