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Familiar faces, fresh perspectives: Protest images, painted skies open popular Middle Street Gallery exhibit

by | Feb 10, 2026

 

Scott Robinson’s photograph, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” is on exhibit at Middle Street Gallery in the Town of Washington.

Middle Street Gallery’s current “Members and Friends” exhibit, one of its most popular shows, runs through April 5, with a reception Feb. 21 from 4-6 p.m. Each year, the gallery’s 20-some members invite a friend to step in with a painting, drawing, photograph or sculpture, and the result is always a rich variety of artists displaying works in various media. 

A particularly striking work this year is a photograph by Scott Robinson, brought to the gallery by Susan Raines, also a photographer. At first glance, the photograph presents a formless expanse of colorful graffiti mixed with scattered posters and signs. The chaotic image is drawn from the fraught cultural moment following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, a time when old images were dismantled, sometimes violently, to make room for new manifestations.

Robinson’s almost psychedelic photograph captures the confusion and anger of the day by showing the newly transformed pedestal of the equestrian statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, former capital of the Confederacy. To some, the colorful mashup was a hateful desecration, to others a long-overdue clearing away. 

In a statement about the image, Robinson, a photographer working in and around Washington, D.C., recalled that he had become riveted on the tumult in Richmond, with crowds gathering nightly along Monument Avenue, where various Confederate figures were memorialized. Travelling south from Washington to capture the moment,  Robinson had planned to capture the scene with a wide-angle shot from a giant tripod.

However, a song overturned his plan. Robinson heard a saxophone rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and immediately trained his lens on a slender African American musician wearing a red shirt, tan shorts and sandals, his form all but buried in the explosion of graffiti and protest art. “The summer afternoon light was fading quickly, and I knew I needed to work fast,” Robinson said. “The scene was so rich.”

 The beloved tune, known as the Black national anthem, was written by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson. With a tinge of melancholy, the tune, with its many verses, remains hopeful, stirring listeners whenever it is performed. 

No one knows what icons, relics, or ruins will line Monument Avenue 50 years from now. Lee’s imposing statue is currently stored, not displayed, at the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia. The fiery colors left by the demonstrators are also part of history. What Robinson’s image shows us is the chaos of an angry transition, but with the added consolation of the saxophone’s soulful accompaniment. 

Familiar friends

Some members’ friends are familiar, such as Ruthie Windsor-Mann, who displays “The Blank Canvas” in homage to her own studio along Tiger Valley Road and to painting itself. As her title suggests, the painting depicts an empty white canvas, with colors squeezed from their tubes nearby and brushes poised. 

Gallery member Nedra Smith is showing a masterful landscape entitled “Partly Cloudy,” celebrating the slightly moody temperament of days that offer brightness and thick clouds. The way mixed skies play with trees, mountains and their diverse shadows makes this painting one to stand in front of for an extended view. 

Shadow play is also a feature in an enticing painting entitled, “Green Door, Seiano,”

by Julienne Clevenger, a friend of Phyllis Magrab’s, a longtime member of the cooperative gallery. The green of the open door plays off sharp blues arrayed beyond the portal. But the dance in this picture is all about the shadows, which, like the gallery show itself, are more light than brooding.

Middle Street Gallery, located at 311 Gay St. in Little Washington, is open from 11a.m.-5 p.m., Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Author

  • Tim Carrington

    Tim Carrington has worked in journalism and economic development, writing for The Wall Street Journal for fifteen years from New York, London and Washington. He later joined the World Bank, where he launched a training program in economics journalism for reporters and editors in Africa and the former Soviet Union. He also served as senior communications officer for the World Bank’s Africa Region.

    He is author of The Year They Sold Wall Street, published by Houghton Mifflin, and worked at McGraw Hill Publications before joining the Wall Street Journal. His writing on development issues has appeared in The Globalist, World Paper, Enterprise Africa, the 2003 book, The Right To Tell: The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development.

    He is a regular writer for The Rappahannock News through the Foothills Forum. His profiles and stories on the county’s political economy have earned several awards from the Virginia Press Association.

    Carrington is also a painter, whose work is regularly shown at the Middle Street Gallery in Little Washington. He grew up in Richmond, Va., and graduated from the University of Virginia. In 2006, he and his wife became part-time resident in Rappahannock County, which is currently their legal residence.

    Reach Tim at [email protected]
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By Tim Carrington

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Tim Carrington has worked in journalism and economic development, writing for The Wall Street Journal for fifteen years from New York, London and Washington. He later joined the World Bank, where he launched a training program in economics journalism for reporters and editors in Africa and the former Soviet Union. He also served as senior communications officer for the World Bank’s Africa Region. He is author of The Year They Sold Wall Street, published by Houghton Mifflin, and worked at McGraw Hill Publications before joining the Wall Street Journal. His writing on development issues has appeared in The Globalist, World Paper, Enterprise Africa, the 2003 book, The Right To Tell: The Role of Mass Media in Economic Development. He is a regular writer for The Rappahannock News through the Foothills Forum. His profiles and stories on the county’s political economy have earned several awards from the Virginia Press Association. Carrington is also a painter, whose work is regularly shown at the Middle Street Gallery in Little Washington. He grew up in Richmond, Va., and graduated from the University of Virginia. In 2006, he and his wife became part-time resident in Rappahannock County, which is currently their legal residence. Reach Tim at [email protected]