Photographer Annu Palakunnathu Matthew was born in England in 1964, grew up in India and lives in Providence; she is a professor of art at the University of Rhode Island. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Additional footage: David H. Wells Music: “Kirvani” (Veena Improvisation) performed by L. Ramakrishan, Recorded at Lars Nesbakken’s house, Portland,

Dennis Congdon holds a BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale University. In 1983 he won the Prix de Rome and became a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. He has been on the faculty at RISD since 1984 and has also taught at the School

David DeMelim pursues parallel explorations in printmaking and photography. He earned a BFA from the University of Rhode Island, studying with Bart Parker and Chris Cordes, and has been involved in advancing computer driven printing technology. With a focus on the built landscape and its human connections, DeMelim considers form, weight and proximity in his

Howard Ben Tré’s sculpture, and especially, as we shall see, his public works, are permeated by idealism. Even when his sculptures are intended for more private viewing, they draw on forms that are at once simple and universal. Ben Tré recounts that he began to cast glass when he looked at the molten liquid and

Installation artist, filmmaker, and author Ann Fessler has spent four decades using her platform as an artist to bring hidden histories and stories to light. She turned to the subject of adoption in 1989 and has produced three documentary films, numerous audio and video installations, and written an award-winning book, The Girls Who Went Away,

Born in 1973, Brian Chippendale grew up around the Philadelphia area. His entry into the Providence art and music scene came after graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in printmaking in the early 1990s. He began to make posters and comics and was one of four founders of Fort Thunder, a warehouse space

McDonald Wright transferred from the Pennsylvania College of Technology to the Rhode Island School of Design, where he graduated with a BFA in photography. He lives in Providence, and continues to use a manual camera and film photography over digital technology. Source in: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue   Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: Debra Mann Additional

Born in Rhode Island in 1963, Stephen Brownell has a degree in botany from the University of Rhode Island, but pursues a painting career at his Providence studio. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Still Photography: Scott Lapham, Erik Gould Music: DB Leonard Executive Producer: Joseph A. Chazan M.D

Born in 1954 in Wisconsin, Donna Bruton received a BFA from Michigan State University, an MFA from Yale University and a certificate in painting from the Art Institute of Chicago. She resided in Portsmouth, Rhode Island and was a professor of painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video:

After completing a BS in metals and painting at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, Monica Shinn moved to Providence in 1996. She has worked as a writer, a painter, a carpenter, a metalsmith, a welder, and an electrician. Having a technician’s knowledge and a fine art training informs both her design work and

Life’s course does not always follow the planned route. These days, as time allows, I am drawn to the sea, to bask in its restorative powers. I was raised on the water, the daughter of a sailor, and have always had an emotional response to the sea’s energy. I paint from life, plein air, in

Paul Housberg creates site-specific works in glass for corporate, hospitality, healthcare and public environments. He says, “my work explores the juxtaposition of order and randomness, as well as the natural human tendency to seek pattern in chaos, our persistent desire to find meaning in disorder. I’m inspired by the ordinary, yet strangely beautiful, phenomenon of

Peter Marcus’ recent focus is on “The New American Family,” the title of his recent exhibition at the Newport Art Museum. Marcus creates large-scale composite prints using a unique collagraph printmaking process. He says that his work crosses boundaries between painting, printmaking and drawing. As a professor of art at Washington University in St. Louis,

Gail Whitsitt-Lynch’s art reflects her curiosity and fascination with animate structures, examining how and why they appear over and over again in nature. With her work she hopes to draw viewers into a dialogue, intending to widen the definition of artists’ community. She explores a variety of materials, both two- and three-dimensional. Wood is the

Richard Fishman grew up in Roxbury, Massachusetts and attended Boston University before transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design for his BFA. In New Orleans, at Tulane University, he earned an MFA. In 1965, Fishman began teaching at Brown University where he has contributed to the remarkable growth in the institution’s arts departments. His

Esther Solondz grew up in New Jersey, receiving a BA from Clark University in 1975 and an MFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1980. She also pursued graduate work in film at New York University. Solondz’ artistic life has been an evolution through many different materials. Beginning with photography and

Ana Flores is a sculptor and ecological designer. Her work, focusing on cultural and ecological narratives, is shown internationally and is in private, corporate and institutional collections throughout the United States and abroad. For two decades she has been promoting interdisciplinary dialogue and groundbreaking collaborations among the arts, sciences and humanities, working with communities to

Mark Taber’s artistic world is one of other people’s “junk” assembled to create fantastical chariots. These assemblages of everyday objects that the Rhode Island native, born in 1943, has been making for over twenty years are often whimsical but also a trip into “a parallel reality,” as Taber says. Music informs Taber’s visions as well, sometimes

Nancy Friese obtained her BS in nursing from the University of North Dakota, in the state where she was born and maintains a farmstead studio. She changed her career course and studied painting and printmaking at different venues, culminating in an MFA from the Yale University School of Art in 1980. Primarily a landscape painter

Meg Little successfully combines function with fine art in her handtufted rugs with designs inspired by ancient petroglyphs as well as modern art. Little received her BFA from Tyler School of Art and an MAE from the Rhode Island School of Design. She taught at Plymouth College of Art and Design in England for several

Born in 1927 to Greek immigrant parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Thomas Sgouros is a fifty year veteran of the Rhode Island School of Design Department of Illustration, where he became department chair in 1975. Currently he paints “Remembered Landscapes” in his studio at the Fleur de Lys building, part of the Providence Art Club. Source:

Hank Gilpin enrolled at the Rhode Island School of Design to do graduate work in photojournalism after serving as a photojournalist in Vietnam. He instead discovered the joy of woodworking under the influence of instructor Tage Frid, who convinced Gilpin to enter the world of studio furniture. After apprenticing with Frid, Gilpin established his shop

Peter Prip, the son of Danish master metalsmith John Prip, was born in Denmark, shortly before his father came to teach at the Rhode Island School of Design. Prip attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Craftsmen, and after an apprenticeship with Ronald Pearson, launched a career as a studio metalsmith and jeweler.

Her love of Celtic culture inspires the creative life of artist Laura Travis. She is a sculptor, carving primarily in limestone, soapstone and slate, and has more than 20 years experience teaching Visual Art at all levels. Travis came to Rhode Island College from New York to study art education. For many years she had a studio at AS220,

A multi-faceted artist and musician, Andrew Moon Bain was born in 1974 in Texas and grew up in the Pacific Northwest, playing classical music in the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. Since receiving a BFA in sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Bain has become an active part of the Providence arts community as

As the founder and president of Morris Nathanson Design, with offices in New York, Boston and Providence, Morris Nathanson has led projects all over the world. He has won many awards for his hospitality venues and restaurants. In 1986, after decades of business travel, Nathanson settled down in his native city, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and

Wendy Edwards’ gravitation from a childhood on a farm in Virginia to undergraduate study in Philadelphia at the University of the Arts, to several years spent in the Southwest earning her MA at the University of New Mexico, has informed her tenure as Professor of Art at Brown University. She came to Providence and Brown

James Reynolds, born in 1962, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, and studied metalsmithing in San Miguel de Allende in central Mexico. He works from his studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Executive Producer: Joseph A. Chazan M.D. Additional resources: Artist’s website: jamesreynoldsmetalwork.com

Saberah Malik, of Warwick, has combined the traditional and the innovative in both her art and her life. The daughter of an Indian civil engineer, Malik was a first generation Pakistani who grew up traveling throughout Pakistan, absorbing the region’s art and culture. She received her BFA and MFA in graphic design and was awarded

Jesse Burke is a New England native and currently lives in Rhode Island with his wife and their three girls—Clover, Poppy, and Honey. He received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is a faculty member, and his BFA from the University of Arizona. Burke’s work deals with themes related to

Best known as the creator and, since 1994, the artistic and executive director of WaterFire, Barnaby Evans received his BS in biology and environmental science from Brown University in 1975. He had an early career as a photographer, exhibiting his work nationally and internationally. Today WaterFire epitomizes Evans’ mission to create innovative art works that

Jillian Barber, originally from England, grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design where she studied ceramics with Norm Schulman and glass with Dale Chihuly. Barber has had a career in ceramic sculpture, mask making and costume design. She brings a passion for portraiture to her mythical and

Deborah Baronas grew up on a New England farm and came of age as a designer in the textile industry. These working cultures have influenced her artistic investigations into the history of the American worker. Textiles are Baronas’ primary medium. In site-specific installations she creates interactive environments with scrims, paintings, drawings, video, music and photography.

Looking back throughout my 40 years of photographing what do I see through that clear singular reflective lens of time? From my first photograph, a self-portrait with dark glasses and a beret, to my most recent photograph, a self-portrait in a rat temple in Bikaner, India, the one word that jumps out at me is

I have been painting and drawing forever, and from the moment my little fingers picked up a bulky crayon my love for all things art began. I always wanted to be an artist, and throughout my life I have been blessed with people that have pushed me in the right directions. My artwork is driven

A native Californian born in 1980, Corey Grayhorse came to Rhode Island in 2002. She brought with her a California flair for fantasy that emerges in her photographs of costumed participants wearing tutus, dayglo outfits or animal masks, evoking her own Alice in Wonderland scenario and often drawing on popular culture. Grayhorse, who studied photography

Astrid, an American artist born in Havana, Cuba, has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an MFA from Hunter College; she works from her studio at AS220 in Providence. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: “”Opus I,”” Es Kisher Lousnyag Kisher (This Starry Night) Komitas © 2009 TFA-13-E, Cuba,

Artist Meredith Stern obtained a BFA in Ceramics at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is a member of the international printmaking group called The Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and has a multi-faceted practice that includes printmaking, ‘zine publishing, gardening, and utilitarian ceramic ware. Stern has received project grants from RISCA, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund,

Kate Blacklock’s early love of ceramics came from her viewing of the Pre-Columbian pottery at New York’s Museum of Natural History where her mother worked. Blacklock received her BA from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design. In her studio art, Blacklock has

Nicole Chesney, born in 1971, moved to Providence seven years ago, after undergraduate studies at the California College of Art and the Massachusetts College of Art, as well as an MA from the Canberra School of Art, Australian National University. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: Written and Performed by Michael Delia “Piece

Allison Paschke explores dimensionality and geometry in her abstract sculptures and installations. She uses reflective and translucent materials such as mirrors, porcelain, and resin. Her work is interactive, affected by space and light, and is intended to stimulate one’s inner psyche as well as one’s aesthetic appreciation. Paschke received a BFA in ceramics from the

Eugene Lee is a Tony Award-winning set designer who has been resident designer at Trinity Rep since 1967. Born in 1939 in Wisconsin, he received BFA degrees from Carnegie Mellon and the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Yale School of Drama. Set designs for New York theater have included Sweeney Todd, Candide,

Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer whose work explores issues of culture, community, and visibility. She undertakes long-term, in-depth projects, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, RISCA, RICH, and others. “City of Champions,” her first public installation, in her hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts, was featured on the New York Times LENS blog,

Judyth vanAmringe’s art is based on years of design work as well as the intricacies of artistic process. She is a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and has attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. For many years vanAmringe worked in New York City as a designer, running a business that made accessories

Dean Snyder’s sculpture has been characterized as “uncanny ‘graphical’ organicism experienced through seamless assemblies of highly considered forming, molding, and lamination.” Drawing plays a large role in Snyder’s studio. A native of Philadelphia, Snyder received a BFA in photography and sculpture at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1974; a British Arts Council Fellowship for

Well-known as the creator of The Plaza of Art and Cultures/La Plaza del Arte y Las Culturas, the mural on Broad Street in Providence, Agustín Patiño was born in Ecuador in 1969, studied architecture at Cuenca State University and received his BFA in painting from Central University of Quito. He paints and resides in Providence.

Performance art was the catalyst for David Allyn’s career as a ceramic artist. His gigs as “Uncle Thirsty” led him to make ceramic cups, which he says led to a “more grounded” approach to his craft. Using photo decals and silkscreen printing on porcelain, Allyn creates one-of-a-kind handmade porcelain objects, filled with color and imagery.

Erminio Pinque is the founder and artistic director of BIG NAZO, an international performance group and creature-making studio in Providence. Originally from New York, he has lived in Providence since receiving his BFA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he now teaches a course in creature creation. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue