New City Arts presents Delights: Disparities — a spectrum of life lived in the meantime., a solo exhibition by Jess Walters at Welcome Gallery featuring work they created during the New City Arts Fellowship.
Photo Credit: Jess Walters
New City Arts' Welcome Gallery
114 3rd St. NE, Charlottesville, VA 22902
First Fridays
March 4, 5:00–7:30 PM
Free and open to the public. All ages welcome.
Gallery Hours
March 5, 10:00 AM–2:00 PM
Exhibition Events
Artist Talk with Jess Walters: March 5 at 1:30PM (Virtual & In-Person)
Covid-19 Visitor Policy
Masks are required at all times for all visitors, regardless of vaccination status. Please do not come to Welcome Gallery if you have been exposed to COVID-19, are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19, or have been advised to isolate or quarantine.
Sponsors
This program is supported by an Enriching Communities grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation and Maurice Wallace and Pam Sutton-Wallace.
Exhibition Statement (courtesy of the artist)
Disability and chronic illness often come with a “before” and “after” perspective of life lived through the lens of Disabled identity, and I intend to share my personal journey “throughout,” because what happens in the “meantime” is often most important: the getting from ‘there’ to ‘here.’ What do we do to remind ourselves that we are beautiful, valuable, and indispensable when the world deems our lives ugly? Our contribution less? Our loss acceptable?
In my own “meantime,” between deep-breaths and breakdowns and “bad days,” I chose to make art; I chose to pose, and dance, and write, and film, and speak the truths I learn throughout these unprecedented transitions– my perspective perpetually challenged and irrevocably changed. “Delights: Disparities” is a conjunctive space bringing together different experiences with CKD, dialysis, and transplant as an invitation for us to explore how individual changes in perspective impact our collective understanding of health.
Photo Credit: Jess Walters
About the Artist (courtesy of the artist)
Jess Walters (she/they) is a 31-year old independent scholar, disability justice advocate, and emerging multimedia artist and documentary producer from Charlottesville, Va. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia and works to address structural inequities and social stigmatizations around disability, neurodivergence, deafness, and Chronic Kidney Disease.
As an Autistic Deaf person who thinks in pictures, Jess has a profound love for playing with words, gestures, and languages to creatively articulate that which they find otherwise ineffable. Through writing, collage, sculpture, photography, and other tangible forms of media, Jess utilizes artistic practices as medicinal opportunities for individual and communal reverence, a vital aspect of personal recovery. She is also a member of the Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives (FUCC) and a contributing author to the quarterly zine: MALA LECHE. Their work has been exhibited at Second Street Gallery and Studio IX. The Fellowship exhibition is their first solo exhibition.
During their Fellowship in February 2022, Jess will share both their personal experience with End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and the experiences of Charlottesville community members currently on dialysis waiting for kidney transplants.
Artwork image and bio courtesy of the artist.
Photos by Kori Price
