The Charlottesville art scene is thriving like never before and with Birdwood Mansion being engraved into the history of this land, it’s only fitting that several of our local artists were commissioned to decorate these historic walls with visions of the past, present and future.
This video archive offers an intimate look into the minds of the artists entrusted with the challenge and privilege of bringing new life to this historic landmark.
Local artist Christen Yates drew her inspiration from the land itself for two new pieces commissioned for the Birdwood Mansion. Using pigments sourced from the surrounding soil, her work reflects the mansion’s deep, almost sacred bond with the natural landscape that has always defined it. “…we’re embodied people,” Yates says. “…as many tangible reminders that we are in this place and surrounded by this beauty … I think all of that helps to add to this experience.”
When botanical artist Lara Gastinger was commissioned to create two original works for Birdwood Mansion, she looked no further than Virginia's native flora — and her own backyard. "I feel like I'm a condiut for nature to bring plants to people," Gastinger says, "there's so much beauty around us, and we're just not sometimes taking the time to look." Her pieces, delicate and objective, carry the quiet invitation that the mansion itself extends: to slow down, linger, and notice the beauty in that which is easily overlooked.
Though surrounded by it in her youth, local artist Grace Popp discovered her appreciation for the natural world during her formative college years, where the outdoors became a welcome escape from the bustle of her newfound city life. Her painting for Birdwood Mansion stands as a symbol of revival, the once-endangered species now brought back to life thanks to community efforts. Now a resident of Charlottesville, Popp's art channels the importance—personally and beyond—of connecting to the natural world.
An artist, architect and professor at the University of Virginia, Sanda Iliescu has found a niche creating art that leans into the abstract, pulling inspiration not only from nature, but from the moment of creativity itself. "I have an idea in mind before I begin... then the process takes over," Iliescu says. "I feel like I enter a different space... all of the worries of the world are still with me, but they are totally in abeyance. I just think about my conversation with the piece. "Her pieces, including those commissioned for the newly restored Birdwood Mansion, chronicle a lifelong homage to the beauty of the world.
Sanda is represented by Les Yeux Du Monde in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Though she now resides out of state, artist Nancy Bass found a home in Charlottesville, where she spent years of her life tending to a farm that became the inspiration for many of her pieces. Her commissioned piece for the newly-restored Birdwood Mansion is a brief insight into forty years of rendering that home on canvas in reverence for Virginia and the animal that captured her heart—the cow.
