At the heart of every signal is the act of amplification—a reaching outward, a call to be heard, to connect, to become visible. Main Projects is pleased to present Signal Boost, an exhibition spotlighting nine artists from Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts whose voices are tuned to frequencies both intimate and expansive. Enrolled in the MFA program during the 2024–2025 academic year, these artists harness painting, sculpture, photography, and installation to explore what it means to make, to transform, and to communicate in this particular moment.
Lorna Williams’ Attuned, a sculptural self-portrait made from salvaged hardware and instrument parts, invites viewers into a meditative act of tuning both body and spirit. Similarly sensitive to tensions between function and memory, Tyna Ontko’s carved wooden sculptures (crook lock and amphora) are informed by speculative futures, storytelling, and systems of belief and power. Ontko’s assemblages, constructed with meticulous craft and rural labor techniques, question institutional impulses to archive and collect, creating evocative forms that blur the boundaries between historical reality and imaginative possibility. Madeleine Leplae’s intimate paintings meditate on searching—using circular beams of light and embedded drawings to reflect the looping logic of digital landscapes and the open-ended nature of artistic inquiry.
Eva Foldy’s allegorical paintings reflect a present haunted by a violent past and uncertain future. Bullet-ridden billboards, surreal domestic scenes, and stylized wildlife landscapes evoke political and ecological absurdities, exploring how aggression imprints itself onto American culture and memory. Hannah Rotwein’s Chargrilled intricately layers found and transformed objects—orange-lit fans, metal shelving, and yellow urethane foam—to create a sculpture that radiates an uncanny warmth. Deeply engaged with themes of displacement, exile, and the fluidity of home, Rotwein’s work challenges traditional hierarchies of value by reimagining everyday objects as complex, resonant entities.
Tori Mitchell’s psychologically charged paintings engage the language of myth and care—feverish, ambiguous scenes where figures hover between administering aid or harm, undoing restraint or securing it. Amelia Baxter explores ritual and balance through labor-intensive claywork. Her Stellar Creep captures the rhythmic unfolding of pattern through nerikomi techniques, while Fell Swoop and Playing with my fuse offer sculptural metaphors for transformation and nonlinear growth. Rebecca Oh’s paintings delicately navigate personal and cultural identities, transforming private longing and studio life into cinematic vignettes of revelation and intimacy. David Guarnizo’s photographs retrace Alexander von Humboldt’s 19th-century expeditions, juxtaposing historical narratives with contemporary landscapes to interrogate colonial perceptions of environment and memory.
The works presented here emerge from the threshold between reality and imagination, fact and fiction, memory and speculation. They ask us to dwell in spaces between seeing clearly and feeling deeply, between questioning and knowing. Together, these artists create visual poetics—revealing quiet truths, speculative futures, and enigmatic visions firmly rooted in the shifting ground of our collective present.
Like a broadcast resonating long after transmission, Signal Boost amplifies the creative urgency and poetic clarity of these emerging voices, affirming Richmond’s vital role within the broader landscape of contemporary art.
Participating artists :
Amelia Baxter, Eva Foldy, David Guarnizo, Madeleine Leplae, Tori Mitchell, Rebecca Oh, Tyna Ontko, Hannah Rotwein, Lorna Williams.