“Art Thrives When Ideas, Experiences, and Perspectives Are Shared”: Upcoming HRA Art Show to Feature Student Artists alongside Creators from across Hampton Roads

On Friday, April 17, the entire Hampton Roads Academy community will come together for the school’s annual day of giving, HRA Day. But that same weekend will also see the faculty, staff, students, families, and alumni of the Academy join with the broader regional community to inaugurate a new school tradition: the HRA Art Show.

This exciting three-day event will feature both in-person and online sales of original works by an astounding 79 professional artists from throughout Hampton Roads and beyond. Offering stunning paintings, sculptures, pottery, jewelry, photographic prints, mixed-media pieces, and more, the pre-juried show will support local artists’ creativity and raise funds to advance an unparalleled educational experience in the arts at HRA.

In-person art sales will begin in the Charles R. Spencer Gymnasium during an opening reception at 5:00 pm on April 17, then continue over the next two days, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday, April 18, and from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm on Sunday, April 19. The Art Show is open to the public with no admission fee, and a food truck from BLZN Tacos will serve up delicious bites on campus on Saturday.

Digital sales are already underway, and all are invited to preview and purchase the selection of works available online now.

The only event of its kind at an independent school on the Peninsula, the HRA Art Show will not only highlight the talent of experienced artists, but also allow students to connect with these professionals as they explore the work on display and share creations of their own. 11 exceptional Upper School student artists will be featured at the show in a designated booth, showcasing the remarkable creativity emanating from HRA’s Visual Art Department and the potential impact of attendees’ investment in the arts at the Academy.

“Building connections between Hampton Roads Academy and the regional arts community is incredibly important, because art thrives when ideas, experiences, and perspectives are shared,” said incoming HRA trustee and Navigator parent Lauren Jett ’06, who is co-chairing the event with her mother Chrissy Garner. “Bringing local artists into the HRA community creates a meaningful opportunity for students, families, and visitors to engage with working artists while also celebrating the incredible creative talent that exists throughout Hampton Roads.”

A One-of-a-Kind Celebration of the Arts

In addition to the sheer scale of the event and the range of media featured, the HRA Art Show will be distinguished by the degree of freedom and interaction participants will enjoy.

Unlike other regional independent schools’ expositions, in which artists typically drop off works to be displayed in their absence throughout the halls, the Academy’s Art Show will allow creators to present as many pieces as they like within a 10-foot-by-10-foot booth in the Spencer Gym and engage in live conversations with attendees about their inspirations and creative process.

For participating artists, this festival-style format is one of the HRA Art Show’s greatest draws. “I love seeing a school have a focus on the arts,” said jeweler and wearable art creator Jama Watts. “I enjoy talking about my work and see[ing] what others create. I’m always looking for new places to exhibit, and I found the concept of the show at the Academy intriguing.”

Visual Art Department Chair Emma Kamerer, a painter who will be featured at the show, echoed Watts. “As a practicing artist beyond my role at Hampton Roads Academy, I seek meaningful ways to engage with and contribute to the local arts community,” she said. Having relocated to Virginia under a year ago, Kamerer commented that she is “excited to establish new connections and participate in creative dialogue within this new environment.”

“A Deeper Understanding of the Contemporary Art World”

This dialogue will include not only professional artists like Kamerer, but also the budding creators she teaches every day at HRA.

This year, she and her fellow Middle and Upper School visual arts teacher Jack Westervelt have worked to facilitate meaningful connections between regional artists and creatively talented Navigators by holding the annual National Art Honor Society (NAHS) Juried Art Show in conjunction with the inaugural HRA Art Show. Together, Kamerer and Westervelt carefully reviewed and selected both two-dimensional and ceramic works submitted by ninth through twelfth graders to be displayed in the exhibition.

This year’s featured student artists include seniors Percy Bevilacqua ’26, Dylan Evans ’26, Ellen Owen ’26, and Elizabeth Smith ’26; juniors Jaya Amin ’27, Vince Husband ’27, Merritt Jones ’27, and Ellie Richardson ’27; sophomores Katie Brown ’28 and Jadain Wojciechowski ’28; and one outstanding member of the freshman class, Grace Bradley ’29.

According to Kamerer, bringing their work out of the classroom will allow students to learn about “the many professional responsibilities that take place behind the scenes,” such as preparing and installing their artwork for display, weighing the practicalities of pricing, engaging with viewers, and presenting their ideas in a public space.

“In addition to exhibiting their work, students will be able to network with professional artists and to speak about their creative processes with a broader audience,” she added. “These experiences [will] foster confidence, professionalism, and a deeper understanding of the contemporary art world.”

After the Art Show, select student works will be considered for the NAHS Purchase Award, through which HRA will acquire one piece for permanent display in the Upper School. This honor not only recognizes our students’ exceptional artistic achievement, but also provides them an opportunity to leave a lasting, tangible legacy on HRA’s campus.

Meet the Artists

The HRA Art Show will shine a spotlight on incredible works in a wide array of visual media, but their creators’ stories are as diverse as the artforms and techniques that will be on view.

Emily Cahoon

A photographer since age 13 and a graphic designer since age 15, Emily Cahoon seeks to capture both the beauty of human beings and the tranquility of nature in her work. The Chesapeake-based artist, who has previously been featured in a magazine and an international art show, enriches every subject she captures in her lens with creative explorations of light. Cahoon’s photography focuses principally on “Spiritual Giants,” which she described as “those elements of the natural world that command presence and offer a perspective far greater than myself.” As she explained, profound insights may sometimes be found in the smallest, most delicate objects, such as the colorful flowers that she photographs against stark black or white backgrounds to accentuate the stillness she perceives in the blooms.

Mary Katherine Evans Hogg

By day, Mary Katherine Evans Hogg is a senior vice president for investments at the Newport News firm Davenport & Company. On the side, her passion is oil painting, a love she developed early in life through her admiration for Claude Monet and an impulsive decision to buy a painting far outside her budget at age 22. It was not until the COVID-19 pandemic, however, that she first picked up a brush herself. After taking a three-session virtual painting class that she discovered by chance on her Facebook feed, she was hooked. Since then, she has independently honed her craft, taken classes with local artists, and participated in art workshops in Italy, France, and western Virginia. A native of Hampton, Evans Hogg is deeply committed to her local community, working with such regional institutions as the Mariners’ Museum, sponsoring area art shows, and exhibiting artwork of her own. Her paintings themselves are also thematically informed by her connection to the region, focusing on water, waves, shorelines, and coastal sunrises and sunsets—all familiar sights from visits to her family cottage in Buckroe Beach. “My goal with each painting,” she said, “is for people to feel something from it or take them back to a favorite memory or time in life.”

Gloria Coker

Gloria Coker started her artistic career as a newsroom illustrator for the Daily Press in Newport News, creating images for news features as well as courtroom art, some of which was showcased in the 2020 Netflix documentary The Innocence Files. She now works full-time as a fine artist, producing poetic, vibrant, and colorful acrylic paintings. Her works depicting human subjects—musicians, dancers, athletes, and others engaged in their passions and everyday activities—have garnered numerous accolades and appeared in collections across the region. She has also been invited to speak about her paintings throughout the South, demonstrating her craft live in college classrooms, at fundraiser auctions, and at the Virginia Living Museum. The pieces Coker will offer at the HRA Art Show feature both longtime subjects for her, such as an oyster boat inspired by her home’s proximity to Menchville Marina, and newly discovered interests, namely flowers. “I recently hoped that I could paint floral images in a different way, my way, [with an] emphasis on color and even a little movement,” she said. Like her previous subjects, though, her flowers blend memory with invention, brought to life in colors drawn from the artist’s imagination.

Hellen Bennett

It was only later in life, after a fulfilling career in the healthcare field, that Hellen Bennett discovered a love of watercolor painting. Trained by several prominent artists in Michigan and Virginia, she draws inspiration from beautiful nature scenes in her garden, her neighborhood in Williamsburg, and her travels both near and far. As Bennett explained, her artistic style is “representational, exploring a more intense application of color than is sometimes seen with watercolor pigments.” This inventive, even experimental approach reflects Bennett’s goal of learning from the process of crafting every piece and challenging herself to communicate what delights her in each of her subjects. As the HRA Art Show approaches, she said, “I look forward to putting a collection together which others hopefully will enjoy as much as I enjoyed creating.”

Liz Valentine

A Charlottesville-based mixed-media artist who studied portraiture and figure drawing in high school and college, Liz Valentine has since built a career focusing on abstract pieces, primarily in large format, crafted to elevate interiors with color, movement, and a visual manifestation of dynamic environments and states of mind. Whether she has set out to depict botanicals or large landscapes, Valentine explained, “I frequently paint from imagination, allowing color and gesture to guide the development of a dreamlike environment. These works unfold gradually, revealing themselves as I step away and return to the canvas.” This “subconscious process,” she noted, is driven largely by her diverse materials themselves, including self-mixed pigments and such tools as charcoal, pastels, and crayon, which allow for exploratory line work as they interact with painted surfaces. “Often the most compelling forms appear intuitively as the piece evolves,” Valentine said.

Jama Watts

Jama Watts is an award-winning artist and craftsperson whose jewelry has been featured in multiple galleries and competitions, as well as the HGTV program That’s Clever! In a previous life, though, she wore many different hats—librarian, genealogist, web designer, and gallery owner. The subject matter of her wearable artwork is just as eclectic as her career history. She has drawn inspiration from creative challenges she has laid out for herself, from the themes of art shows she has entered, and from topics that have simply piqued her interest by chance. While some of her works explore whimsical motifs, as in her recreations of animals in beads, others reflect societal issues about which she feels strongly, from victim-blaming to strip mining in Appalachia. Uniting her lighthearted and serious pieces is her underlying belief that we can collectively commit to building a better world.

At the inaugural HRA Art Show, beautiful creations and profound insights will take center stage, providing an occasion for meaningful conversations and the formation of lasting connections between HRA and the community of which it is a part.

Interested in volunteering at the inaugural HRA Art Show? We welcome your help! Please sign up for a slot here.