Review: RISD's '2011 Faculty Biennial' impresses and inspires

By GREG COOK | March 2, 2011

The last RISD faculty biennial in 2009 felt adrift. The artists were technically skilled but seemed to have little to say. This show feels sharper. Both the form and content often impress, and at times even inspire.

Three Providence artists are featured in "Urbania: Flora Y Fauna" at West Side Arts (745 Westminster Street, Providence, through March 12). Anna Jane Kocon makes catchy, crafty cut paper collages of chickens and tigers. Jyll Ethier-Mullen paints flat, whimsical images, somewhere between graffiti and children's book illustration, of cute deer and tigers on painterly backgrounds. And Corey Grayhorse stages fashion-inspired photos of a woman hugging a guy in a bunny mask in bed, a kid waving a toy pistol and riding a stuffed horse as the nanny screams, and a woman straddling a stuffed toy tiger on an antique sofa like an eccentric burlesque dancer. It's a fun, bright, pop show.

Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.

< prev 1 | 2 |

Topics: Museum And Gallery , Trent Burleson, Iraq, Museums, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY GREG COOK

A REALLY BIG SHOW! | May 21, 2013
This showcase of tomorrow's-art-stars-today is both invigorating and overwhelming, with work by 194 students.

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN | May 13, 2013
What does it mean to be a man? That's the question at the heart of this smart, sumptuous exhibit — one of the best shows in the region this year.

MERRY PRANKSTERS | May 07, 2013
Parked out front of Brown University's gray modernist Granoff Center on a recent sunny morning were one of those 15-foot-tall inflatable rats that unions install in front of businesses they're protesting and a limousine sloppily painted to resemble a yellow and black school bus.

ALTERED IMAGES | April 30, 2013
Among the handsome Washington Street storefronts of AS220's renovated Mercantile Block building, with their neo-old-timey signs, is the residents' entrance to the building. It is against AS220's religion to leave any space empty that can be filled with art. So the lobby is the AS220 Resident Gallery, which occupants of the building take turns filling with their stuff.

IN THE CITY | April 23, 2013
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Providence art scene is how the city itself has been such a rich subject. A decade ago, the city became a galvanizing topic as artists fought to protect the old mills that served as their homes and studios from demolition — with mixed success. But lately, the community's industrial architecture itself has attracted artists' attention.