What Will Persist: Elizabeth Coffey and Sally Veach at The Athenaem

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Elizabeth Coffey

“Lost and Found” by Elizabeth Coffey, oil, acrylic, lace curtain, canvas, 36” x 30”, 2024

Woodstock Artist Sally Veach Opens Exhibition at

Alexandria’s Athenaeum Gallery

What Will Persist, a duo show with Richmond-based painter Elizabeth Coffey, opens

March 12

ALEXANDRIA, VA — Sally Veach, a painter who has called Woodstock, Virginia home

for 38 years, will open a new exhibition at the Athenaeum Gallery in Old Town

Alexandria this March. What Will Persist, a duo show with Richmond painter Elizabeth

Coffey, runs March 12 through April 19, 2026, with an artist’s reception on Sunday,

March 22, from 4 to 6 pm.

Veach, who splits her time between Woodstock and Alexandria and maintains a studio

at the Torpedo Factory Art Center, is becoming known in the Washington, D.C. regional

arts scene while remaining deeply connected to the Shenandoah Valley. Shenandoah

Valley audiences may know her work from her 2019 exhibition at the Museum of the

Shenandoah Valley in Winchester. Her work is held in private, public, and corporate

collections in the region.

“I am excited to see the culmination of years of influence by the Shenandoah County

landscape in the work that will be showing at The Athenaeum, and to see how my work

relates to Elizabeth’s portraits of women on lace,” said Veach.

About the Exhibition

Veach and Coffey both use layered processes and historically charged materials to

examine how meaning accumulates on surfaces. Veach builds palimpsestic landscapes

— paintings in which earlier marks and histories remain visible beneath the surface —

informed by Romantic painting traditions and archival botanical designs. Her work

draws on 18th-century chintz patterns and Hudson River School references to explore

humanity’s relationship to the natural world.

Coffey paints women on lace curtains and expanded textile supports, pairing figuration

with language. Seen together, the two bodies of work present painting as a porous form

—one that resists containment and remains open to what persists beneath the surface.

Exhibition Details

Exhibition: What Will Persist

Artists: Sally Veach and Elizabeth Coffey

Dates: March 12 – April 19, 2026

Reception: Sunday, March 22, 4–6 pm (open to the public)

Venue: The Athenaeum Gallery, 201 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA 22314

Hours: Thursday–Sunday, 12–4 pm

Admission: Free

About Sally Veach

Sally Veach is a visual artist based in Woodstock and Alexandria, Virginia. A painter for

more than a decade, she has developed a distinctive layered technique that combines

gestural landscape painting with appropriated 18th-century chintz patterns and

references to Hudson River School masters. Her work has been exhibited widely in the

region and is held in permanent collections at the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley,

the City of Alexandria, and the County of Fairfax, VA, as well as numerous private and

corporate collections. She maintains a studio at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in

Alexandria. Upcoming exhibitions include solo shows at McLean Project for the Arts in

McLean, VA, and Goggleworks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA.

About the Athenaeum Gallery

The Athenaeum Gallery is the headquarters of the Northern Virginia Fine Arts

Association (NVFAA), founded in 1964 and dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in all

forms of art. Located at 201 Prince Street in Old Town Alexandria, the gallery exhibits

work created solely by artists living or working in the Northern Virginia region. Gallery

hours are Thursday through Sunday, 12 to 4 pm.