Uncategorized – Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery

Jodie Mim Goodnough: Paper Trail

February 27 – March 26, 2025

Public Reception: Thursday, February 27 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM

The Department of Art and Art History is pleased to announce the opening of Jodie Mim Goodnough: Paper Trail, an exhibition of photographs in Salve Regina University’s Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery.

“Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of introspective significance (the making of history in the final instance).”

–Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and Production of History, 1995

In this one-person interactive exhibition, the artist explores Trouillot’s idea of historical production through the lens of her personal photographic archive, compiled during her sabbatical in the fall of 2024. During this period, she scanned over thirty years of negatives (the sources) and assembled these and her digital images into a complete archive of her photographic work thus far. Visitors to the exhibition will be asked to take part in moment #3, the process of making of narratives, by creating their own collections from the hundreds of physical prints present in the gallery.

Goodnough’s interest in the subjectivity of archives, both personal and institutional, has evolved through her years teaching documentary photography and image literacy to Salve Regina University students. Often, to emphasize the medium’s troubled relationship to the truth, she has asked her students to perform the same task requested of visitors here – to select images from a larger set that illustrate their point of view, regardless of the original intent of the photographer. After the exhibition will come moment #4, that of introspective significance, as these viewer-created collections inform the artist’s future projects.

Jodie Mim Goodnough is a multidisciplinary artist based in Pawtucket, RI. She attended the photography program at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine in 2007 and received her MFA from Tufts University in 2013. Goodnough is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Artist Grant, a RISCA Grant in Photography, and a Tufts University Alumni Travel Grant, and has attended residencies at UCross Foundation, Wassaic Project, and ChaNorth, among others. Her work has been shown nationally in both solo and group exhibitions, including at Spring/Break Art Show in New York, ArtPort Kingston, and in the solo exhibition Biophilia at the Newport Art Museum in Newport, RI. Goodnough is currently an Associate Professor of Art in at Salve Regina University.

The exhibition Jodie Mim Goodnough: Paper Trail runs from February 27 through March 26, 2025. On Thursday, February 27 the campus community and the general public are invited to attend a reception for the artist. This reception will run from 5:00 to 7:00 PM in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina University. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence and Leroy Avenues. Its exhibits are open Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00 to 6:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00 to 5:00 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays noon to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. We invite you to visit us.

Alicia Renadette: Resurfacing

January 23 – February 19, 2025

Public Reception: Thursday, January 23 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM

The Department of Art and Art History is pleased to announce the opening of Alicia Renadette: Resurfacing, an exhibition of mixed-media sculpture and drawings in Salve Regina University’s Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery.

In this one-person exhibition, viewers encounter nearly twenty new works that vary in methodology, material, and size. From large scale wall pieces and immersive floor sculptures to multi-layered drawings and smaller works on pedestals, Renadette welcomes us into a world of strangely familiar, yet alien forms that are teeming with energies, histories, and growth.

Alicia Renadette is a Rhode Island-based multi-disciplinary artist and Salve Regina’s most recent Artist-in-Residence. Her work mines domestic life for objects rich in association with memory, childhood, and identity. She collects, deconstructs, and transforms these discarded and often banal objects into entangled and encrusted mutant forms. Through her accretive process that involves, sewing, cobbling, and collage, Renadette’s sculptural abstractions become enlivened with new layers of information and hybrid meaning.

Renadette’s work has been exhibited nationally with shows at the Sculpture Center (NY); Southern Exposure (San Francisco); Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (VT) and at the Governor’s Island Art Fair (NYC). She has been the recipient of grants from RISCA, Assets for Artists with Mass MoCA, Vermont Studio Center and the local cultural councils of Holyoke and Lowell, MA. Renadette holds an MFA in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BFA in Experimental Studio/ Sculpture from the Hartford Art School. She is currently the Gallery Co-Director at OVERLAP, Newport, RI. Her home studio is in Providence, RI.

The exhibition Alicia Renadette: Resurfacing runs from January 23 through February 19, 2025. On Thursday, January 23 the campus community and the general public are invited to attend a reception for the artist. This reception will run from 5:00 to 7:00 PM in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina University. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence and Leroy Avenues. Its exhibits are open Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:00 to 6:00 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00 to 5:00 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays noon to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. We invite you to visit us.

Fashion and Longing: Gilded Age Dress in New England

October 10 – November 24, 2024

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 10, 2024, from 5:00 to 7:00 pm

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery and Salve Regina University’s Department of Art and Art History are pleased to announce the opening of Fashion and Longing: Gilded Age Dress in New England, an exhibition that explores a transformative period in Newport’s social and cultural history through a critical analysis of dress and adornment.

Fashion and Longing: Gilded Age Dress in New England transports viewers to a time of booming industrialism and transatlantic exchange — a period of affluence and aspiration in cities like New York and Newport. This exhibition presents fashions from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries on loan from the University of Rhode Island’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection. Highlights include a range of different garments including afternoon and evening wear, a wedding and mourning dress, a bathing costume and a wool coat. From sportswear to formal wear, from hand-stitched items to hats and fans, this one-of-a-kind exhibition features articles of clothing for different occasions and times of the year, offering insight into the lives of Gilded Age New Englanders.

This exhibition was made possible through a partnership with Rebecca Kelly, a textile conservator and dress historian from the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design. Ms. Kelly curated the selection of historic garments in collaboration with the show’s co-curators, Professors Ernest Jolicoeur and Anthony F. Mangieri of Salve Regina University’s Department of Art and Art History. Students in Jolicoeur and Mangieri’s advanced Art History class served as assistant curators on this exhibition and are currently working on a digital humanities project to advance our understanding of these garments.

Fashion and Longing: Gilded Age Dress in New England runs from October 10 through November 24, 2024. On Thursday, October 10 the university community and the general public are invited to attend an opening reception. This reception will run from 5:00 to 7:00 pm in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina University. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence and Leroy Avenues. Its exhibits are open Tuesdays through Thursdays 11:00 to 6:00 pm, Wednesdays and Fridays 11:00 to 5:00 pm, and Saturdays and Sundays noon to 4:00 pm. The gallery is closed on Mondays. We invite you to visit us.

Empirical Evidence: Gerry Perrino – Painter & Mentor

Empirical Evidence: Gerry Perrino – Painter & Mentor

February 22 – March 24, 2024

Opening Reception: February 22, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Gallery Talk with Gerry Perrino and Alumni: February 22, 6:00 – 6:30 p.m.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Empirical Evidence: Gerry Perrino – Painter & Mentor. This is a special alumni exhibition organized around the teachings and paintings of Gerry Perrino, professor of painting at Salve Regina University. This group exhibition highlights Perrino’s most recent work and the paintings of fourteen former students from across the country.

Gerry Perrino is a painter, an image maker, and a storyteller. He works with still life arrangements of toys and miniatures to craft visual narratives that are at once playful, poetic, and political. His oil paintings draw the viewer into a meticulously rendered metaphoric world of staged figures, signs, and props.

As a professor of painting and drawing, Perrino engages his students in the problems of visual thinking. He teaches them how to understand and interpret empirical evidence. From foundation drawing to advanced painting, Perrino inspires new and authentic relationships between teacher and student, observation and imagination, art and life. This exhibition reflects on this unique learning process in the visual arts and celebrates the study of painting at Salve Regina University over the past twenty-five years. This exhibition brings together the artwork of the following alumni that Perrino mentored.

Victor Aguirre-Williams ‘21

Jennifer Bulay ‘07

Rachel DeLuca ‘16

Megan Garbe ‘10

Serena Lafond ‘16

Jeremy Lukasiewicz ‘21

Patricia Jurkowski ‘23

Mia Loia ‘14

Cara Lopilato ‘14

Lauren Roeser (formerly Bingham) ‘15

Nora Sands ‘03

Tommy Slocum ‘03

Maddie Squizzero ‘21

Jordan Thuman ‘16

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is a fully accessible space with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. The gallery is open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

Archaeolgical Research at Salve Regina University

Heather Rockwell and the students of CHP 399: Archaeological Curation

From the Ice Age to the Gilded Age: Archaeology at Salve Regina University

January 18-February 8, 2024

Opening Reception: January 18, 5:00-7:00 p.m.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of From the Ice Age to the Gilded Age: Archaeological Research at Salve Regina University. This show will feature artifacts and research related to archaeological work within the Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Program. An opening reception is scheduled for the evening of Thursday, January 18^th.

Archaeology seeks to help us understand the past through the objects people left behind. This exhibition will take visitors on a journey through New England’s past with the help of artifacts recovered by Salve students on archaeological excavations conducted in northern Maine and on the grounds of Ochre Court in Newport, Rhode Island. These two sites span thousands of years from the time of the earliest indigenous hunter-gatherers who walked beside the woolly mammoths, to the 19^th century east coast elite who used Newport as their summer playground. This exhibit seeks to highlight how archaeologists understand the past and the people whose lives shaped it by showcasing the research currently happening on our campus.

This exhibition was co-curated by Dr. Heather Rockwell, Assistant Professor in the Cultural and Historic Preservation and Sociology/Anthropology programs in the Department of Cultural, Environmental, and Global Studies and Kaleigh Trischman a junior double major in Cultural and Historic Preservation and Sociology/Anthropology. The project was designed in conjunction with a group of student curatorial assistants from an advanced preservation course. The course offers students the opportunity to learn how to research, interpret, and care for cultural objects.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. Its exhibits are open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

CURSIVE and CLAY

November 9 – December 10, 2023

Opening Reception: November 9, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Gallery Talk with the Artists: November 9, 6:00 – 6:30 p.m.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Cursive and Clay, an exhibition of new and recent work combining language and clay. This group exhibition highlights the work of three contemporary ceramic artists and educators from New England: Justin Gerace, Kathy King and Stephanie Lanter.

The union of written text and ceramic form can be traced back to the ancient world. From the earliest clay tokens and cuneiform tablets, a vast array of “cursive and clay” amalgams has emerged that includes coins, tiles, buttons, pottery and more. This exhibition reflects on that rich history by exploring the innovative treatment of text, writing, graffiti, pictographs, inscriptions, and other forms of cursive expression in ceramics today.

Justin Gerace injects the grittiness of urban life into functional ceramics. Drawing inspiration from the lyrical storytelling of hip-hop and the graffitied environments of the city, Gerace depicts a landscape at full boil, one bubbling over with juxtapositions of imagery and text. His stoneware platters and vases become active receptacles for his lived experience and his observations on social and political unrest. Gerace is an adjunct Lecturer in Ceramics at Salve Regina University.

Cultural issues and personal narratives enliven the ceramic vessels of Kathy King. Trained as printmaker, King employs a range of subtractive drawing and carving methods on thrown porcelain. Her work constructs charged relationships between text and image while navigating the politics and poetics of identity from a feminist point of view. Kathy King is Director of the Ceramics Program and Visual Arts Initiatives at the Office for the Arts at Harvard.

Stephanie Lanter’s layered ceramic sculptures often spring from her own writing and meditation on a single word or phrase. Lanter interrogates language to the point of its embodiment. By contemplating the dimensions of each utterance, she coaxes handwritten liquid clay to deform, coagulate and blossom into new dynamic states of expression and solid form. Lanter is Associate Professor of Ceramics at the University of Harford Art School.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is a fully accessible space with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. Cursive and Clay is open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays and November 22 -27 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

ERNEST JOLICOEUR: ERASED LANDSCAPES

Ernest Jolicoeur: Erased Landscapes

October 5 – November 2, 2023

Opening Reception: October 5, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Lecture: October 5, 6:00 – 6:30 p.m.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Ernest Jolicoeur: Erased Landscapes, an exhibition of recent paintings and drawings by Ernest Jolicoeur, Associate Professor of Art and Gallery Director at Salve Regina University. An opening reception and artist talk are scheduled for the evening of Thursday, October 5.

In his series titled Erased Landscapes, Jolicoeur explores the memory of place and the place of memory as agents of image making. His acrylic paintings and collage drawings depict a world of charged spaces and architectural structures shaped by the forces of memory, observation, and imagination. Each work offers a unique composite of abstract and representational elements that are pressed together into a new hybrid landscape. These works invite us to journey to a place just out of reach, like a childhood home or a temporary Covid test site.

Jolicoeur’s work draws equally from both the natural world and the built environment. His paintings combine fleeting sensations of light, temperature, and atmosphere with fragmentary traces of landscape, architecture, and the human figure. His work reimagines the poetic capacity for abstract painting to embody his lived experience of place.

This is Ernest Jolicoeur’s first solo exhibition at Salve Regina’s Hamilton Gallery. It features work from his recent sabbatical. Jolicoeur received his BFA from Rhode Island College and his MFA from Yale University. He exhibits his work nationally and internationally. Most recently he exhibited his drawings in Newport at the contemporary art gallery Overlap. Other local venues include the RISD Museum, Roger Williams University, and Brown University’s Bell Gallery. He also has an extensive record of exhibitions in New York that includes the Museum of Modern Art PS1, VOLTA, Feature Inc., Silverstein Gallery and ArtPort Kingston. His work has received numerous honors and awards including three fellowships from the Rhode State Council of the Arts. In 2022, Jolicoeur and Anthony Mangieri, Salve Regina Associate Professor of Art History, co-authored Muse and Mercy: Exploring Fine and Decorative Arts at Salve Regina University to highlight the significance of art on Salve’s campus.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is a fully accessible space with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. Its exhibits are open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

Senior Juried Show 2023

May 4^th – May 21^st 2023

Sydney Austin

James Arcoleo

Michaela Conway

Courtney Collibee

Amara D’Antuono

Patricia Jurkowski

Ray North

Rory Smith

Alexa Winter

Opening Reception Friday May 19^th 5-7pm

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the Art and Art History Department’s Senior Juried Show featuring graduating senior Art major students Sydney Austin, James Arcoleo, Michaela Conway, Courtney Collibee, Amara D’Antuono, Patricia Jurkowski, Ray North, Rory Smith and Alexa Winter. An opening reception for the artists is scheduled for Friday May 19^th from 5 – 7pm.

Sydney Austin is a Illustration and Graphic Design Concentrator whose work revolves around the development of her graphic novel, titled, The Phoenix of the South. Bringing the darkness to light, the primary theme that Austin shares in her art is mental health, specifically how people hide their true feelings for fear of being stigmatized. Sydney connects with her audience by inserting her own struggles in her characters to tell people about what goes on inside her head. Instead of rushing to finish the whole novel, she decided to produce a series of volumes so that her readers could grow alongside the characters.

James Arcoleo is a Graphic Design Concentrator whose work focuses on linear portraits with text and drawing. His work has a macabe melancholy that is challenged by bright red scrawled graffiti-like emotional statements. He works with skeletal figures, sad clowns and snakes, all with a toxic edge and a burning desire to engage with anger and complacency.

Michaela Conway is a Graphic Design and Interactive Media Concentrator whose work is an exploration of brand identity design that reflects her interests as a graphic designer. In creating the brand Florence, Conway drew inspiration from the Newport mansions on Salve Regina’s campus, allowing the intricate architectural details to accentuate the luxurious aesthetic of her clothing line. She first developed a brand identity, focused on translating the opulence of Ochre Court and the Vinland Estate into a fashion line and logo design. From there, she designed a fashion catalog, packaging, website, and a video campaign. Her installation in the Hamilton Gallery is a pop-up shop that allows for an immersive consumer experience for the viewer that projects the luxurious aesthetic of Florence.

Courtney Collibee is a Illustration Concentrator whose painted work is deeply collaborative. She curates poses based on how her models answer questions like: “what is your biggest fear?” or “what do you feel is something most people don’t know about you?” to form a story line of their character in the image. Her goal is to achieve noticeabe tension in the dynamic between model and artist, to capture them in vulnerable moments.

Amara D’Autuono is a Graphic Design, Interactive Media and Photography Concentrator who enjoys working with many mediums. Her thesis project is the perfect example of this

combination. Her project is based around the comfort that one should feel in their own

home. Using Revit and Enscape, she created hyper realistic 3-dimensional renderings to

trick the eye into thinking that the spaces are real. She turned these renderings into a

magazine entitled Jules, named after the interior designer of Ochre Court.

Patricia Jurkowski’s is a Painting and Illustration Concentrator who makes dark figurative oil paintings. Her body of work centers on the relationship between the viewer and the figures. Jurkowski composes provocative images that first aim to shock the viewer, then garner further thought. The subjects are trapped behind the glass of viewership, destined to exist only as a spectacle in the memory of whoever gazes at them. They are unforgettable, yet easily judged on the surface. They are unexplainable upon initial sight yet force you to ponder why they exist.

Ray North is a Graphic Design Concentrator whose work plumbs psychological depths with hard edged graphic portraits like “Horseface” and his quiet, limited palette “Self Portrait. He also engages with a wry sense of humor in the sweet and funny Meyers Briggs survey “Find Your Personality” video. This humor plays with the self-seriousness of the idea of a personality test by pairing cartoons and movie characters with their MBTI personalities. His bashful portrait keeps a watchful eye over the whole endeavor.

Rory Smith is a Interactive Media and Graphic Design Concentraor whose work explores the intersection of the real and surreal. He strives to create images that captivate and terrify. His goal is to push the boundaires of what is possible in visual storytelling, using the latest digital tools and techniques to bring his vision to life. In his work as a UX designer, he approaches each project with a focus on usability, accessibility and aesthetics. By combining his skills as a graphic artist, illustrator and UX designer, he aims to bring a unique perspective to the world of digital media.

Alexa Winter is a Painting Concentrator whose painting and drawing describe a sense of place. In “Park Brunch” we are looking at an ample active scene filled with figures dining and ambling through a lush space. The bright, active line of her oil pastel is antic, active, allowing the drawing to come to life, to vibrate. The scale of the drawing, dripping almost to the floor allows us entrance to a scene of half abstraction, half energy. Meanwhile “2010” is a bright swamp, dripping off a canvas with drooping brilliance, slow, melting. It is at once here with us and sinking away.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. Its exhibits are open to the public, though our regular hours will be a bit limited through the run of this show as the students are in finals period. We will have some of our regular monitored hours May 6-21^st on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays. If you miss us during this time, please contact [email protected] to make an appointment to see the show or do come to the opening on May 19^th from 5-7pm.

Vitruvian Women: Senior Honors Thesis Show

April 13th – April 27^th, 2023

Opening Reception Thursday April 13th 5-7pm

Sydney Austin

Michaela Conway

Amara D’Antuono

Patricia Jurkowski

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the Art and Art History Department’s Senior Honors Thesis Show “Vitruvian Women” featuring graduating honors students Sydney Austin, Michaela Conway, Amara D’Antuono and Patricia Jurkowski. An opening reception with short artist talks is scheduled for Thursday April 13^th from 5 – 7pm.

Sydney Austin’s thesis project revolves around the development of her graphic novel, titled, The Phoenix of the South. Bringing the darkness to light, the primary theme that Austin shares in her art is mental health, specifically how people hide their true feelings for fear of being stigmatized. Sydney connects with her audience by inserting her own struggles in her characters to tell people about what goes on inside her head. Instead of rushing to finish the whole novel, she decided to produce a series of volumes so that her readers could grow alongside the characters.

Michaela Conway’s thesis project is an exploration of brand identity design that reflects her interests as a graphic designer. In creating the brand Florence, Conway drew inspiration from the Newport mansions on Salve Regina’s campus, allowing the intricate architectural details to accentuate the luxurious aesthetic of her clothing line. She first developed a brand identity, focused on translating the opulence of Ochre Court and the Vinland Estate into a fashion line and logo design. From there, she designed a fashion catalog, packaging, website, and a video campaign. Her installation in the Hamilton Gallery is a pop-up shop that allows for an immersive consumer experience for the viewer that projects the luxurious aesthetic of Florence.

As an artist, Amara D’Autuono enjoys working with many mediums such as graphic design, interactive media, and photography. Her thesis project is the perfect example of this combination. Her project is based around the comfort that one should feel in their own home. Using Revit and Enscape, she created hyper realistic 3-dimensional renderings to trick the eye into thinking that the spaces are real. She turned these renderings into a magazine entitled Jules, named after the interior designer of Ochre Court.

Patricia Jurkowski’s thesis work is a group of large figurative oil paintings. The body of work centers on the relationship between the viewer and the figures. Jurkowski composed provocative images that first aim to shock the viewer, then garner further thought. The subjects are trapped behind the glass of viewership, destined to exist only as a spectacle in the memory of whoever gazes at them. They are unforgettable, yet easily judged on the surface. They are unexplainable upon initial sight yet force you to ponder why they exist. The second painting in the series, titled Painter and the Painted, forces those outside the painting to exist as part of the composition, connecting their gaze with the figures.

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is handicap accessible with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. Its exhibits are open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.

Do or Don’t Do It Yourself: A Paint by Number Show

Do or Don’t Do It Yourself

A Paint by Number Show

February 23rd – March 30th, 2023

Kate Bae

Jenny Brown

Katie Commodore

Teresa Cox

Marjorie Hellman

Lori Larusso

Ghost of A Dream

Will Hutnick

Jodie Mim Goodnough

Karl LaRocca

J Myszka Lewis

Jerry Mischak

Kristen Schiele

Jen Shepard

Michelle Weinberg

Lauren Whearty

Jamie Vasta

Visiting Adjunct Curator Kirstin Lamb

Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery

Salve Regina University

Opening Reception February 23rd 5-7pm

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of our group show “Do or Don’t Do It Yourself: A Paint by Number Show”. An opening reception with short conversations with several of the included artists is scheduled for Thursday, February 23rd, at 5:30 p.m.

If anyone can make it, why is it art? Why should an artist be interested?

At once an emblem of mindless conformity, leisure time, the machine age and the possibilities of collaboration with the machine, the paint by number continues to inspire artists, despite its purported bad reputation. The form of paint by number democratizes painting, heralding the moment when you too, could be a painter.

This show gathers a range of artists working with painting, sculpture, textiles, and drawing and looks at the leisure activity and hard-edged readymade as it has influenced a range of contemporary American artist’s aesthetics.

What is possible now that we can use computers to generate patterns once done by hand? What does a paint by number become in the digital age? What does it symbolize? Why would an artist want to use that symbolism and aesthetic?

As a curator and an artist, I find myself gravitating to work that I feel is in some way influenced by the paint by number, either its high color and hard edges or its readymade order-from-the-internet art objects. One can get photographs printed as canvases of number gridded textiles, plans for embroideries, paintings and more, thanks to the advancements in printing, graphics and 3d printing.

Some of the artists in this show were initially uncomfortable with the idea of being included in a show about Paint by Number aesthetics. As an artist and curator, I love the art form, and use it in my work, but I can understand the hesitation. I am not judging the work as less than, or without skill. I am looking for evidence of the machine, the aesthetic of the edges of the form. We have easy access to photo processing programs in our computers and phones and that changes our visual lexicon, the high color and sharp edges spend a greater time in our field of view.

This is at once a celebration of a democratic art form and a salutation to that form in many different conceptual and painterly art practices.