ON VIEW: February 3 – March 1, 2022
OPENING Reception: Thursday, February 3 @ 6:30 PM
FREE & Open to the Public

Sister Cities International aims to promote peace through mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation – one individual, one community at a time. This year’s theme is Generation Rescue: Sustainable Water for All. Climate change has become an undeniably harsh reality in our lives, making the importance of raising awareness and taking action more essential every day. As temperatures rise, water patterns are disrupted, ecosystems are disturbed, cultures are affected, and energy resources are proven to be unsustainable for long-term use. These ongoing changes impact our local and global communities in every aspect, and youth are the key to tackle this global reality.

In line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, Sister Cities International will adopt climate change as the overarching theme for its Young Artists and Authors Showcase in both 2022 and 2023. For the 2022 competition, SCI is proud to invite all its youth members to create submissions that highlight the importance of climate change and its impact on water resources. The official 2022 Young Artists and Authors Showcase theme is Generation Rescue: Sustainable Water for All.

Suffolk Sister Cities International sponsors an annual Young Artists and Authors Showcase that help foster a sense of global citizenship and goodwill for young students. Winners from this juried exhibit of both artwork and writers will go on to compete with students throughout the country. Suffolk has two Sister Cities: Suffolk County, England and Oderzo, Italy.

Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts is proud to open SOLACE: Healing Through the Arts featuring visual arts, performances, and community Workshops over a six-week period, October and November. This series aims to bring individuals of all backgrounds together to find solace or healing from trauma, illness, isolation, grief, and/or related experiences, including, but not limited to, the past year’s world, national, and local events. The SOLACE Visual Art exhibition opens on October 1, 2021 during the Welcome Back Open House and runs through October 23, 2021. The SOLACE: OPEN Mic Night showcases the community with performing arts, like dance, song, and poetry, on November 5, 2021 at 8 PM. Both events are free and open to the public.

‘SOLACE started as an experiment. Typically, our galleries at the Suffolk Center host invitational exhibits — amazing, curated displays of artistic ability and prowess. What makes SOLACE so special is that for this exhibit, we invited anyone in our community to contribute their work, no matter their background, medium, education, or skill level, to tell their story of healing through art.’ shares Lorelei Costa Morrow, Suffolk Center’s Executive Director and CEO.

And what a treasure trove — and potent time capsule — the center received from the community. ‘We are proud that this exhibit includes work of such tremendous artistic skill as Torey Hall’s powerful drawing, Hides the Sun, Nansemond. Yet we are just as proud to display works by students, including three paintings by children, who received our art kits at the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters as part of the SOLACE initiative.’ shares Rick Byrd, Suffolk Center’s Education Manager.

These pieces tell such a diversity of trauma and healing experiences. Diana Veazey’s sculpture, Broken, shows the artist’s feelings after a breast cancer diagnosis; C. Edward Vann’s oil paintings are haunting depictions of pain. Lisa Jeffress’s acrylic painting, Serenity, was planned to be a gift for a cousin who then passed away unexpectedly; Pat Eelman’s photograph, All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go, depicts longing and loneliness during COVID. Elizabeth Blanchard’s oil paintings are an expression of the solace she finds in nature and in her faith; Walt Hardy’s work, Free at Last: FREE AT LAST! is a celebration of Juneteenth and speaks to an escape from bondage. Renee Cowan’s acrylic works show her hope for a united America.

In various works, you can see anger, grief, fear, peace — and in some pieces, even joy. For some artists, these pieces are expressions of healing, or the need for healing. For others, creating these works became their process for healing. As artist Maia Micou wrote in her SOLACE art statement: “Mental health is a battle and I want my artwork to raise awareness to something that we all face every day. If I can inspire anyone out there to keep going and to fight, my art has done its job.”

We hope the community will discover a piece of art within the SOLACE galleries that resonates with them, or inspires them!

On View: July 29 – September 4, 2021
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 29, 2021 at 5:30 PM
FREE & Open to the Public

In preparation for September’s Suffolk Plein Air Festival 2021, the Suffolk Plein Air Society will have an exhibit in the award-winning galleries at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts from July 29 – September 4, 2021 titled “Chasing the Light.” Members of the Suffolk Plein Air Society will display pieces that they have created during their monthly second-Saturday painting sessions, or that they have created in their studios. Works will include landscapes, florals, animals, cityscapes, and abstracts—anything these prolific artists have been painting in oils, acrylics, or watercolor.

Meet the 20-member group during the opening reception on Thursday, July 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the BB&T and Norfolk Foundation Galleries.