Current Exhibitions.

Andrew Norris

Andrew Norris is an artist and educator living and working in Richmond, VA. Andrew received his BFA from East Tennessee State University and his MFA from the University of Florida where he also earned a Graduate Certificate in Gender, Sexualities and Women’s Studies. He creates figurative oil paintings that explore how the often undervalued forms of Americana and heartland kitsch can be recharged as instruments through which to generate and explore queer identities. 

Norris’ work has featured in numerous national group exhibitions including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, the University of Mary Washington, and the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art. Norris is a recipient of the 2025-2026 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship and has attended several residencies including the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Peter Bullough Foundation. His work has been featured in New American Paintings (Issue 153) and has work in the collection of the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, East Tennessee State University, and the Tom of Finland Foundation. Norris is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Painting and Printmaking (PAPR) Department at Virginia Commonwealth University and is Assistant Professor and Studio Art Coordinator at Virginia State University.

Justice Dwight

Justice Dwight is a self-taught visual artist born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in Richmond, Virginia. His earliest connection to art began at six years old, watching his father paint portraits, an experience that sparked his lifelong dedication to image-making. His mother, an avid doll collector, also shaped his visual language through her bold, color-blocked styling of her dolls, influencing his instinctive approach to color theory.

Deeply inspired by Black artists such as Barkley Hendricks, Bisa Butler, and Derrick Adams, Justice  has cultivated his practice through consistent exploration and self-discipline rather than formal training. He works primarily in acrylic and mixed media, incorporating materials like glitter, fabric, and rhinestones to create richly textured, narrative-driven portraits.

Justice  is currently an Annual Resident Artist at VisArts in Richmond, where he continues to expand his practice across disciplines. His work centers Black and queer beauty, intimacy, and visibility, often celebrating identity as both a personal and communal experience.

He was recently commissioned by the U.S. Embassy to create a mural in Cuba for an independent project, highlighting Black and queer beauty at its fullest expression. Justice  has exhibited at galleries such as Southside Contemporary , Capital One, and Iridian Gallery. Through sharing his work online, he has collaborated with institutions such as the University of Maryland and created pieces for cultural figures including Issa Rae, Big Freedia, and Azealia Banks.

Qing Imzadi-

(Qing Blaze)

Qing Imzadi is a Richmond-based multidisciplinary artist whose work explores identity, memory, and cultural inheritance through visual art, performance, and community-centered storytelling. Also known on stage as Qing Blaze, Imzadi’s artistic practice bridges painting, draglesque performance, and cultural production to examine the layered experiences of Black queer life.

Imzadi’s visual work often draws from themes of transformation, embodiment, and resilience. Through color, symbolism, and expressive forms, their paintings reflect an ongoing exploration of selfhood—how identity is shaped by ancestry, community, and lived experience. These works serve as personal reflections as well as invitations for viewers to consider their own processes of becoming.

As a performer and cultural producer, Imzadi’s alter ego Qing Blaze engages the traditions of burlesque, cabaret, and Black performance history to tell stories about power, vulnerability, pleasure, and liberation. This performance practice deeply informs their visual work; both mediums function as ways of documenting the beauty, complexity, and imagination of queer life.

Across disciplines, Imzadi approaches art as both personal inquiry and collective offering. Whether through painting, performance, or community programming, their work seeks to create spaces where people can see themselves reflected, challenged, and celebrated.

Through these practices, Qing Imzadi invites audiences to consider how art can serve as a vessel for transformation, connection, and the ongoing work of becoming

My work often explores the themes of intersectionality. Specifically, the relationship between race and sexuality. As a black and queer artist myself, I’ve been really interested in how that not only shapes my practice, but how it affects the practice of other artists. With vibrant colors and often distorted proportions, I aim to guide your eye through the work to notice nuances within the piece as well as the human experience. My work should serve as a window into the lives of people society tends to cast aside and forget.

I want you to think about their importance in the world, especially if you don’t share the same experience. For these reasons I’m drawn to portraiture. I would describe my work as a portrait artist as a mix of pop art and expressionism, taking after artists like Basquiat, Wiley, and Mokgosi. My work aims to catch the viewer's attention with vibrant colors and bold strokes. The subjects of my work are usually real people whose stories I’ve captured on each canvas.