Greater Reston Arts Center Announces New Partnership with Signature at Reston Town Center

(image credit: Craig Moran, Rise, 2017)

Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE) is pleased to announce a new partnership with Signature, Reston Town Center’s newest luxury apartment building. GRACE will present a year-round schedule of exhibitions of local artists at Signature’s ground floor gallery starting in February 2018, sponsored by Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market, which will open its newest market in the ground floor of the Signature building this coming spring.

This exciting partnership between Boston Properties, Bozzuto Management, and GRACE merges the vision of the Signature building, which is focused on creating distinctive and communal spaces for residents, and GRACE’s mission in engaging the community through excellence in contemporary art. Select local artists will be given the opportunity to present their work in an innovative new space off the grand lobby. All artists will be selected by the GRACE curatorial staff; all exhibitions and opening receptions will be free and open to the public.

“This partnership provides a perfect opportunity for GRACE to regularly celebrate and support local artists through exhibitions of their work as the programming in our current Town Center space becomes more dedicated to introducing national and international artists to Reston and the DMV,” said GRACE’s Executive Director and Curator Lily Siegel. “We are grateful to Boston Properties for inviting us into their newest space, and to Balducci’s for its strong signal of community engagement with this wonderful sponsorship. We look forward to expanding our contribution to the arts and culture in our community through this new opportunity.”

Richard Ellis, a vice president at Boston Properties added, “Our team just loved the idea of partnering with an iconic community institution like GRACE to showcase high-caliber local and regional artists in this new building that we are very excited to introduce to the community. We think it is an innovative and important use of the space, and we are all very excited about the partnership. Our excitement continues as we announce that Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market, opening at the Signature in Spring 2018, has agreed to be the lead sponsor of the new GRACE Gallery.”

 “We are thrilled to open our newest Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market in Reston this spring and look forward to providing a unique food shopping experience in Reston Town Center,” said Judy Spires, Chairman and CEO of Balducci’s Food Lover’s Market. “Balducci’s offers unparalleled prepared foods showcasing the talent of our in-store chefs, along with a vast selection of the highest quality produce, local meat, freshest seafood and unique grocery finds.  As part of our commitment to serving Reston and the local region, we are proud to support the vibrant art community by partnering with such an innovative organization.  As the lead sponsor for the new GRACE gallery, we look forward to celebrating local artists in our newest location in the Signature building in Reston Town Center.”

The first exhibition will be of the work of Craig Moran. Moran is a DC-based painter known for his boldly patterned canvases. His newest body of work is a whirl-wind of exuberant colors and energetic shapes. Unlike many abstract painters who work directly on the canvas to create tension between color and shape, Moran employs a unique process of collage and computer manipulation to create his images. Using a variety of source material such as street art, photographs, his old paintings, decorative papers, and nature books, Moran cuts out shapes and arranges them at random to create new images and then photographs the results. The photographed assemblages are rearranged further with image editing software. Moran then translates the result into painting. The final abstractions evoke elements of the natural world and portraiture in a dynamic flattened space which captivates the eye and the imagination.

Opening reception:
March 1, 6–8pm; free and open to the public
Signature at Reston Town Center
11850 Freedom Drive, Reston, VA 20190

Greater Reston Arts Center at Signature is always free and open to the public Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–5pm.

For more information please visit restonarts.org

About the Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE)

The Greater Reston Arts Center is dedicated to enriching community life by promoting involvement and excellence in the contemporary visual arts. Its gallery showcases exceptional emerging and established artists from the mid-Atlantic region and beyond; its GRACE Art program delivers art enrichment experiences in over 40 schools regionally, impacting over 20,000 students; and its annual Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival is among the top such events in the country. The Greater Reston Arts Center is always free and open to the public.

A Virginia Commission for the Arts “50 for 50 Arts Inspiration Award” winner in the
category of Bedrock Institutions.

The Greater Reston Arts Center gratefully acknowledges the leadership of its Board of Directors and the support of its sponsors, members, and patrons. GRACE programs are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Arts Council of Fairfax County, and the Reston Community Center.