August 20-September 11, 2024
Reception: 5-7 pm, Friday, August 30, 2024
VCUarts and The Anderson are pleased to present IYKYK from Rice Evans, recipient of the Excellence in Adjunct Research Award. The 2025 call for the Excellence in Adjunct Research will launch soon.
From the Artist:
In my work, I combine craft and comedy in different ways, and both employ humor as a means to critique social structures. I am carrying the torch first lit by the Funk artists of the ’60s and continue to walk in the footsteps of those liberating rule-breakers by continuing to create strong ideologies using offbeat and humorous imagery. I use representation, abstraction, and a sprinkling of dad jokes to cultivate conversation around social change one punch line at a time.
Humor is underrepresented not only in the ceramics world but also in the art world in general. My goal is to unlock memories and make people laugh simultaneously. I want to have people look backward and laugh at how simply they used to view the world and take a break from the severity of reality. It’s true the world is going to hell in a handbasket, so we might as well tell some jokes and have some joy in the elevator ride down.
This exhibition will invite people together with approachable decoding, a gentle subversion, some considered craft, and a boatload of jokes.
Rice Evans is a queer sculptor that primarily works with clay. She received her BFA from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2016 and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021. Evans is originally from the Midwest and currently lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. She has exhibited throughout the United States, most notably at the Institute for Contemporary Art, The Modlin Museum, and a solo exhibition at Alma’s gallery. Evans is the recipient of five research grants from VCUArts Craft/Material Studies department, where she is an adjunct faculty and the ceramic studio coordinator. In June 2024, Evans was the artist in residence at Medalta, a historic pottery factory in Alberta, Canada.