JANET ALLING

DEC - FEB 2024

Botanical watercolors and large-scale oils delight in a riot of color and pattern.

I started painting florals in 1967, and still am, knowing this subject matter will last a lifetime. Most of my work is large scale, not only in dimensions of the canvas but in relation to the scale/size of the subject matter that fills the two-dimensional plane. Now, and in recent years I focus on the leaves of variegated plants which offer so many variations of colors and patterns.

This group of paintings include visual thoughts of peace, energy, and silence. I work with the motion, rhythms, and colors that I see and feel in the potted plants in my studio or from photographs I have taken on my travels. The colors may vary from soft and subtle to strong and vibrant, and for me seem symbiotic with the motions of yoga practice. - Janet Alling

Tim Welsh — Portable Sky

Aug - Nov 2023

Timothy Welsh is a multi-media artist working in paint, collage, drawing, photography and found materials.

These paintings of the past few years have centered on geometric abstraction, balanced with a recognizable subject matter, often inferred by carefully-chosen titles. By this method, non-objective picture-making crosses over into a 'narrative abstraction', allowing for "a way in" to the image.

The "Portable Sky" pictures, all 6 x 6 inches, are meant to be small sculptures. They can be placed anywhere you might want to be reminded of a blue sky...

Tim enjoys working on a small scale - pattern, repetition and precision all play an equal role in these works.

A.L. COHEN — STUDIES IN WATERCOLOR & PENCIL

Apr - July 2023

Observational studies of sea shells in charcoal and pastel inspired groups of drawings and paintings, exploring different forms and becoming increasingly abstract.

These 3 series of quietly surreal watercolors evoke a world of revery, discovery, mystery and beauty. Employing a process of accident, detachment, and observation they welcome the viewer to share the astonishment of witnessing our world: transient, delicate, elusive, shimmering.

ALEX DUNWOODIE — CURRENT WORKS

Jan - Mar 2023

Light Breeze, 12” x 12”, oil on panel

'My subjects are what you’d find along the New England shore. Water, the rocky shoreline, marshes and the flora that thrives there. Whether studying the water or beach stones, I’m seeking the sense of peace you can find in these places.'

Will Reeves - Get Bent

Sept - Dec 2022

I’ve always been interested in the forces of gravity and how we contend with that ever-present burden through our bodies and our architecture.  I find the forces of compression and tension to be poetic as we think about how our bodies, our societies, and our structures all contend with and reflect upon each other in this ongoing struggle to stand.  Metal is amazing in how it can reach and extend into space and matter — at times seeming to defy the limits of gravity.  I wanted to make work that would be technical in its construction, light in its actual weight, but a contradiction compositionally by so directly representing gravity.

I find the practice of Yoga in its physical and spiritual expression to be an exploration of these forces in order to better learn how to embrace and be empowered in the continual struggles we all face in our lives.  I’m excited to have these works situated in a space that directly is contending with the issues that this work seeks to also contend with.  Society and culture, like steel, are sometimes is tough to bend. But the tools we need can be acquired and many of them are in the teachings Yoga offers.

Will Reeves is an artist, designer, and craftsperson of Providence RI. He studied Sculpture at the Rhode Island School of Design and has been creating both functional and nonfunctional metal works for nearly two decades.  He currently manages and facility and teaches at the RISD. He is also a founding member of the collaborative artist space called the Wurks, also in Providence RI.

Will is proud to have been able to make a place here in the great state of Rhode Island by creating many municipal goods through the Steel Yard Public Projects initiative. Will has notably consulted and fabricated for artist where works have been exhibited all over the US, but notable at MassMoCA, the DeCordova, the ICA, the Shed, the RISD Museum and many more.  Though generous with his skill and knowledge and proud of engaging and assisting with some many artist, Will looks forward to showing and exhibiting more of his own work.

Partner Exhibition:

OBI- THINGS TO CHEW ON: OBSERVATIONS FROM A DOG’S WANDERINGS IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

This body of work comes out of the many long walks and talks I have with Will.  He said he was a bit short on work and asked if I could help and as art is no big deal I said I could prop him up a bit.

Often on excursions around the neighborhood I found myself fascinated by all the detritus.  The debris was becoming treasure.  These castaways were artifacts of the new epoch.  I began seeing myself as some ill-fated archeologist in the fever dream of David Macaulay’s Motel of Mysteries, or a more cynical Mark Dion engaging in a dig.  I would laugh and jest to Will about what sort of broken lives these objects came from, the shattered lives these objects had.  I found myself obsessing over these musing.

It didn’t just stop on the street.  I started digging in our own trash, determined to give new life to things.  I felt the need to embed my own mark on these remnants, and in a stroke making them works of art.  I found them now imbued with social purpose and critique. This sedimentary layer that humanity has created will be the only last mark litter paved by debase behavior each of these salvaged objects represent.  It begs the question I ask Tara Donovan and myself:  ‘Does Art Rot?’

Born in New York, Obi splits his time between the City and Providence RI.  Obi dropped out of RISD after one summer of school after read the Calvin Tompkins’s biography on Duchamp.  This pivotal moment led to deep disillusion and an epiphany.  After much brooding Obi proclaimed he is ready to “game” the art world.  A young brash up start, this “snarky puppy” has really made a splash.  As Jerry Saltz said “Obi is uniquely positioned to offer exacting criticism on the human condition… it is a dog’s world we’re living in.”

Currently his practice is more of that of a street photographer wandering and meandering the streets.  Finding those places, those smells, those moments that really tell whole experience of what it means to be human in America.

LIndsay weitzman - Space between

January - August 2022

Lindsay Weitzman is a Providence-based artist, designer and yoga instructor here at Jala! She received her BFA from Boston University in 2012, and since then has remained devoted to her creative and spiritual practices, which she feels are deeply intertwined. In 2019, she began building her own printshop and founded Odder Matter Press. She has had the privilege of receiving numerous awards and grants — including from the Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch Arts Center and the Arquetopia Foundation — and has exhibited her work around the U.S. and in Japan.

Artist Statement:

Lindsay is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in printmaking. Her practice has always been about experimentation with regards to ‘the Self’, the physical and psychological notions of ‘the world’ and human interconnectivity. Rooted in intuition & iteration, her art practice is a continuous material experiment - a physical meditation.

Yoga and other spiritual practices teach us to shift from our awareness away from our Earthly afflictions and towards the Divine, and to explore the spaces between. Yoga can be translated as ‘union’ or ‘to yoke’: a merging of the Self and the Universe; Shiva (masculine energy) and Shakti (feminine energy); creation and destruction; pure consciousness (Purusha) and nature (Prakrti).

Through Yogic practices, we are preparing to draw the energy into and up Sushumna Nadi — the central energetic channel in the body that runs from the Root to the Crown chakra. While Shiva (Pingala Nadi) is associated with the Sun and Shakti (Ida Nadi) with the moon, Sushumna is associated with dawn and dusk — the point in between light and dark, day and night, masculine and feminine.

Space Between, a series of unique monotype prints, is an exploration of non-duality and the transition from Earth to Space, in both a physical and spiritual sense.

Each print is unique and handprinted, created by painting or rolling oil-based ink into plexiglass and then printed onto soaked, handmade 100% cotton paper using a printing press. Metallic pigments add an element of surprise and a lack of control.

Jim Cain — Interrelated Connections

July - December 2021

‘We are connected in so many ways with lines, squares and rectangles. In today’s geographic andsocio-economic spaces, geometric patterns and shapes are prevalent in technology, urban planning, architecture, infrastructure and agriculture. By creating a visual dialogue, one that works with color to color relationships, compositional harmony, balance, depth, and the geometric austerity of squares, rectangles and lines - these recent paintings seek to reveal an animated, illuminated awareness of our sometimes unrecognized yet interrelated connections.’ — Jim Cain, July 2021

Jim Cain’s paintings create a visual dialogue, one that works with color to color relationships, compositional harmony, balance, depth, and the geometric austerity of squares, rectangles and lines, to reveal an animated, illuminated awareness of interrelated connections. He has exhibited through out New England and Pennsylvania, which includes the Berkshire Art Museum, Pittsfield, MA, the Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA and the Hood Art Museum, Hanover, NH as well as the Cataurano Gallery, Bentley College, Waltham, MA, Harbor Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Boston, the Boston Architectural Center, Boston, MA, Mobius Gallery, Boston, MA, the Mills Gallery, Boston, Ma and the Third Street Gallery, Philadelphia, PA. He received an award from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation for achievement in the visual arts, selected as a finalist for the Fine Arts World Center in Provincetown, MA and nominated for a Tiffany Fellowship.

He received a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Boston University, Boston, MA and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD.

Jim moved to Rhode Island seven years ago from Boston, MA. The exhibit at Jala is his first exhibition in Rhode Island.

June 2020 - July 2021

Margie Butler — Recent Work

All of these works with the exception of the ceramics and small painting titled Good Grief were made during Covid-19.

As situation after situation unfolds, making art ricochets between being a comforting outlet and a trough for unsettling feelings. I suppose the goal is to be present and work with what arises. The art and yoga practices are overlapping more and more.

My Covid time started with Jala’s Thailand retreat in February. Those remote crystal days were my calm before. The masked journey home through several airports quickly brought me into step with the pandemic and our interconnected global existence.  — Margie Butler, May 2020

Margie began as a plein air watercolor painter while working in New York. She left in 2002 and spent time working as an arts administrator in New Bedford while completing her MFA at The Art Institute of Boston. Margie and keeps a studio in her Providence home. In addition to art, she consults in the fields of brand strategy, research and community engagement.

December 2019 - May 2020

Jennifer Becker — Cloud Paintings

“...​clouds are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul​” (from the Manifesto of The Cloud Appreciation Society)

I have always been an ardent cloud admirer. I have lived in California under
the monotonous stare of a flat blue sky and much prefer the luminous cloud-filled skies of New England. They are more closely aligned with my temperament. This group of paintings reflects my attempt to capture the silent drama of the atmosphere in which the shapes, colors, and textures of clouds float and shift in varied and unexpected ways.

Attempting to strike a balance between accident and intent, I set out to capture the mood of the sky as experienced at a particular time of day, working directly from nature and usually in places where sky meets water, allowing the physical sensations of the day (wind, temperature, light and shadow) to influence the painting. I find that the medium of watercolor, which is fluid and time sensitive, is especially well suited to capturing the ephemeral nature of clouds. In these compositions I have deliberately omitted any reference to the ground below, allowing the clouds themselves to take center stage.

Born in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1961, Jennifer Becker is a painter and graphic artist who lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island. After completing her BFA from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1985, she earned a Certificate of Advanced Study in Painting and Printmaking, also from UCSC, in 1986. Jennifer worked as a learning specialist for twenty-five years while raising a family in Providence. Since 2016, she has devoted herself to painting and drawing full time.

Becker is inspired by the natural world and is especially interested in places where human infrastructure overlaps or interferes with it. After years of teaching students who think and learn in atypical ways, she is also fascinated by the endlessly strange human brain. A traditionalist at heart, Becker challenges herself to work from life or memory.

September - December 2019

Susan French Overstreet — The Yoga Paintings

Color is my means of expression. I paint plein air on Cape Cod and am amazed at the constantly changing kaleidoscope of color before me. Gathering my plein air studies, along with my lifelong study of the figure, my series of yoga paintings emerged. Yoga is such a positive part of my life and its benefits have enhanced my ability to express myself with color. It is a joy to present these paintings and I hope they will resonate with others. 

Susan Overstreet’s creative process of weaving vibrant colors with a staccato technique of palette knife and brushwork captures a visual tapestry between abstract imagery and representation. In that vein, Overstreet forges a new path continuing the legacy of American Impressionism and Abstract Expressionism. Overstreet’s bold expressive style is driven by unique natural elements found on Cape Cod that offer an evolving kaleidoscope of color.

“I work quickly. Capturing the subject extemporaneously is vital to breathing life into it visually,” explains Overstreet. “Knowing what the paint can do by experimenting with its properties, I move the paint around the canvas until the image emerges.”

Susan completed studio work at George Washington University, and continued studying fine arts at the Corcoran School of Art and the Art League School of Alexandria. Her work was accepted in many juried competitions in Virginia and now on Cape Cod. Susan has exhibited at The Provincetown Art Museum, the Cape Cod Cultural Center, and the Cape Cod Art Museum. She taught art to children in Fairfax Public Schools, and served as president of the Springfield Art Guild. Susan now teaches at the Cape Cod Museum of Art and is represented by Tree’s Place Gallery in Orleans, MA.

August - September 2019

TIMOTHY LYNCH - NAPTIME

Timothy’s work investigates the field of friction where transformation and relationship takes place, along with the tension and beauty that being in that place arouses in all of us.

June - July 2019

Amy Lovera — The Anatomy of Wishes

The Anatomy of Wishes is an investigation into memory, longing and the taxonomy of wish-making.  Famed 19th century botanist, Dr. Ida Hopewell, has discovered the illusive property in dandelions that allows wishes to come true.  Artist Amy Lovera weaves this tale, performing as the fictional Ida and "documenting" her findings through photographs, fabricated botanical specimen and animation.  With this absurdist attempt, Lovera seeks to empirically prove the physical existence of wishes.  

Amy Lovera is a multimedia artist whose works explore the interplay between biographical and fictional narratives. Her work has been exhibited and published both nationally and internationally, including animation screenings at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, a performance at the RISD Museum and a publication in Mexico’s Fine Art Photography journal, Luna Córnea.  She has  been awarded grants from Rhode Island’s State Council of The Arts and from the LEF Foundation.  Amy is a Assistant Professor in the Art & Art History Department at Bridgwater State University.  She holds an MFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design and a certificate in collegiate teaching from Brown University.  

February 2019 - May 2019

MARISA Adesman

Jala is pleased to feature the work of Marisa Adesman. Adesman graduated from RISD with an MFA in painting in 2018. She is currently the resident artist at the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Adesman’s large scale paintings combine photo-realistic attention to detail with a more abstract cropping of subject matter. There is a moment before the mind realizes that Uprooted depicts the slick bottom of a foot wet with paint. In that dissociative moment, the everyday familiarity of the foot dissolves and form is divorced from context. As recognition dawns that the painting is a foot, one then fully sees the foot anew with its fleshiness, shape and intricate patterns.

Through composition, perspective and detail, Adesman’s arresting work prompts renewed appreciation for the everyday miracle of the body.

Marisa Adesman was born and raised on Long Island, New York. She recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with her Masters of Fine Arts in Painting. In 2013, she received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, where she majored in painting and psychology. Marisa graduated magna cum laude from WashU and received the Hazel H. Huntsinger Memorial Prize in Painting. She attended Yale University’s Summer School of Art in Norfolk, Connecticut in 2012 and Columbia University’s Advanced Painting Intensive in 2013, as well as many other residencies across the country. This year, she is the resident artist at the Chapman Cultural Center in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

November 2018 - January 2019

MARGIE BUTLER — JOYFUL BLUR

Recent Work from Jala’s India Retreat

Painting was an important part of savoring this recent India retreat with Jala. Twelve days at Basunti in the northern province of Himachal Pradesh offered the opportunity to briefly immerse myself in new colors, scents, flavors, traditions and India’s vast sense of space.

The beauty and contrasts I observed were humbling.

Grand Himalayas and lush vegetation,

twisting roads, colorful temples

burning rubbish and Sumla’s smile.

Creatures who revealed themselves

and the hidden ones I imagined were lucky in the bushes.

Two endless lakes,

long meandering paths

and that lovely lilac sky.

The watercolors in this show were done on site at Basunti. The acrylic paintings on board were done in Margie’s Providence studio but incorporate found elements from India.

Margie is a painter whose creations span plein air, abstracts, collage and painted objects. Margie completed her MFA at the Art Institute of Boston and keeps a studio in her Providence home. In addition to art, she consults in the fields of brand strategy and community engagement.

Find the whole show here: http://inmystudio.popslice.com/jala-december-2018-show

AUGUST THROUGH NOVEMBER

EMILY MARTIN -- NEW DRAWINGS

I find that through the act of drawing I am able to pursue fluidity, to experience the spontaneity of line, shape, and color, to move at my own pace. These drawings came to be about finding a sense of balance, a place where things feel right and unfold slowly. Through variations in hardness and softness of lines, juxtaposing sharp and smooth shapes, and working with negative and positive space I worked toward this sense of equilibrium in hopes that the result would bring some sense of peace.

Emily Martin is a southern New Jersey native living in Providence, RI. She studied photography as an undergraduate at Stockton College and has since worked in the mediums of photography, design, craft, textile, and writing in her personal creative practice. 

April - july 2018

glasses & grasses -- photographs by ruth lauer-manenti

‘I am interested in exploring how order and beauty relate to peace of mind, through my art.  This interest comes out of a need to organize and measure my own life with care, tenderness & vulnerability.

I’m interested in how much can be seen when almost nothing is there.

The quest for stability in a world of movement and change is something I aim to address through photography, drawing, paper weaving and painting. I’m engaged in the dialogue between these mediums and how they enhance each other and can express the same sentiments in totally different ways, yet through a consistent way of seeing. I often feel that everything is loud, big and coming at me quickly, making me feel fragile as if I could disappear.  I reference that feeling through all of these mediums, over the past 35 years of art making.

I see the cycle of the present slipping into the past and that fluidity as visually poetic; capturing moments that almost don’t exist.

Ruth Lauer-Manenti received a BFA in painting from The School of Visual Arts in NYC and an MFA in drawing, printmaking and painting from the Yale School of Art, where she later taught drawing and printmaking. She also taught drawing, painting, and printmaking at Dartmouth College. Ruth’s work has been exhibited at the Bill Maynes Art Gallery, the Lower East Side Printshop, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Paula Cooper Gallery, The Griffin Museum of Photography, Dartmouth College and Le Salon Vert in Geneva, Switzerland. Ruth was a recipient of the 2016 New York Foundation for the Arts photography grant.

Ruth’s work has been collected by the New York Public Library as well as many private collections including Lois Conner, Louise Fishman, An-My Lê, Frances Barth, Bruce Gagnier, Sylvia Mangold, Seane Corn, Dan Walsh, Chris Martin, Connie Hansen and Russell Peacock.

January - April 2018

EN PLEIN AIR / BLOCK ISLAND -- Paintings by Liz Pannell

"These days, as time allows, I am drawn to the sea, to bask in its restorative powers. I was raised on the water, the daughter of a sailor, and have always had an emotional response to the sea's energy. I paint from life, plein air, in locations which are imbued with peace and tranquility. In response to the elements, awash in color and light, I work to express this feeling of calm inspired by nature. My paintings are studies, impressions of a day, a location, a time of year, a moment, a memory."

SEPTEMBER - DECEMBER 2017
AN LI LIU: RECENT COLLAGES

"This collection of collage paintings began with some trimmings from some larger abstract works I’ve been making recently. I have been collecting these “outtakes” and thought I’d save them for some smaller pieces. Instead of pouring more paints onto them in layers like I normally do, I began instead to use collage to create dreamy, playful landscapes and vistas.

My work is very process driven -- for me, the joy in making art is witnessing the unfolding of imagery though expressive gestures using a variety of tools. I particularly like squeegees, spoons, and scrapers. With these pieces, it was fun to add to the painted backdrops, creatures, characters, and all manner of objects in a more methodical and planned way. I think there’s something mysterious, magical, and light-hearted about this group of paintings.

I’m a long-time yoga practitioner, and feel like art making has similar qualities as doing yoga. As an abstract painter, there is an emphasis on creating forms and manifesting gestures in a variety of colors. Spontaneity is a big part of my work, but there is attentiveness, precision and focus as well. At its best, the process of making is deeply embodied, can offer other ways of seeing, and can be a transcendent experience. The end result just follows. For the most part, there is no real goal or specific picture in mind. It all just comes as part of the path of making – a fluid, mindful process that goes beyond the everyday."

An Li Liu was born in Guelph, Ontario Canada and lived in Toronto for over a decade before moving to the US. She resided in Boston, MA for several years, and then moved to Berkeley in 2014. She attended the University of Toronto majoring in Cinema Studies and Religion. An Li also studied New Media Design and worked in the industry as a web and graphic designer. She is a traveller at heart having traversed much of South and South East Asia where colors and energies are very potent. An Li delved into yoga practices with a special interest in Buddhist philosophy and then became a yoga instructor herself several years ago, and taught in the Boston area. While An Li took formal art classes in University, she is mainly a self-taught artist with many influences — everything from sublime landscapes and atmospheres to city energy and our shared existential wonders and woes.

www.anlistudio.com

curated by Bristol Maryott

MAY - SEPTEMBER 2017
MARGIE BUTLER - BELIEVE IN NOW

February - May 2017
Kelli Adams: New Work

This installation of functional ceramic pieces is presented as an exercise in iteration and accumulation. Over the course of the next two months, the shelves will gradually fill with vessels that change incrementally from piece to piece, the spacing between them likewise intermittently expanding and contracting. The work embodies the concept of spanda as framed in Tantra yoga philosophy. This Sanskrit term has as its root spadi, meaning “to move a little,” and is used to describe the microcosmic pulsation of universal energy made manifest in tangible form. The installation mirrors this essential dynamism of stillness, potentiality poised in the contained space of each vessel. 

Kelli Rae Adams utilizes clay in various states of permanency—sometimes employing additional materials—to create both functional objects and installation-based works that examine prevailing economic systems and probe our relationship to labor, currency, and value. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in venues such as the David Winton Bell Gallery (Providence, RI), the Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY), the Museum of International Ceramic Art (Denmark) and the Contemporary Urban Centre (Liverpool, UK), and she recently completed a residency in the design studios at Vista Alegre in Portugal. Her study of ceramics began in Japan, where she apprenticed over a period of five years with Tetsuro Hatabe, a master potter in the Karatsu tradition. Kelli holds an MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BA in Visual Arts and Spanish from Duke University and has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is also a certified yoga and meditation teacher and a longtime student of contemplative traditions.

www.kelliraeadams.com

curated by Bristol Maryott and Dutzi King

JANUARY 2017
MAX ASCRIZZI: TRANSFORMATIVE WINTERS

Max Ascrizzi believes in the seed, in the sleeping ember, in things just out of sight, unseen, the hidden forces beneath the surface. He believes in the homologous relations (in the often divided view) of Humanity and Nature.

Born in 1971 to Artist parents, Max Ascrizzi was raised in Freedom, Maine, a small town, just inland from the coast. Max basically grew up between the outdoors (in the woods that surround the house and gardens that his parents built by hand) and his Father's shop/studio. It was knowledge acquired in these two places that taught Max all the skills he uses in the making of art and furniture. He has designed and made furniture which he has shown in galleries and furniture shows, has taken commissions to design and build original pieces. He has also produced several multi-media performance pieces, and has shown his art in group and solo shows.

curated by Dutzi King

November/December 2016:
FRITZ DUMVILLE:  LIFE LINES

Fritz Dumville is a sculptor and graphic artist who follows the archaic language of line and form; laid down before the first alphabet, untainted by intellect, and vessel of pure feeling.

Life Lines features Dumville's composite prints and selected works of sculpture. The liveliness and sensitivity of Dumville's work visualizes a depth of feeling found in both the prosaic and profound.

Fritz is Detroit born and Providence based, with decades of experience in teaching and editorial illustration. 

"All his figures are very human, touchable, connectable, fragile, and yet very strong at the same time. Fritz shows their vulnerability and beauty in everyday moments, movements, and encounters. There is something subtle and deep within his perception of bodies, the lives of different people and their interconnectedness. Sometimes his figures are humorous, like birds reading news papers. Sometimes you see sobbing girls, showing strong emotions. 

In the Bhagavad Gita it says, that through the practice of yoga, we learn to see the divine spark in all beings and at all times (BG 6.29). Fritz captures these divine sparkles beautifully in his art works and in all the beings he brings to life. Being close to Fritz's art you can feel their love and connection. 

Meister Eckhart once said, that the most important person in your life, is the person right in front of you right now. Fritz treats his figures exactly like that. They form out of clay or with a pen on a piece of paper right in front of him, in that special moment. They come to life with with love, beauty and Fritz' great sense of humor. " Dutzi King

curated by Bristol Maryott and Dutzi King

September / October 2016

Sean Riley: MEMORIEs in Indigo

Riley will be presenting a series of new works that reflect on the transformative properties of water.  Using paper and a dye bath of natural indigo, Riley is seeking to realize the dual nature of water as a constructive and destructive force by finding a point of balance between these forces.  The paper, as a result of its interaction with water, becomes a memory, enriched by the calming blue depths of natural indigo.

This series of works stems from Riley’s recent work in textiles, in which he has methodically deconstructed blue jeans inherited from his father.  Working with inherited clothing has brought his attention to how memory is preserved and communicated through material and we as humans embed our own personal narratives into objects.

Sean Riley lives in Providence, RI and works form a studio at the Hope Artist Village in Pawtucket, RI.  He has just been awarded a 2017 Fellowship in Crafts for his work in deconstructed denim from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and this past spring he was a resident at The Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans, LA.  Riley is a new and enthusiastic yoga student at Jala Yoga & Arts. 

curated by Bristol Maryott and Dutzi King

Performance with Sean Riley: 
Blue of a Thousand Years

October, 28th 2016, 7pm

As part of his exhibit, Memories in Indigo, Sean Riley will be presenting a new performance artwork at Jala Studio. Blue of a Thousand Years will use poetry, music, video, and movement to create symbolic acts of transformation that relate to Riley’s work with indigo in relation to memory.  The performance will also act as a memorial to the work of artist, Terry Adkins (1953-2014.)  Riley studied under Adkins at the University of Pennsylvania from 2002-04 and worked alongside him for many years as an assistant and collaborator.  According to Riley, "Terry taught me how to listen to materials for what he called their 'potential disclosure', by which a material reveals how it may be transformed and given new purpose.  Terry was a master at this and I am forever grateful for his wisdom, generosity, and mentorship." 
The title of the performance refers to a Japanese term for the deepest shade of indigo blue, attainable only by repeated immersion in the dye.  For Riley, the intellectual and emotional depth of Adkins’ work has provided a model for artistic development and material transformation akin to such a saturated blue.

MAY 2016

FROM ONE TO ANOTHER
NEW SCULPTURE & EMBROIDERIES BY S HOLLIS MICKEY

The sewn images and delicate sculptures of S. Hollis Mickey are evidence of ritual transformations. Through slow, careful processes, simple materials become charged-- maybe even magical-- objects. 'From one to another' brings together sculpture and embroidery from the past two years, including many new pieces which have not been previously shown. Much of the new embroidered work was created over a two-week artist residency at Penland School of Crafts in the mountains of North Carolina.

curated by Dutzi King

APRIL 2016

STEPHEN BETHEL

Having taught yoga for many years, Stephen Bethel brings the yoga teacher's gaze to the weight, balance and lift of the poses in his drawings. Having practiced yoga for many years, his body knows these poses by feel, from the inside. In the act of drawing, Stephen lets his hand be guided by his outer sight and inner sight together. The plaster pieces give a look into a longtime exploration of rounded and folded picture planes. Stephen Bethel studied fine art at Yale University, where he was also introduced to yoga. The two practices have formed an intertwining path.

curated by Bristol Maryott and Dutzi King

February 2016

Zach Martin: drawings and wall shapes

drawings and wall shapes is an interpretation of the different components of yoga—of mental and physical aspects. The process of making these drawings is slow and meditative. Each line builds upon another and ends in a culmination of thoughts. The wall shapes reflect fluidity, balance, and playfulness.

Zach Martin is an artist from New jersey currently living in Rhode Island. He works with many materials, often developing unique ways to finish and form them. His objects are thoroughly worked and rehearsed, requiring constant attention until they are prepared and ready to view. Zach and his wife Emily Martin also started Interior Theatre, a creative practice playing with the character of objects made for the home, the body, and spaces in between.

curated by Bristol Maryott and Dutzi King

January 2016

Nidus

The body of work entitled Nidus (“nest”) is a single chapter in a vade mecum, and represents the culmination of a process sparked by Antonio Forte’s fascination with physics and Zen Buddhism. Japanese Zen calligraphic techniques (like the gesture used for the ensō, or “circle”) were used to create oil paintings and ink drawings. Realizing that light (color) and sound (music) are both waves of energy moving through a medium, being perceived by the human physiology and psychology, Antonio wrote a physics formula to translate the frequencies of light in the colors of paint into frequencies of sound. These frequencies were then used to create musical compositions.

Antonio Forte studied Fine Art at SACI in Florence, Italy. He holds a BA in Music from American University, in Washington, DC, where he also studied Sculpture. Antonio is on faculty at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School where he teaches music composition and piano instruction, and teaches 1st through 8th grade music at Quest Montessori School in Narragansett, RI. He resides in Providence, RI, and is a member of The Wurks.
Antonio uses the vade mecum as a vehicle for carrying out visual and sonic processes which examine the minute and fleeting intersections between temporality and spatiality. These intersections are what one may call “moments,” and are instances of change in both time and space. The vade mecum, or “go with me” in Latin, is a personal reference book that is regularly carried around by a person, and is the conceptual precedent and starting point for most of Antonio’s work. Each drawing, painting, sculpture, or musical composition he considers to be a single word, sentence, page, or even an entire chapter, within the confines of a larger entity that is both introspective and interpersonal for its creator.

curated by Dutzi King

November/December 2015

2 in 1 Clay Paintings

Kate Champa has been a ceramic artist and teacher for many years.  The presence of the ocean in Rhode Island and the many moods, colors and terrain variations often inform her work. She loves color and form and the various interactions (sometimes intentional, sometimes fortuitously accidental) that occur between them. Animals in their infinite variety and capacity for joy are very important to her and she enjoys capturing their playfulness in clay. The perception of nature starts her own energy and creativity, the work finds its completion through the fire energy of the kiln.
 
As yogis we understand our own fire energy: the alchemical processes of yoga use heat, breath and intention. This tapas transforms our bodies. Physically, we become firmer yet more supple, but the most profound changes occur in our subtler energies. We refine our energetic, emotional and intellectual bodies allowing our prana or life force to move unimpeded through our system. This free movement of energy helps us to feel more expansive, spacious and at ease. Our bodies become vehicles for intention and consciousness. The transformation of unformed clay into a ceramic artwork is also a process of tapas. The heat of the kiln and the vision of the artist forms the work – an artistic expression visualizing intention.
 
Kate Champa has a Master’s Degree in Art History from Harvard and later attended RISD as a Special Student in Ceramics.  Kate lives in Providence RI with three cats. Animals in their infinite variety and capacity for joy are very important to her. 
She has been a member of The Foundry Artists’ Association for 25 years. In 1997 she, with a group of local ceramic artists, started Raku Rhody-o, A FireArts Festival in downtown Providence. Under Kate’s coordination, Raku Rhody-o was for eight years a successful and exciting contribution to the R.I. art scene. With her raku kiln she has taught the ancient Japanese art of Raku firing at many high schools in Rhode Island. 
Kate is included in the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts list of Artists in Education. She is always available to teach ceramic workshops in schools and for other groups. Her work may often be seen at South County Art Association, other local galleries, and every December at The Foundry Show at the Pawtucket Armory Art Center.

curated by Dutzi King

October/November 2015

Textured Textiles

The textured texts and textiles of S. Hollis Mickey emerge at the intersection of actions and objects. Gesture and material traverse and transform one another through a process of making that is a kind of call and response across genres. Performance produces soft, densely stitched and marked textiles, and, in turn, textiles inspire, or are used in, performance. In a sort of poetic alchemy, action and object become entwined and inseparable. Small movements and evanescent materials gather meaning through repetition and accumulation. Thousands of hand-stitches produce an image. Bone is cyanotyped onto fabric-- shadow marks fabric like memory. Words are repeated over and over until they are sewn into material form. This alchemy takes time, patience, some residue of belief. 

The two large textile panels "Returning/Working panel" and "Shadow Osteology panel" are the result of two durational performances, but stand as objects themselves without the context of performance. The creation of the small embroidery "Release the animals or at least gives them names" has inspired a set of texts and performance events around wolf mythology that is the focus of Hollis' current work. 

S. Hollis Mickey is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Providence, Rhode Island. Through text, textiles, sculpture, installation and performance, her work seeks to capture and remember ephemeral, everyday moments-- those glimpses of finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Hollis was awarded the 2015 Rhode Island State Council on the Arts Fellowship in New Genres. She holds a BA and MA in Performance Studies from Brown University.  In addition to being a practicing artist, Hollis works as Associate Educator, Academic and Public Programs at the RISD Museum, where she manages courses for adult audiences and artist professional development programs, serves as an editor of the Museum’s journal Manual, and teaches from the collection. She is also honored to teach at Jala and be a part of such a dynamic, creative, and intentional community. 

curated by Dutzi King

September 2015

Bodies of Nature

Jala features 'Pine Family 1' by British artist Jacqueline Brown. In her drawings, installations, videos, and sculptures, Brown turns an inquisitive eye on nature and its strange formations. Brown's training as a sculptor emerges at the forefront of her large drawings of conifer trees. The artist takes photographs in the forest of a seemingly infinite hatch of foliage, then "edits" her footage - effectively sculpting the material - into peculiar shapes that are then drawn on paper in painstakingly exquisite detail. Even here, seemingly undisturbed nature is not allowed to rest; rather, it is the artist herself who intervenes, mimicking an act of God through her re-structuring of flora. Through her sculptures, video, and extensive drawings, Brown's voyage as an artist has been spurred on by an inquisitive curiosity as to the ways in which we interact with the world we have inherited. 

Jacqueline Brown (*1982, Oxford, UK) studied at the Royal College of Art in London (MA Sculpture, 2007) and the Winchester School of Art in Hampshire (BA Hons Fine Art Sculpture, 2004). Her work has been exhibited throughout the UK and abroad. In 2007, she was short-listed for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries. That year, she also took first prize for short film at the Totnes Short Film Festival. Brown currently lives and works in Berlin.

'Pine Family 1' is accompanied by a Providence store front glass painting from the 1960s. This piece found in a former clothing store downtown shows in a clear geometrical structure the five koshas or bodies of the human nature as defined in the yoga tradition. Body, mind and spirit are interconnected, interrelated and interpenetrating, as it becomes visible in the interwoven grasp on nature in Brown's drawing. 

curated by Dutzi King

April - May 2015
High Way

Jala features colored pencil drawings by Johannes Einfalt. The small works are extremely detailed. Their textured surface gives depth to the images, inspiring us to look deeper. 

These drawings examine traveling. In particular, the aspect of traveling where time seems to stand still and the journey momentarily becomes apparent as our destination, the experience itself. As the world passes through a windshield, we gain presence. We’re moving fast but time stands still. Landscapes pass in a flow field. Traveling keeps you apart and brings you together at the same time. Your subjective is strong, while you sometimes feel yourself dissolve… as long as you keep practicing.

Johannes Einfalt lives and works in Berlin. He studied New Media Design at Merz Akademie Stuttgart and is represented by Strzelski Gallery, Stuttgart. International solo and group exhibitions since 2003. He specializes in drawing and creative writing.

curated by Bristol Maryott

SEPTEMBER 2014 - APRIL 2015

THE SUBTLE BODY - MIXED MEDIA BY JESSICA KUNG DREYFUS

Jala is pleased to show the work of Jessica Kung Dreyfus. Jessica is a Chinese American born in New York City in 1981. She studied Architecture and Art at Yale University, and also studied abroad with Cornell University in Rome. She graduated with honors from Yale in 2004.

Her work straddles the disciplines of art and architecture. Primarily through the medium of drawing, she explores how the Eastern tradition of the energetic body informs our experience of body, building, and urban environments. Through her work, she brings together her rigorous training in western art and architecture and her equally rigorous training in eastern philosophy and methodology to create a new paradigm.
Jala features Jessica’s screenprints of yoga postures with watercolor and pastel overlays as well as originals and prints of Jessica’s line drawings.

curated by Bristol Maryott