In the sculptures of John R. G. Roth, one plus one, does not equal two.  That is, the co-joining of one familiar object with another does not result in a familiar dual object, but in one brilliantly bizarre hybrid.  The pieces flirt with the familiar in a way similar to dreams in that, on one level, they seem quite natural and inevitable.  Yet on another, they are evocatively absurdist and exist nowhere save in the mind of sculptor and ODU professor John R. G. Roth. 

The crystalline grisaille world of Kazuko Mukoyama reflected perfectly the bleak, cold and gray weather of the day I visited The Hermitage Museum.  The snug and cozy home cum museum serves as an appealing counterpoint to the vastness of the craggy and mostly mountainous imagery that comprises this body of work. 

Art critic Betsy DiJulio selects Text Rain

There is no question that Whitfield Lovell, the so-called “master of the found object” is deserving of his 2007 MacArthur Fellowship, better known as a “genius grant.”  His body of work ingeniously juxtaposes large charcoal paintings of African-American men and women from an earlier era on warn and scuffed wood panels with psychologically-loaded and, sometimes, perplexing found objects.