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BankRI Gallery
One Turks Head Place
July 2-August 5
"Layers of Transaction: Paintings & Collages by Michele L’Heureux”
Gallery Night Providence reception Thursday July 16, 2009 from 5 to 8:30 pm
Mark Armstrong will play guitar and refreshments will be served.
 
MEET THE ARTIST
By her own count Providence artist Michele L’Heureux has had at least twelve other careers including teacher, carpenter, grant writer and marketing consultant.  “I was too chicken to devote myself to art,” she explains.  “So every two years or so I would change careers.  I got itchy.”  
 
L’Heureux grew up in Fall River and Somerset surrounded by artistic influences. Her mother dabbled in painting as a young woman and now studies basket weaving.  Her father was a music aficionado and her grandfather a draftsman. As a child, L’Heureux took art classes at the Rhode Island School of Design and remembers making paint by mixing berries out in the yard.  When it came time to attend school, L’Heureux went off to Wheaton College where she studied art and then to Temple University in Philadelphia where she graduated with a master’s degree in philosophy.
 
Then came “fifteen or twenty years of poking around.”  “I could never make it [art] central,” L’Heureux says.  “It was too hard.”   Instead she worked at other careers, made art part time and exhibited her work infrequently.  
 
Two years ago, L’Heureux made up her mind: it was time to be an artist full time.  She applied to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was accepted into their graduate program for fine arts.  L’Heureux felt that graduate school would provide a perfect transition into a fulltime art-making career.  Two years later, she has completed the program and is preparing to move with her partner Davi to a new 2,000 square foot live/work studio space in the Waltham Mills just outside of Boston.  She recently had her first solo show at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River and will be exhibiting in the Providence and Boston areas this year and next.
 
“It’s petrifying, but finally in a good way,” L’Heureux says happily. “It’s no longer paralyzing. I am where I need to be right now. I don’t have aspirations to be in the next Whitney Biennial,” she continues.  “I want to make the work and get it out there and sell it. I am pretty thrilled about it.”
 
L’Heureux’s collages and paintings are two- and three-dimensional forays into worlds “where meaning can’t be fixed, where what is revealed and what is hidden is constantly shifting.” She makes use of many different techniques – screen printing, acrylic painting, stenciling and collage – to create her paintings.  
 
She is a curious artist, always “peeking through the layers.”   She loves community bulletin boards with their tangible evidence of life’s layers, ripped off and pinned on, over and over again.  She is a “collector of ephemera and paper, and “just can’t seem to throw things out.”  Bits and pieces of her collections surface in her paintings, as do isolated images, easily recognizable but divorced from their normal surroundings.  Her paintings with their built up surfaces and use of found objects are tactile examples of the flotsam and jetsam of life.
 
L”Heureux is currently exploring gender ambiguity in her paintings.  “How do you talk about gender abstractly?” she asks.  “I am at the very beginning of that journey.”
 
 The BankRI Galleries are curated by Paula Martiesian.  Paula Martiesian is a Providence-based artist and arts advocate.

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Chapel Gallery & Labyrinth
Mathewson Street United Methodist Church
134 Mathewson Street

JULY 1-31: MUNIR D. MOHAMMED: REVISIONED - NEW WORKS
Artist Reception: Thurs, July 16 5-9pm
Organ Concerts by David Clyle Morse at 7 pm and 7:45 pm
Labyrinth will be available for meditative walking and personal reflection on the 4th floor.

This exhibit provides a few examples of Munir’s dynamic earlier work in oil and acrylic, including abstracts and realistic work, created with brush and palate knife of Ghanian life and culture, as a point of departure for his new representing the local landscape and life in watercolor and mixed media. In all of Munir’s work there one hears the breath of life and sees the manifestation of spirit regardless of the medium or style. This is also true in the new work of Rhode Island life and landscape.

Munir D. Mohammed is a native of Ghana, West Africa. He was born in Kumasi the second largest city in Ghana and as a child he was not encouraged to draw or paint. Mohammed said his first medium of artistic expression was neither pen-and-ink nor oils, it was sand. With his finger he drew pictures in the sand before he was sent to grade school where he was introduced to chalk, pencils and crayons.

After graduating from Ghanatta College of Art where he received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree, he took a job designing and painting billboards by hand with a commercial art company. In 1979 he opened his own studio in Accra painting general subjects from the villages, towns to cities. He received commissions painting portraits of several West African heads of state including presidents and prominent people. In 1981 he moved his studio to Freetown, Sierra Leone and lived there for seven years.

In the United States, he had participated in over 25 individual and group shows and painted about 22 community based and school setting murals. In 1996 he co-founded The International Gallery for Heritage and Culture. He is the Artistic Director and had supervised an average of 35 AmeriCorps artists per year, providing art and cultural education programs in schools and in the community. In 1999, he received his Master of Arts Degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Mohammed is still an active studio painter.

The Chapel Gallery is an intimate gallery space of 20' x 30' where a new show is open each month as well as special music events. The church also hosts an 11-circuit labyrinth patterned after the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France, open on Gallery Nights from 5 pm to 8:45 pm. Organ Concerts are presented in the sanctuary on the 2nd floor at 7 pm and 7:45 pm each Gallery Night.  

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Copacetic Rudely Elegant Jewelry
17 Peck Street * New Location

Ongoing: Copacetic Rudely Elegant Jewelry opened in 1985 and carries jewelry and clocks from over 120 artists, including 30 of which are local. Copacetic also carries a variety of unique gadgets and repairs are done not only on
fine jewelry, but also on sterling silver, antique, and costume jewelry.

Copacetic Rudely Elegant Jewelry Inc. after residing in the Arcade since 1985, is now located just 100 steps away, across Weybosset St. next to the Providence Cookie Co. at 17 Peck St.

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Hotel Providence
129 Westminster St.
401.490.8144
www.thehotelprovidence.com 
Gallery Night Exhibit: July 16-30, 2009
Abandoned: Robyn Rowles + Anthony Champa
The RISD gallery is located on the second floor of the Hotel Providence.
It  is open to the public 7 days a week, daily/nightly (pending an event in the space). The exhibit will be available to the public for two weeks beginning with the July 16th opening.

The Hotel Providence is thrilled to be showcasing two acclaimed photographers for their July Gallery Night. The exhibited work is based on the common theme of abandoned places, both rural and urban. The images are haunting, vacant, affecting, yet beautifully and poignantly preserved within the lens.

Robyn Rowles has been creating fine art photos for 5 years professionally.  However, she has been taking pictures since she was a young child.  Her love of photography comes from her father, Jim, who was her first, and best, teacher.
Over the years Robyn has traveled all over the world taking various fine art pictures that comprise her extensive portfolio.  In 2006, she opened Robyn Rowles Photography Gallery, Studio & Cafe in the New Town area of Edinburgh, Scotland.  In 2008, Robyn joined the Edinburgh Zoo on a delegation trip they took to China to secure the Giant Panda at the Zoo.  As a result of that trip her photos were featured on the front page of Scotland's leading newspaper, The Scotsman, as well as being used by the BBC and news agencies worldwide.  

Robyn’s exhibit for Galley Night will include a series of houses in the rural southern United States that have been abandoned.  These pictures capture the chaos, loss and sadness of lives forever changed by unknown circumstances. Robyn is presently developing a book based on this subject titled ‘Secondhand Serenade’.

Anthony Champa is a graduate of Parsons School of Design.  His photography and multi-media work has been shown internationally.   
In this exhibition he is showing a number of photographs from two separate bodies of work, each a study in the entropic nature of abandoned urban spaces.  In studying single-use spaces, schools, hospitals, police stations and the like after they are no longer needed, he raises questions regarding the actual meanings of interior spaces when they are seen as having no further purpose to serve.
These two series of photographs, shown for the first time together represent the remarkable similarities extant across a broad cultural gap.   One project was completed as a study in the abandoned Soviet era architecture still remaining in Leipzig, Germany.  The other project, achieved with the assistance of the office of Mayor David Cicilline reflects on the vacant Police and Fire station that once stood in downtown Providence.

OOP!
220 Westminster Street
July 2009: Mary Harmen
I make rants to laugh, cry, love more, wonder and feel alive and rooted. Unbearable losses in my 20’s launched years of wandering. Too much school, travel, moving and more led me to simple truths: don’t run from those you love, or from what is your life! My studio and home in South Dartmouth, MA is near the wondrous light and fog of Padanaram harbor. It is filled with the loving energy of my husband Matt, my two dogs Lainie and Clark and students who come to learn printmaking or experience the simple joy of making something with their own hands and hearts.

OOP! is a Contemporary American Craft Gallery.  Founded in 1990 by husband and wife team, Jennifer Neuguth and David Riordan.  OOP!  showcases young and established Amercian craft artisans work in jewelry, furniture, ceramics, glass, toys and more along side contemporary giftware and funstuff from here there and everywhere. Please visit all our OOP! locations: Downcity Providence at 220 Westminster Street and Wakefield RI at South County Commons.

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Picture This Gallery and Framing Center
45 Weybosset Street
Monday - Friday 9-6
Ongoing
A truly unique gallery showing original works by Rhode Island artists, featuring limited edition photography by Richard Benjamin.  The gallery also displays a large selection of framed antique maps of Rhode Island and around the world along with framed antique bird and fish prints.

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Providence Art Windows
Storefront locations in Downtown Providence
On view 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
June 18-September 11, 2009
Opening reception at Design Within Reach (210 Westminster Street, Providence, RI 02903) on June 18, from 5:30-7:30 pm
Art and art installations in nine downtown windows by:

Providence Art Windows exhibits juried art and art installations to fill empty retail spaces in Downtown Providence. Our shows change three times a year and feature local and nationally known artists, juried by local residents, downtown artists and professionals. Providence Art Windows adds to the walking experience in the revitalized Downcity area for locals and tourists alike. Providence Art Windows won the 2008 Boston Art Award’s "People's Choice" for best Public Exposure for Artists. For more information about Providence Art Windows, and to download a current map, please go to providenceartwindows.blogspot.com.

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URI Feinstein Providence Campus Gallery
(1st and 2nd floor lobby) 80 Washington Street 
July 1- August 20 : ART FROM THE STREETS
Gallery Receptions July 16 & August 20 5-9pm
A PLACE CALLED HOME July 16 and August 20 at 6pm and 7pm.
Featuring performances by and about of Rhode Islanders’ experiences of being Homeless.

The mixed media exhibit includes Art from recycled/found objects to highlight the need to recycle and Live Green, plus TAG and GRAFFITI as well as art about Homelessness and the Housing Crisis in Rhode Island to bring attention and understanding of the issues and the impact of people’s lives. The hope is that this will inspire ideas, solutions and action. Included in the exhibit is work by Scott Allinson, Nichole Dingee Allinson, Heather Adels, Mauro Affronti, Constance Allen, Sharon Armore, Brenna R Barr, Mary Ellen Benoit, Meredith Cutler, Lisa Decesare, Melanie Ducharme, Reguards K. Gillett, Stephen P Gross, Sean Harrington, Steve Hayes, JEROCK, Lee Johnson, Mark Maher, John McCaughey, Nick McKnight, Vanessa Miller, Zan Nord, Lincoln Read, Hannah Resseger, Joshua CJG Robinson, Araham Abdus-Sabur, Rebecca Siemering, Andrew Sloan, Kathleen Sonia, Joseph Sorel, Jacqueline Sylvia. VASE ONE. Artist from ART REACH & AFIA programs at Mathewson Street Church, McAuley House Arts program, AS220 Photographic Memory Group (including Kourtnie Aileru, Jolnilka Calcona, Kia Davis, Scott Lapham, Courtney Mitchell, Alan Martinez, Sandra Negron, Benito Rios, Caitlyn Watts, Imani Walter, Chandelle Wilson, and students from the Rhode Island Training School.

The multimedia performances are the culmination of a series of workshops and oral history interviews. An additional exhibit will take place August 1-20 at Mathewson Street Church as a culmination of ARTSREACH workshops in creative writing, painting, and photography.

For information call Steven Pennell 401-277-5206 or visit www.uri.edu/prov

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PARKING LOTS
Parking is free from 5 to 9 pm on Gallery Night only.
Free parking lots will be designated with Gallery Night signs.
Visitors do not need to show a voucher or ticket when parking.
Gallery Night Providence and lot owners are not responsible for damage, theft or injury.
Downtown
Closest Parking Lot:
One Regency Place off of Greene Street (near the Providence Public Library)