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

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:

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

Andrew Raftery’s roots were in East Providence, from where his first generation Irish father came. He grew up in Washington, D.C., made his first print at the age of eleven, and attained a BFA from Boston University and an MFA from the Yale School of Art. Raftery, a professor of printmaking at the Rhode Island

I am a painter who has lived and worked in Providence, Rhode Island for the past forty-one years. I received my BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1971 and my MFA in 1973. My paintings have been in the form of two series: one of self-portraits and the other of

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

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

Born in 1946, Bunny Harvey came to the Rhode Island School of Design where she obtained a BFA, MFA and MAT. In 1974, she won the Rome Prize in Painting from the American Academy in Rome. She soon launched herself on a series of career successes, including many solo exhibitions, thirty years of exclusive gallery

I began working with glass in 1970 because it is an extraordinarily versatile material and I believed that there were endless unexplored possibilities. I still believe this . I employ the vessel as my vehicle of expression because of it’s basic three dimensionality; giving me the possibility of working in 2 and 3 dimensions at

David Barnes is a Newport artist with a long trajectory of success as a painter and teacher in Rhode Island. He received a BFA from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. His recent paintings have reflected his interests in the art historical past as well as the technological, fast-paced present—particularly the Internet.

Leslie Bostrom, born in 1951, received a BA from the University of Maine and an MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an associate professor of art at Brown University. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue     Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Producer: Joseph A. Chazan M.D. Additional Information: Artist’s Website: lesliebostrom.com

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

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

A Pittsburgh native, Boris Bally received a BFA in metals from Carnegie Mellon University. Not afraid to take on the “form versus function” dilemma, Bally is a master of blending fine craft and popular culture. His work is both witty and innovative, employing the use of jeweler’s skills on non-precious materials. His current body of work transforms recycled street signs,

Originally from New Orleans, Coral Bourgeois, born in 1954, received her BFA from Northern Texas State University. An artist who works with tiles, her studio is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue   Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: Miles Stenhouse and the Road to Ruin Producer: Joseph A. Chazan M.D. Additional Information:

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,

Tayo Heuser’s father was in the diplomatic corps; she was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up attending French schools in Europe and Africa. She came to the Rhode Island School of Design, pursued post-graduate study there and obtained her MFA from Vermont College. Originally a painter, but becoming known for sculpture, Heuser today has

CW Roelle grew up in and around Palmyra/ Shortsville/ Manchester NY. The Finger Lakes region. It’s pretty up there. After high school he moved to Baltimore MD to attend The Maryland Institute College of Art. First a Visual Communications major, he quickly realized that graphic design and computers and all that weren’t his thing, so

Ben Anderson, born in 1960, has a BFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the University of California, San Diego. He is an assistant professor at the University of Rhode Island and works from his studio in Warren. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: “Mountain

I make art. The art I make is a product of my experiences, for better or worse. The work often represents my cynical, and sometimes humorous, view of humankind. My motive in making art is not to make art that sells. My motives are to create works that assert my individuality and to exercise the freedom

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.

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

  “‘Written in Stone,’ as the saying goes. This is my work. Tap, tap, tap, announces the dance between mallet, chisel, and stone. The idea of a sculpted surface or dimensional plane with letters carved upon it adds a literal and physical element to the understanding of the words. For fourteen years, I’ve been a

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

A multi-disciplinary artist, Lisa Perez makes abstract sculptural paintings, objects and works on paper that investigate attention, perception and spatial dimension. Fusing the subtle edges between mediums, her practice takes a malleable approach to form. The work invokes minimalism initially, but slowly one encounters an unfolding of playful extremes in color, shadow, form, and a

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

Extraordinary and elegant in quality and beauty, Michael Glancy’s sculptures reveal the artist’s exacting struggle towards perfection. Drawing inspiration from natural macro- and micro-environments, Glancy translates cellular landscapes into elegant jewel-toned sculptural objects. Made with blown and plate glass, copper, bronze, silver, and gold, his works reference science, biology, molecular physics, and mathematics. A native of Detroit, Glancy received a BFA from

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

John Dunnigan is a designer, maker, and educator. A native of Providence, Dunnigan is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, with an MFA in Furniture Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. His work involves a range of contexts, materials, and processes, but it is driven by a consistent interest in things as an expression of

Irene Lawrence is a painter, printmaker, and maker of books as well as a musician who studies the cello and the viola da gamba. Born in California, she grew up on Long Island and came to Providence, where she lives, to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. Lawrence’s work is characterized by an integration of rhythmic strokes using monochromatic

Shawn Kenney, born in Connecticut, grew up in Washington state and the Mid-Atlantic states before returning to New England to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. He has remained in the area, earning a living as an art director, designer and illustrator. Today he paints food and farms, producing luscious looking still lifes that

John Udvardy retired from a thirty-four year career teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design where he chaired the Foundation Studies program and taught three-dimensional design. A sculptor who seeks to make connections between natural and manmade forms, Udvardy collects and categorizes his objects in his studio in a way that indicates what an

Collage is at the heart of John de Melim’s art; to him it is the most cohesive way to represent the myriad of differing realities we experience each day. His images derive from extensive travel and study of ancient cultures in the Amazon, New Guinea, and Mexico, as well as visits to Mali, Japan, and Greece, with his late

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,

Brian Shure is a painter and printmaker working with representations of people in public spaces. He received a BA from Antioch College. He worked as a professional lithographer for 15 years, has published and printed editions under the Smalltree Press imprint, and was a Master Printer and Coordinator of the China Woodblock Program at Crown

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

Duane Slick identifies himself as a first generation urban Indian, born of a father from the Meskwaki Nation in Iowa— where Slick was born in 1961—and a mother from the Ho-Chunk Nation in Nebraska. He received a BFA from the University of Northern Iowa and an MFA from the University of California at Davis. Slick

Sculpture and science intersect in the work of Stephen Metcalf, whose large, often kinetic works derive from a structural principle called ‘tensegrity’—defined by inventor Buckminster Fuller as ‘tensional integrity’ or contemporary sculptor Kenneth Snelson, as ‘floating compression.’ Since his student days at the Kansas City Art Institute, from which he received his BFA in 1972,

Barbara Owen received a dual degree in sculpture and poetry at Bennington College. She wrote a creative thesis under the direction of the poet Ben Belitt, studied sculpture with Brower Hatcher and painting with artist Sidney Tillim. Her work has been featured in numerous venues nationally and in 2016 she was asked to exhibit with

Born in 1957 in Massachusetts, Daniel Clayman trained as a theater and modern dance lighting designer. He received a BFA in glass from the Rhode Island School of Design and has a studio in East Providence, Rhode Island. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue     Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: Myles Producer: Joseph A. Chazan M.D. Additional

Ilse Buchert Nesbitt was born in Germany and spent her childhood in Japan, absorbing the influence of sumi brush painting practiced by her mother. In the 1950s she studied at the Art Academies of Hamburg and Berlin, concentrating on typography and book design. As a personal art form, the woodcut seemed a natural progression from typography; both processes involve the

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 Israel in 1964, Yizhak Elyashiv received a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He lives in Providence and teaches Foundation studies at RISD and Rhode Island College. Source: NetWorks 2009-2010 Catalogue     Credits: Video: Richard Goulis Music: Kai McMurty

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,

My current work consists of geometric shapes that are built by the systematic application of repeated marks to a visual lined structure. It is derived from my previous work where the marks were hung on a linear structure to create an allover painting or drawing. I set up a defined format within which to work

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,

I was born in New York City and moved upstate with my family when I was five. I have always loved painting and drawing. I love the minutiae of everyday urban /postindustrial life. I like brief bios and statements, believing that the artwork is where the communication takes place. That’s my statement and i’m sticking

Julie Gearan enjoys exploring a narrative in her painting; she describes herself as “a painter of themes that connect human relationships of past and present, linking ancient myths with our current everyday lives.” She also is interested in the portrait as a genre, and has recently been selected to paint the official portrait of Governor Lincoln D. Chafee. Gearan received