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Taylor Zarkades King Joins Quirk + VisArts Artist-in-Residence Program

July 01, 2019 News

The Visual Arts Center of Richmond and Quirk Gallery have chosen VCUarts graduate Taylor Zarkades King to spend the summer participating in the Quirk + VisArts Artist-in-Residence Program.

King’s residency runs through December 2019, with a solo exhibition at Quirk in the fall.

King is a recent graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s MFA program in Craft/Material Studies. Formally trained as a metalsmith, Taylor’s craft based practice moves between production work made at a jewelers bench and conceptual work made in a studio that finds its form through larger configurations of wood, fiber, print, and re-contextualized objects.

Through her use of coded material language and comedic mimicry she creates and choreographs strange but familiar objects into relational installations—each form hinting at another, deflecting a central gaze in favor of a horizon. Taylor’s current research focuses on nuanced orientations of queer kinship, gender, desire and home.

The residency program, established by Quirk and operated in partnership with VisArts, provides artists with the opportunity to focus on the development of their work while establishing connections within Richmond’s vibrant art community. Quirk provides resident artists with a live/work space in the downtown Arts District while VisArts offers unlimited access to the center’s classes and 16 professional art studios.Previous Quirk + VisArts Artists-in-Residence include Elissa Levy, Trish Tillman, Grace Kubilius, Nate Young, Leigh Suggs, Carli Holcomb and Natasha Bowdoin.