From March 4-5, 2022, New City Arts presents a solo exhibition by Jess Walters at Welcome Gallery featuring work they created during the New City Arts Fellowship.

• Opening Reception: March 4 from 5-7:30PM, free and open to the public
• Special Saturday open hours: March 5 from 10AM-2PM, free and open to the public
• Artist Talk: March 5 at 1:30PM. Registration required. Jess Walters will give talk via Zoom. Event can be joined at home (link to be provided to registered attendees) or viewed in-person at Welcome Gallery on a monitor.

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.

ARTIST STATEMENT

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.

MEET 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. 

ABOUT THE FELLOWSHIP

The New City Arts Fellowship creates space, time, and financial support for Charlottesville-area artists to make work at Welcome Gallery in response to an annual open call and proposal theme. Five artists were selected to receive one month in 2022 to transform Welcome Gallery into their studio space, a $400 honorarium, a stocked pantry with their favorite snacks, and an opportunity to engage the community with their work at the conclusion of their fellowship.

To learn more about these artists and their fellowship projects, visit our website. Opportunities to engage with their work are ongoing from February-June 2022.

This program is supported by an Enriching Communities grant from the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation and Maurice Wallace and Pam Sutton-Wallace. 

Images courtesy of the artist.

Located at 114 3rd St. NE, Welcome Gallery is downtown, storefront art space in Charlottesville, VA, run by New City Arts Initiative, a non-profit community arts organization. This same location houses NCAI staff offices and a studio space.