Leisa Rich: Wash & Wax - A Collaboration.

Wash and Wax: A Collaboration is an exhibition featuring works created by traditional portraiture quilt artist Virginia Greaves and mixed media fiber artist Leisa Rich (BFA 1982), opening at the Abernathy Arts Center Gallery in Atlanta, GA on Sept. 18.

Lauren Bernazza, former gallery director at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, Georgia, had the intriguing idea to put the unlikely artists together when their prize-winning pieces were exhibited side-by-side during the 2014 Georgia Artists exhibition. Bernazza is the guest curator of this exhibition that puts the car wash and art together.

The main pieces featured in the exhibition — fabric, abstracted ​“quilts” that slowly deconstruct — are based on photographs Leisa takes during her trips through commercial car washes. These images are then translated to fabric through piecing and passed back and forth over time between the two artists who stitch and embellish them into the series of works that represent the wash and wax experience. That these two very different individuals, with such diverse ways of creating — one in a traditional, 2D technique and the other working with sculptural 3D — have been brought together, is a uniquely transformative experience for the artists and viewers.

In addition, a 25 foot by 7 foot deconstructed ​“quilt” will take over a wall in the gallery. Small quilted works in frames, and the car wash photos will be featured and available for purchase.

Virginia started making quilts after the birth of her first child and grew from making traditional quilts to creating intricate portraits of people and animals using textiles as her medium. Although at first glance her work is often mistaken for paintings, her materials are mostly fiber and thread.

Leisa, trained in the fiber arts, works with non-traditional approaches and conceptual materials and techniques, including 3D printing. She invents new visual realities that make a transformation from one tangible to another through touchable, viewer interactive art works and the creation of transformative, pseudo-Utopian environments that offer a collective human experience.

Wash and Wax: A Collaboration
September 18- October 16, 2015 
Opening Reception: September 18, 6:30 — 8:30 pm
Artist Talk: Saturday, September 26, 12:30 — 2:30 pm
Workshop: Saturday, October 3, 9 am — 2 pm

Abernathy Arts Center Gallery
254 Johnson Ferry Rd. NW, Atlanta, Ga. 30328