2012 BUTTON ARTISTS

HEATHER J. ANNIS

Heather is an artist, youth director for two area churches and a native Rhode Islander. She works in a variety of media including ink, pencil, watercolor, collage, crayon and graphic design. Heather’s particular passion is for creating art in community settings. She has facilitated a number of community art projects including mosaics, murals, and group shows. Heather received her M.A. in Theology and the Arts from Andover Newton Theological School with her studies focusing on the intersections among art, faith, and community. She seeks to incorporate the visual arts into her work with young people in order to inform and enrich their experiences of the world around them. The image for Heather’s Buy Art button is a compilation of several drawings created over the past two years. These drawings are part of a larger body of work entitled “Marginalia,” which Heather hopes to exhibit locally in the coming year.

MARIA DIFRANCO

Maria is an artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. She received her BFA in printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2010 and has since been working as an artist and educator in New England. Her current work employs etching, drawing, and painting techniques. Maria investigates symbolism and story telling in her artwork and draws inspiration from art history. This year several of Maria’s prints and drawings have been selected for curator’s awards at juried exhibitions. In addition to her personal artwork, an important part of Maria’s creative practice is her volunteer work with youth artists in Providence. She is seeking grant opportunities that will enable her to expand on her artwork’s current theories and facilitate her educational projects. Maria’s piece selected for the BUY Art button is a graphite drawing on birch wood entitled “Domesticating the African Wolf.” This drawing deals with “confinement” and is part of a series that aims to describe contemporary experiences through the imagery of our ancestors.  Web Site

ALISON PAUL

Alison is a Californian who was pulled to Providence by the tractor beam of sorts — The Rhode Island School of Design. She received her BFA in Illustration from RISD in 2005 and now resides on the city’s West Side where she writes, illustrates and animates. She has published two children’s books with Houghton Mifflin and teaches full-time in the at The University of Connecticut. This past Summer Alison worked with Greater Kennedy Plaza and KidoInfo to create “Art in the Park”, a large-scale weekly public art project for kids in Burnside Park. The piece selected for this year’s Buy Art button entitled Cornelius and the Sea is part of a series of dioramas constructed from stop-motion animation sets.  Web Site

QUINTIN RIVERA TORO

Quintin was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico in 1978. He holds a B.F.A. in Sculpture and a B.A. in Communications and Film Studies. He is currently pursuing an M.F.A. Degree in the Sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design. Quintín received numerous awards including The Mexus Grant for artists in Peurto Rico, a First Prize in San Juan’s University of Sagrado Corazón’s Contemporary Photography Contest, and DAAD German Academic Exchange Travel Grant. He has also been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the National Academy of Design and the Ox Bow School of Art. His public art project “Un espacio libre”, originally shown in his hometown of Caguas, was invited to travel to New York’s El Museo del Barrio for the S-Files biennial as well as the PINTA art fair. He co-founded and worked as the Director of ÁREA, lugar de proyectos which presents exhibitions and provides month-long artist residencies in Caguas. He has worked as an intern at the Chinati Museum in Marfa, Texas; His work was selected by Zona MACO art fair and exhibited in a solo booth sponsored by VH1. Here in Rhode Island Quintín is a R.I.S.C.A. Individual Artist Grant recipient and has received a Sylvia Leslie Young Herman Scholarship Award as well as Academic Honors from RISD. The image selected for the Buy Art button is an outdoor installation of kiddie pools created locally and entitled, “Summer Grid: At The Plant In Olneyville.”  Web Site

MATTHEW UNDERWOOD

Matthew is a video artist and painter based out of Providence, Rhode Island. He has been in three recent RK Projects shows. A video of the artist performing “Systesmisch” at the recent Pawtucket ‘Interaction/Immersion’ exhibition can be viewed on line here. His work has screened in the European Media Art Festival and the ZKM Center for Art and Media (DE).Web Site

2011 BUTTON ARTISTS

CASEY SPENCER

Casey is an award-winning graphic designer and illustrator. Her character filled Providence scene selected for this year’s BUY ART buttons features Thomas Street (our historic city block that houses The Providence Art Club), a WaterFire gondola and ‘Rhody Red’ rooster. The full image has even more local icons in it and was created originally for a Leadership Rhode Island poster. Born and raised in Alaska, Casey received her formal training at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Following a decade of corporate branding and package design, Casey followed her dream to work for herself. She now runs her own graphic design and illustration business from her studio on the West Side of Providence. Her local clients include Leadership Rhode Island, West Broadway Neighborhood Association (WBNA) and The Hudson Street Deli. Casey frequents dog parks, loves to travel and makes a mean polenta. Visit Casey’s blog to see her full portfolio.

MARA O’DAY

Mara is an American artist and educator who grew up surrounded by powerful art in Papua New Guinea, the United Kingdom and Turkey. She credits Providence’s local and international community of students, educators and artists as a major source of personal inspiration. Mara’s portfolio of work spans abstract landscape, portraiture, pattern compositions and collage. In addition to her regard of local peers, Mara is influenced by the work of Hannelore Baron, the Prinzhorn Collection, Jennifer Eli French, Rembrandt, John Heartfield, Wangechi Mutu and the Mappa Mundi of Hereford Cathedral. She is proud to have worked as a lead instructor, studio coordinator and mentor at RISD’s Project Open Door from 2004 to 2011. Mara is currently a visiting artist at the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Her selected portrait for this year’s BUY ART campaign is an oil on canvas painting titled Amalia. More of her images can be viewed at https://campus.digication.com/maratoday

STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS

Stephanie is a freelance documentary photographer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Originally from California, Ewens has called Rhode Island home for the last eight years. After completing a B.A. in Economics at Santa Clara University, she studied Photojournalism at San Francisco State University and Documentary Photography at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. Stephanie applies her eye for detail and the documentary genre to client work for editorial, commercial, corporate and non-profit entities. She specializes in telling in-depth multimedia stories through still photography and recorded audio. Much of her personal work focuses on stories of Rhode Islanders. Stephanie’s work has been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Elle Magazine, as well as many local publications including Rhode Island Monthly, Edible Rhody, Providence Business News and WRNI.com. She works with esteemed local universities, nonprofits and commercial clients as well as individual artists and designers. Stephanie’s surfer photograph for her BUY ART button was shot at Narragansett Beach on a very foggy, atmospheric afternoon. View her complete gallery at www.stephanieewens.com

ANGEL DEAN

Angel received her BFA from the University of Georgia and her MFA from Cornell University. Following school she went on to pursue a singing career in New York City, fronting several alt-country band recordings under the Rounder Records and Diesel Only labels.  After 14 years in Manhattan she moved to Providence and has been channeling her creative energy into the more visual domains of printmaking, collage, encaustics and photography.  Locals also know Angel as an avid gardener, dog lover, beekeeper, an epiphyllum fancier (flowering orchids), the keeper of five backyard chickens, and a long-time staff member of the Providence Art Club. Angel’s selected BUY ART image is from her white-line woodblock print titled Young Girl with Chicken. This type of printing is an early American art form in which the artist uses a single carved block with separate ink applications and printings for each color. http://www.flickr.com/photos/angeldean/

DELIA KOVAC

Delia Kovac is a multi-disciplinary artist committed to an open process with interests that span social justice, formalism, the fantastic, the bestial, and rock ‘n’ roll. She has strong beliefs in collaboration and art’s role in the greater good. Her media include drawing, printmaking, papermaking, digital video and painting. One local critic described the charm of “her somewhat offhand renderings” as being akin to “Jungian symbols embodying twin feelings of imprisonment and safety. “Kovac was born in Milwaukee, WI and received a BFA in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Her work is in the collections of The RISD Museum, the Zimmerli Art Museum, Art Gallery of New South Wales, and The Rhode Island Historical Society. She shows internationally including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, The Hunterdon Art Gallery, and draw_drawing_2 at The London Biannual. Locally she has exhibited at The Wunderground Show at the RISD Museum, Craftland Gallery, Gallery Angiel and 5 Traverse. She has worked in Professional Fine art printshops on three continents, is an occasional correspondent for Printeresting.com, and serves as a Board Member of Girls Rock! Rhode Island. The image for this year’s BUY ART button is titled “Sweater Revenge” and is an off shoot of Kovac’s ongoing series of paintings entitled “Semi-Self Portrait as a Ski Mask”, which depict women wearing Ski Masks as a way to explore power, unease and the seams of social norms. http://www.deliakovac.com

 

2010 BUTTON ARTISTS

DAVID ALLYN

David is a 2003 RISD MFA graduate and currently works and teaches at The Steel Yard in Providence. He was a driving force behind the establishment of The Steel Yard’s ceramics operation bringing in the equipment and now teaching many of the classes including his unique offering “Heavy Metal Ceramics”.

David makes ceramic work filled with color and imagery. Using photo decal transfers and silkscreen printing on porcelain he creates wheel thrown, one-of-a-kind porcelain objects. David’s high-fire porcelain process offers a fresh vision of our contemporary age. David makes his artwork and curates exhibits in his studio / gallery at Monnohasset Mill, Thirsty’s Gallery #104.

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ANDREW MOON BAIN

Following graduation from RISD with a BFA in Sculpture, Andrew, a.k.a. Moon, became very active in Providence’s tightly knit art scene. He and other young printmakers contributed to the creative energy gathering in our city’s Olneyville neighborhood. At the same time Andrew pursued his musical talent leading to the formation of a music label and contributions to Providence’s Sound Session. Andrew’s artwork has shown locally at Gallery Agniel, Stairwell Gallery, The Newport Art Museum and the RISD Museum’s “Chazans’ Choice” exhibition in 2005.

He has also participated in community based art projects and is co-founder and head designer of Urban Social Empowerment, a company that focuses on branding positive social marketing concepts for Rhode Island youth. Outside of Rhode Island Andrew has shown in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Cuba, Jamaica, Germany and Japan. A 2007 showing of Andrew’s work at the Ad Hoc art space in Brooklyn, NY featured 16 Providence based artists and was titled ‘SECRETS OF THE WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER’ – ‘SCREENPRINTS FROM PROVIDENCE’. Andrew continues to live and work in Providence, RI while also spending time in Brooklyn, NY, staying in touch with friends and helping to connect the dots between the two rich and bustling creative capitals.

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JASON BROCKERT

Born in 1971 as a native of Holliston, Massachusetts Jason’s youth was mostly spent exploring the woods behind and around his house accompanied by his dog. He saw his rural town turn suburb in the short span of a decade from 1980-90 and that transformation in part fuels his current paintings. After a brief stint at architecture school, Jason graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994.

Jason now makes his home in Providence where he works as both painter and painting faculty at RISD. He exhibits his work in galleries across New England and is represented in many collections in the US and Europe. His work has been featured at such galleries as the CoSo gallery in Boston, the Wheeler Gallery in Providence, and the Central Gallery in Connecticut, among others. He has been awarded a Rhode Island State council of the art fellowship and has been a summer fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.

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JING XU

Belgian-born Chinese raised in Sweden, Jing has taken Providence to be her new home since graduating from Brown University this year, with a concentration in Performance Studies. Her passion for painting was first triggered during a serendipitous summer in Krakow, where she met and developed a blossoming friendship with a local art-student. Having spent most of her years rehearsing and performing theatre, painting came as a refreshingly independent pursuit.

A self-taught painter, Jing engages in constant experimentation with the movements and textures of paint. People in her life serve as her main inspiration, and portraiture is therefore an important indulgence of hers, where each subject demands and inspires a unique way of expression and the subject-artist.

With her creative spirit deeply rooted in theatre, Jing’s paintings often have a dramatic and character-driven focus, in which the personal and experiential, fused with fictional imagination, create the mise-en-scene of her artistic vision. Having yet to plan her first public exhibition, Jing hopes people will continue to encounter her art through fortunate and intimate occasions.

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2009 BUTTON ARTISTS

JENINE BRESSNER

Glass artist Jenine Bressner wants to see things she has never seen them before. She aims to make things that satisfy this wish by drawing with glass rods and a torch flame and the beads pictured in Jenine’s pin are made with such a process.

Jenine works across several media and her work has been featured in MAKE Magazine, CNN Money.com’s Small Business report, and Handmade Nation — a film documenting the DIY craft movement.

Jenine regularly exhibits in Providence’s Craftland Sale and is the recipient of the 2010 Fellowship in Crafts from The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She recieved a BFA in Glass from RISD in 2001. Jenine grew up outside of New York City and has lived in Providence since the spring of 1998.

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JUNGIL HONG

Korean born artist Jungil Hong moved to New Jersey at the age of 10. In providing context for her art she notes how her family spent its early years fishing in that state’s post-industrial streams which are much like the one that Jung’s studio looks down on today in her present home of Providence, Rhode Island.

Primarily working in silkscreen and collage, Jung’s work tends toward dense images of turbulent nature. The critic Greg Cook says this of Hong’s art, “Her work seems a mysterious allegory, a dream of scratching out an existence in the shadow of looming environmental collapse.”

In 2007 Jungil was one of ten artists selected for the DeCordova Museum’s Annual Exhibition. In 2006, Her work entitled “Supermarket Spirit Ship,” an enormous lantern made from shopping bags, was included in “Wunderground: Providence, 1995 to the Present,” at The Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

SEUNG-HEA LEE

Jeweler and metalsmith, Seung-Hea Lee learned the art of origami as a child. Fascinated by the “magic” of folding that turned paper into three-dimensional objects, she later discovered in her studio that working with paper-thin metal is a similar process.

Commenting on her pieces, Seung-Hea describes how, “Movement and flexibility is performance art on the body.” Her work has been exhibited internationally at galleries and museums including the Museum of Art and Design, New York City. It has been featured in the Metalsmith Magazine-Exhibition in Print, American Craft magazine, Masters Gold, and on the cover of 500 Necklaces – one in a series of books on juried jewelry selections.

Seung-Hea received her BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and MFA from
The Rhode Island School of Design. She is inspired by how the interaction between teacher and students motivates her as an artist and has taught at RISD since 2001.

ANGEL QUINONEZ

Angel is a painter, sculptor, and tattoo artist who is best known for his large scale multi-media public works which can be seen on the streets of Providence, AS220, The Cuban Revolution, and various locations throughout New England.

Born and raised in Central Falls and the Providence area, Angel graduated from Hope High School in 1991 and Brown University in 2001. His professional career has included work with a number local community and arts organizations including Big Nazo, Progreso Latino, The Providence Black Repertory, and AS220. Angel’s artwork is in many collections and he has had numerous shows throughout the country.

Most recently he held the position of Visuals Coordinator at AS220’s Broad Street Studios. He is also an art instructor at the Rhode Island Training School working with incarcerated youth. Angel is now working on a new body of work in his Providence studio, and on the Martha’s Vinyard..

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SUSAN STARKWEATHER

Susan works primarily in pastel and oil with an emphasis on portraiture. Her work is characterized by a open, colorful style that focuses on the unique personality each individual subject.

A graduate of the University of Maryland, Susan has studied at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington Portraits and the Rhode Island School of Design. Her commissioned portraits are found in private collections and she has exhibited her work in many Rhode Island shows.

In addition her illustrations appear in numerous publications, including “The Longest Game”, a children’s book that recounts the 1981 game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings, the longest in baseball history.

Susan has taught painting through a grant with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and currently coordinates the Master Portrait Class at the Providence Art Club, where she also is an exhibiting member. She also volunteers as a portrait artist for patients at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

2008 BUTTON ARTISTS

PAUL CLANCY

Paul Clancy is a self taught artist and photographer who has enjoyed commercial success for over 20 years. Clancy’s client list has included such high profile companies as Audi USA, Fidelity Investments, Rockport, Saucony; Blue Cross, and Hewlett Packard.

In 2004, Clancy was chosen as one of 10 artists to participate in an artist-in-residence program in Balatonfured, Hungary. He is currently an artist-in-residence at AS220 and a co-teacher at Broad Street Studio’s Photographic Memory Program.

His work has been published in Graphis, Archive, and Photo District News, and is part of several local and national private collections. Clancy’s work is represented by The Gallery at 17 Peck in Providence.

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LIZ COLLINS

Liz Collins is an artist and designer, recognized internationally for her use of machine knitting to create ground-breaking clothing, textiles, and 3-D installations.

After five years as an independent designer of seasonal ready-to-wear collections in New York City, Collins returned to her alma mater, Rhode Island School of Design, as an Assistant Professor in the Textile Department. In addition to teaching, Collins currently designs knitwear under her own label, which she sells at trunk sales and select boutiques in New York and Tokyo.

She also collaborates with other designers, producing signature knit pieces and collections for them. A member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Collins was has been cited by the New York Times as a creator of “brilliantly crafted” garments and a “designer with many industry accolades”.

In the spring of 2005, a new facet of Collins’ work emerged: a series of performance-based installations called “KNITTING NATION”, that employ uniformed machine knitters to create a multi-sensory experience that examines the relationship of humans to manufacturing and the process of machine knitting.

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BENJAMIN Q. JONES

Ben Jones is an artist and illustrator best known as a member of the ever-popular art collective, Paper Rad along with Jacob Ciocci, and Jessica Ciocci.

The three person crew, involved in painting, performance, animation, music, comics, web sites, sculpture, clothes, dolls, photos and video, has showcased their work at galleries and museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Critics have called Paper Rad “the closest thing to grass roots digital art” there is.

Jones’ solo work is currently featured in his first major solo show, touring Europe through 2009. He has also produced a stunning catalogue to coincide with the tour featuring his work in print form. His work will also be featured at Deitch Projects in the spring of 2009.

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ARLEY-ROSE TORSONE

Arley Rose Torsone grew up in a small river valley town in Pennsylvania. She moved to New York City to go to school at Parsons, where she met her music video hero, director Michel Gondry. After working for Michel, graduating design school, and being a freelance prop stylist, illustrator, designer, painter, and rumbler, she grew tired of the city and decided to get a job that had more soul.

While doing research on her thesis at Parsons (which was to restore a historic Ice House in Milford, PA into a community arts center), she discovered AS220 in Providence. She sent a copy of her thesis to AS220 and began immediately as Communications Director.

She has been working at AS220 since October 2004 and is now establishing an in-house design studio called Design Providence that integrates Providence’s community of artists and designers with work from non-profits, educational orgs, grassroots initiatives and folks who work to promote change in the world.

Arley also belongs to the Dirt Palace, an arts space in Olneyville where she screenprints, makes music, draws, paints, whistles, sings, makes things on the computer.

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MARTINA WINDELS

Martina, who opened MARTINA & Company in 1998, is a critically acclaimed jeweler in her own right. Born in Germany, Martina moved to Providence to attend the Rhode Island School of Design’s Graduate School of Metalsmithing, only to go on and teach jewelry at RISD for seven more years.

Martina’s works in 18kt gold and sterling are known for their extraordinary beauty and ingenuity of design. Her work takes inspiration from architecture and engineering; the pieces suspend and interlock, expand and collapse. Her works, which are made in the studio at the store, are contemporary, minimal, and timeless.

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