Inside Art with Michael Rose - Highlights From The Newport Biennial
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
The Newport Art Museum has been a center for the visual arts in the region since its inception in the first decades of the twentieth century. For the last thirty years, the museum has hosted a popular and competitive biennial exhibition that draws on the talents of artists from across New England. This year’s installment of The Newport Biennial boasts plenty of highlights and is well worth a visit for anyone interested in seeing great artwork being made now.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe 2022 Newport Biennial was juried by Dr. Kimberli Gant, the McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum. Dr. Gant’s impressive resume includes curatorial past positions at the Newark Museum, The Contemporary Austin, and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art. The job of a juror is a difficult one, and from over 800 submitted artworks Dr. Gant thoughtfully selected an exciting body of work that deserves a long visit and repeated looks.
On view in the museum’s Cushing Gallery through May 29, the exhibition includes wide-ranging works, from paintings and prints, to sculpture and installation. While the subject matter is wonderfully varied, one noticeable through-line found in many of the selected works is an interest in organic forms often borne out with hypnotic and beautiful results. The natural world, and human interactions with it, appear again and again.
One of the most compelling pieces in the show is “Playgrounds”, an installation work by Mariana Ramos Ortiz, a 2021 RISD MFA graduate. Consisting of two sandboxes that have images silkscreened onto their surfaces, it expertly employs photographic imagery, printmaking technology, and a sculptural sensibility. Probing impermanence, the fragile images could be erased at any moment with a shift of the sands.
Where Ortiz used sand, other artists utilized cloth. Saberah Malik’s fabric sculptures, for instance, capture spectral fruits. Malik’s work is singular in style, but she is far from the only artist utilizing textile in her work. Three-dimensional works by Sonja Czekalski employ repurposed fabric pieces to create sinewy forms and Heather McMordie’s cyanotypes on damaged silk offer cooly alluring surfaces. The craft behind all of these artworks is impressive.
Also featured are numerous paintings that illustrate how contemporary art-makers are using an age-old medium. Kat O’Connor’s bubbly “A History of Motion” is a suitably aquatic subject for an exhibition in Newport and exemplifies a dedication to detail. Two still life paintings by Chil Mott study bees with softened photorealist appeal. Rebecca Boxx’s double portrait “Brittany and Aliya” uses a symmetrical composition and layered, brushy painting to celebrate its sitters.
Another of the exhibition’s show stoppers, Lilla Samson’s sizeable “Intertidal Meditation #2” draws the eye from across the room. This bright and lively object, created using oil and pigment sticks, features botanical and tentacle-like forms. Samson’s image is counterbalanced by Ponnapa Prakkamakul’s “In Between”, a fantastically gritty work on paper that employs rust and soil to tell a decidedly urban story.
Light also makes an appearance in the exhibition. Nick McKnight’s “Too Late”, a bold red neon sign in a circular format, conveys a punchy warning. Nearby, Katie Dye’s “Stretch” combines light and cast glass to make a pair of hands playing cat’s cradle levitate from within a slender column.
The exhibition is rich in photographic subject matter, too. Semaj Campbell’s “Untitled”, an evocative image of a draped figure, is a lyrical celebration of form by a skilled portraitist. Two images from Gail Fischer’s “Our Disappearing Planet” series evidence just how powerful smaller-scale works of art can be.
Alongside two-dimensional offerings, sculptural objects enliven and add still more depth to the show. Working in wall-mounted wood, Anna Hitchcock exhibits "Let Go!", a powerful self-portrait that discusses trauma and resilience. In Kristen Mallia’s “Detachment”, clay pebbles appear to rain down, creating a pile on the floor. Also illusionistic, Hillel O’Leary’s inventively titled “___ is where the heart ___” offers a diminutive home draped in cloth executed in cast plaster.
With so much to see, and so many enjoyable artworks on view, it is difficult to narrow down the highlights from this remarkable exhibition. It is an enticing show and all those featured should be proud. For the artists whose works were selected for The Newport Biennial, it is doubtlessly an important addition to their resumes. For audiences, it is a benchmark opportunity to see some of the best contemporary work being made by artists from throughout Rhode Island and beyond. This year’s Newport Biennial is inspiring and is truly not to be missed.
The Newport Art Museum is open Tuesdays - Saturdays, 10am - 5pm and Sundays, 12-5pm. The museum will host a celebratory reception to accompany the show on Friday, February 11 from 5-7 pm. For details on admission and to plan your visit, go to the museum’s website at www.newportartmuseum.org.
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