Without an Ocean You are Invisible; large-scale abstract watercolors produced by Javier Tapia opens Friday, July 24, in the Beverley Street Studio School Gallery at 22 West Beverley Street.
The opening is from 5:30 – 7:30pm with an artist’s talk at 6:00pm.
The event is free and open to the public. The exhibit runs through Sunday, September 13.The title Without an Ocean You Are Invisible is a reference, in a metaphorical sense, to the value of engaging the personal in a work of art. Without an ocean (without the personal), we miss something truly important.
Javier Tapia is associate professor of the Department of Painting and Printmaking at the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia. A painter, educator, and avid traveler, Tapia received his BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) and MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degrees from The University of Texas in Austin. At The University of Texas, he was recipient of the Presidential Scholarship /“Eugene McDermott” Scholarship.
He is a recipient of the Teresa Pollak Award (Fine Arts Category) from Richmond Magazine (Richmond, VA) and numerous grants and awards through Virginia Commonwealth University.
A painter who moves from figurative to abstraction, he is represented by Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, VA and Wu Educiones Gallery in Lima, Peru. His paintings have been exhibited, among other places, at The Embassy of Peru Art Gallery in Washington D.C., The Hunt Gallery at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, The Armory Gallery at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg Virginia, and internationally in Peru and Italy.
With over 18 years of experience in watercolor, his paintings undergo constant change during the creation process. Each painting is made of a series of segments that consciously avoid the literal and the narrative, arriving at an “intriguing, interestingly energized and surprising surface of color and layer interaction”.
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