Past Exhibitions 2018-2019
Rhode Island College 3-D Faculty exhibition
Dates: August 30–September 21, 2018
The Annual Faculty Exhibition offers an opportunity for the community to experience firsthand the inspirational and virtuoso talent that is in residence at Rhode Island College.
These faculty artists are integral to the current aesthetic and formal dialogue in their various approaches to art practice, including research-based and interdisciplinary methods that are the core of best practice models. RIC’s faculty exhibits widely they receive many prestigious awards, grants, and residencies. As a result, they encourage students by their example to think across boundaries. Collectively, these distinguished, award-winning artists bring a unique vision to the region’s cultural tapestry.
Brandon Ballengée: Ti-tânes and Other Myths of the Anthropocene
Dates: October 4–26, 2018
Curated by Hyewon Yi, this solo exhibition by Brandon Ballengée, artist, biologist, environmental activist, and educator, presents a diverse body of work that expresses the artist’s concern for communities both human and non-human as they are affected by climate change and other ecological impacts of the Anthropocene. Ballengée advocates a collective creative effort by artists, scientists, and others in order to overcome the host of today’s global environmental issues. For this exhibition, Ballengée offers four series of diverse artworks in the form of installations, photographs, and mixed media that present dynamic visual representations of species in decline and threatened with extinction.
Four Americans in Cuba
Dates: November 8–December 14, 2018
‘Four Americans in Cuba’ features work from four Rhode Island Photographers – David DeMelim, Eileen McCarney-Muldoon, David Pinkham, and Cindy Wilson – who have traveled to Cuba multiple times starting in 2013. The exhibition takes a look inside, focusing on daily life, and speaks to the human condition and the pace of change. Drawing on the shared experience, this exhibition focuses on the people of Cuba and sparks a dialogue on the necessity of change and the resilience of the Cuban People.
Graphic Design: Konkuk University
Dates: January 24–February 15, 2019
Facilitated by Rhode Island College Graphic Design Professor Heemong Kim, Graphic Design: Konkuk University features selected works from graduating students studying at Konkuk University in South Korea. The university’s objective is to develop creative designers aware of their social responsibilities through an understanding of humanity, society, technology, philosophy and culture.
Sophie Kahn: Machines for Suffering
Dates: February 28–March 22, 2019
Sophie Kahn's work explores the ways in which technology misunderstands the human body. The precisely engineered 3d laser scanner she uses was never designed to capture the human body, which is always in motion. When confronted with a motion, it receives conflicting spatial coordinates, generating glitch. She outputs this damaged data as prints, video and hand-finished, 3D printed sculptures. The works that result draw inspiration from funereal and memorial sculpture, and appear to be faux-historical forgeries – or contemporary relics. In this exhibition, she presents a new body of work that depicts the female body as monumental architecture - a project under continuous construction (or possibly demolition).
Kelli Rae Adams: work / study
Dates: April 4–26, 2019
Artist Talk: Thursday, April 4th, 4 pm, in Alex and Ani, Room 140
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 4th, 5–7 pm, in the gallery
Artist in Residency: April 22–April 26, in the gallery
Panel Conversation and Closing Reception:
Friday, April 26, 4 pm, in Alex and Ani, Room 138
Featuring Kelli Rae Adams; Natasha Seaman, Curator and Professor of Art History at Rhode Island College; and Marc Shell, Irving Babbit Professor of Comparative Literature and Professor of English at Harvard University
*If you have a bowl or jar full of accumulated change you are willing to contribute to the installation, please bring it with you to the gallery. Those who offer up a bowlful of mixed coins will receive one of the vessels from the installation when the project is complete.
Curated by Professor Natasha Seaman, work / study focuses on artist Kelli Rae Adams’ material data visualization of the current student debt crisis in the United States. As a work-in-progress showing, this exhibition serves as the debut of a long-term project entitled Forever in Your Debt. In this first phase of the project, several hundred handmade bowls will represent the volume, in coins, of the median U.S. student loan debt of $17,000. Over the coming months, Adams will add both bowls and contributed coins, culminating in a visualization of the mean student debt burden for a current college graduate, a figure which stands at approximately $37,000. Visitors are invited to contribute their household change in exchange for one of the bowls, which they will receive once the project is complete. Referencing not only the widespread custom of household change bowls but also that of the begging bowl, the project renders visible the largely abstract understanding of the national student debt. As a whole, the exhibition invites reflection on the realities of time, value, and labor; of vulnerability and impermanence; and of reward and sacrifice. Specifically, the works probe prevailing systems of quantifying both labor and higher education, positing questions regarding the effectiveness, sustainability and humanity of these systems.
This exhibition is sponsored by the Bannister Gallery Performing and Fine Arts Commission Student Group.
Annual Graduating Art Students’ Exhibition
Dates: May 2–17, 2019
The Bannister Gallery is pleased to present its annual exhibition of work by graduating seniors in the Art Department. Various studio concentrations represented include ceramics, metalsmithing, painting, printmaking, digital media, graphic design, photography and sculpture. Degrees earned through the Art Department include a B.S. in Art Education, a B.F.A. in Art Education, a B.A. in Art History, a B.A. in Art Studio, and a B.F.A. in Art Studio, the latter of which requires students to develop a stylistically accomplished and conceptually focused body of work. This exhibition showcases the capstone of each student’s course of study at Rhode Island College and will highlight works by Jackie Cressman, winner of the Harriet Brisson Award in Ceramics, and Lauren DelBrocco, winner of the Graduating Senior Award in Art.