Serenity Now

About the Exhibition

The inaugural exhibition at Ours, Serenity Now, runs from March 21–April 19. Curated by Monica Kinsey, it showcases works by eight Richmond-based artists. The show explores sources of comfort and solace during times of uncertainty. Amid the intensity of national politics as well as periods of personal upheaval, the importance of systems of support, care, and community are thrown in sharp relief. The need for connection and play, touch and tenderness remain despite the turmoil. Serenity Now—a phrase borrowed from a Seinfeld episode in which the words are used as a mantra to alleviate stress—reminds us to engage with the tethers that revitalize and the anchors that provide peace when the world feels like it’s falling apart around us. The artworks in Serenity Now alternate between acknowledging turbulence and grief and offering relief and respite—an exhibition that feels like a hug.

You can view the exhibition checklist here.

Exhibition Playlist

A curated selection of songs from the artists. Listen now on Spotify.

Exhibition Hours

Outside of the reception, Ours will be open to the public on Mondays 12–2pm, Friday 3/28 10am–5pm, and during workshops and events. To schedule a time to visit outside these hours, message Monica at monica.kinsey27@gmail.com or @mernicer.

Artist Bios

Alezendria Decking

Alezendria Decking is a Brazilian-American Artist b. 1997. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting  at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. She is a current Studio Resident at Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Although painting is her primary medium, she is completing a series of ceramic works while there.  She is based in Richmond, VA. 
Instagram: @alezendria
Email: alezendriadecking@gmail.com

Arden Shostak

Arden Shostak is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. He holds a BFA in sculpture with a concentration in literary arts from Rhode Island School of Design. His work centers the necessity of dreams, visions, and other elements of the unseen world for building liberatory futures. Lately, he dreams of meadows, phone calls, and great storms.

Website: ardenshostak.com
Instagram: @monstrouspearl

Aurele Gould

Aurele Gould is an image maker based in Richmond, VA with a BFA in Photography + Film from Virginia Commonwealth University. They have been honored with the 2020 VMFA Professional Fellowship Award and the Distinguished Photographer Award from Alex Klein of the ICA Philadelphia. Gould has also received a residency at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond in 2021 and has most recently exhibited at The Anderson Gallery for Back Through The Open Window in February 2025. Their monozine GLARE (2023) is currently available through Fifth Wheel Press.

Gould’s current practice seeks to explore the nuance within language about glare, grief, love, and desire through photographic motifs of light, reflections, and texture. Glare presents across the physical and the intangible– a heavy gaze, light, liquids; something to turn away from, or to hold. For Gould, the multiplicities within words become the basis for constructing a visual narrative from a queer perspective.

Email - emaurelie@gmail.com
Instagram - @aurelegould

Chloe Finley

Chloe Finley (b. 1996) is a Richmond-based craft artist and educator who works with the Appalachian lexicon of their childhood, including native flora, vintage and scrap fabrics, local wool, salvaged fur, personal artifacts, found items, etc., in combination with traditional techniques like quilting, embroidery, weaving, and producing cyanotypes. Their fiber-based work celebrates human/Nature connection, queer joy, and the beauty &  biodiversity of the American Southeast. Chloe was born in West Virginia and attended the North Carolina Governor’s School for Visual Arts before graduating magna cum laude from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021 with a BFA in Craft/Material Studies. Their artwork has been shared in New York, including A.I.R Gallery, across the Southeast, and closer to home in Virginia, including the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Email: cloversofchloe@gmail.com
Instagram: @clovers_of_chloe

Chloé H.

Currently based in Richmond, Virginia, Chloé continues to explore themes of aeviternity- a state between eternity and temporality which is unchanging, and resides outside of time. Through an interdisciplinary process, the artist is interested in exploring their connection to place- frequently taking the shape of surrealist painting and drawing that conjure themes around ancestral objects, ghosts, Appalachian mythology, and colonization’s devouring of land. They received their BFA in Painting + Printmaking from VCUarts in 2021.

Email: cloverandcardamom@gmail.com
Instagram: @comfortisnotdefeat

Justin R. Cockrell

Justin R. Cockrell (they/them, b. 2002) is a craft artist, and educator born to freedom in Columbus, Ohio, now living, loving, and learning in Richmond, Virginia. Syncretizing traditional craft techniques and objects with magical realism and queer quixotics, their work aims to create useful pieces that serve as records of human and material relationships in the Anthropocene. Their native language is fiber and textiles, and they use the linear and geometric logic of weaving, quilting, and natural dye along with sustainability forward design thinking to work across the mediums of fiber, wood, and metal. They have exhibited work at The Virginia MOCA, The Appalachian Center for Craft, The Bascom, ROY G BIV Gallery, The Anderson Gallery and has participated in workshops in various capacities at Penland School of Craft, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, and The Crafting the Future Teen Takeover. They are pursuing a BFA in Craft/Material studies and a BA in Spanish literature at Virginia Commonwealth University and are alumni of the Yale Norfolk School of Art, and Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Instagram: @Justin.rtc

Lowe Fehn

Lowe Fehn (b. 1999 Indianapolis, Indiana) is an interdisciplinary painter based in Richmond, Virginia. Their painting and poetry practices embrace spiritual curiosity and intuitive connections between living beings. Fehn uses their personal archive of photographs, dreams, and poems as a reflective interface for drawings to explore the numinous, archetypal relationships, transformation, and awe. The depicted scenes of the natural world often hold spiraling, dancing shapes made up across subtractive and additive gestures between the layers of the paper. Fehn’s imagery points to energetic movement: the ephemeral union with that which is just beyond perception, yet constantly tugging at one’s vision.  They received their BFA in Painting + Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021. 

Instagram @sortinghills
Email: lowefehn@gmail.com

Rice Evans

Rice Evans is a queer sculptor that primarily works with clay. She received her BFA from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2016 and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2021. Evans is originally from the Midwest and currently lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. She has exhibited throughout the United States, most notably at the Institute for Contemporary Art, The Modlin Museum, and a solo exhibition at Alma's gallery. Evans is the recipient of four research grants from VCUArts Craft/Material Studies department, where she is an adjunct faculty and the ceramic studio coordinator. In June 2024, Evans was the artist in residence at Medalta, a historic pottery factory in Alberta, Canada. 

Website: ricecakesart.com
Instagram: @ricecakesart