Upcoming Exhibition

"MERGE"

Tuesday, March 3 to Sunday, March 29

Public reception and gallery talk: 5-7 p.m. Thursday, March 5

Please note: The gallery will be closed from Saturday, March 14 through Monday, March 23 for Salve's spring break.

"MERGE" is a multidisciplinary exhibition that showcases the practices of New England-based artists Liz Ellenwood, Whiteley Foster, Justin Gerace and Stephen Medeiros, and celebrates their enduring ties to Salve's art and art history program. With this exhibition, each of these teaching artists steps outside the classroom and into the gallery to share elements of their current professional work.

Ellenwood is a photographer, Fulbright Scholar, educator and ocean farmhand currently residing in Pawcatuck, Connecticut. Her creative practice blends a reverence for the ocean with her background in photography to create imagery that brings attention to marine debris, plastic pollution and climate change. The work included in this exhibition is from a collaboration project in Norway where she worked with scientists studying plastic pollution. Ellenwood's photographs reflect the culmination of that research, both in the lab and in the natural environment. Microscope studies, collected objects from the sea and fieldwork images force us to confront the dire state of our polluted planet. Her photographs represent the blatant truth that synthetic and natural elements have become one entity and invite moments of reflection and questioning. They prompt us to see and understand pollution but also challenge us to find our role in creating a more sustainable future.

Foster is an illustrator currently working on a graphic novel titled "Conjurer," which targets the underrepresented genre of lesbian fiction by reimagining an enemies to lovers story. "Conjurer" is a story of queer love told by a queer creator for a queer audience. The graphic novel's journey to publication is the subject of this exhibition. In Foster's book pitch, the artist shares cover designs, 20 pages of sample script, 13 pages of sample comic, a chapter breakdown, a 150 beat outline, end pages, character art and character designs. As the graphic novel approaches its new life in print, Foster offers a preview of the project that will be adapted by a publishing house into a long-form comic and edited by a team of professionals.

Gerace teaches ceramics at four locations in Connecticut and Rhode Island. His classes vary widely in demographics, ranging from work with nonprofit community centers to university-level studios. The pieces included in this exhibition offer insight into his teaching practice and the various applications, styles, techniques and forms he shares with his students. These "demonstration works" are essential teaching tools, yet they are often overlooked and disregarded as practice pieces. Gerace's ceramic ware bridges this gap, blurring the line between his roles as an art educator and a professional artist.

Medeiros is a research-based interdisciplinary artist. His practice explores beautiful disruptions as a methodology to self-identify within his Portuguese heritage and its traditional practices. He regards this work as self-portraiture. Medeiros makes non-traditional Portuguese Azulejo tiles with wood, ballpoint pen, tempera, beads and neon colors. He also explores Catholicism and repetition through time-based performative video works. These materials grant him agency to participate in traditional practices through accessible media and contemporary influences. They allow him to fold in joy, humor and a deeper look behind the facade of cultural perception. Some see disruptions as interferences. Medeiros views them as a powerful reclamation of one’s sense of belonging and a reinvigoration of tradition.