Imago Foundation for the Arts (IFA) is hosting a new group exhibit featuring IFA exhibiting artist Linda Megathlin, spotlighted IFA exhibiting artist Bill Chisholm, invited guest artist Amy Lovera as well as other IFA artists from June 5 – July 13 at Imago Gallery, 36 Market Street, Warren, RI.
The public is invited to attend a complimentary reception for the artists on Saturday, June 7 from 5:00 - 8:00 PM. Musical accompaniment will be provided by harpist Mary King.
Megathlin says, “My artwork in this exhibit, which I am calling, “And Yet, Beauty Persists,” has been about looking back at the unfolding of my own artistic life and a persistent interest in finding beauty and meaning in nature’s inevitable impermanence -- a curiosity about what is next but also concern about what the past portends.” Added together the photographs she presents capture the ambiguity of what she perceives as wholeness including the beauty of decay, light in the dark, the etchings and patterns of time, the sadness of loss and, and, but also the promise of renewal.
Megathlin is an interdisciplinary artist who works primarily with photography and mixed media transfer prints with a focus on the transformation of iconic natural elements. She began honing her photographic skills as a newspaper reporter and continued to photograph through a long career that included journalism, commercial photography and corporate communications. For the last 10 years, she has focused almost exclusively on nature and still life fine art photography. She has displayed her work at Imago Gallery and many other regional galleries.
Spotlighted IFA exhibiting artist Bill Chisholm’s paintings primarily focus on subjects and objects that he has encountered, observed, and studied throughout his life growing up and living in the coastal communities of New England. These subjects include stones from the ocean, fruit and vegetables, landscapes, and ceramic vessels he has collected over the years from potters.
Although Chisholm’s painting is anchored in traditional realism, he has been inspired by a wide range of classical, modern, and contemporary genres and artists. However, he brings a personal and unique creative voice to his work. As he says, “My art is the most specific translation I can share of my physical, emotional and psychological experience of the world I encounter.”
With representation throughout the United States, Bill has had 12 solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibits. Presently, living on the coast of Narragansett Bay in Bristol, Rhode Island, he now concentrates on exhibiting with New England galleries.
Guest artist Amy Lovera’s artwork in this exhibit explores the transience of childhood from her perspective as a mother.
The artwork she presents is part of her recent “Securing Shadows” series of photograms, one of the earliest forms of photography. She says, “No camera is used. Instead, I am working with my family and myself as subjects, laying our bodies directly on top of light-sensitive paper to create white silhouettes. These images draw upon personal symbolism and reenact moments from our daily lives, including the imaginative play-worlds of my children.”
She says, “Like Wendy from Peter Pan, I am desperately trying to pin down the shadows of my ever-growing children. This work also ponders the transcendental connection I feel towards my daughters. I look into their eyes and think, I have known you all my life. How are we connected to all life stretching back to its beginning?”
Lovera’s work is rooted in imaginative storytelling and the interplay between reality and fiction. Her narrative works translate personal histories through reenacting them as photographs, animations, drawings and performances.
Lovera’s work has been screened, exhibited and published both nationally and internationally, including the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the RISD Museum and Mexico’s Fine Art Photography journal, Luna Córnea. She is one of this year’s recipients of the Make Art individual artist grant awarded by the Rhode Island State Council of the Arts. She has also been awarded grants from LEF Foundation, Bridgewater State University and RISCA’s Aaron Siskind Fellowship in Photography.
She holds an MFA in photography from Rhode Island School of Design with a certificate in reflective collegiate teaching from Brown University. Lovera is an Associate Professor in the Art & Art History Department at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. She makes her home and work in Rhode Island.
IFA exhibiting artists besides Megathlin and Chisholm, who will be participating in this group exhibit include Dot Bergen, Jim Cain, David Clarke, Eileen Siobhan Collins, Mary Dondero, Crickett Fisher, Stephen Fisher, Philip Gruppuso, Eliza Goodwin, Gary Heise, Carl Keitner, Lisa Lowenstein, Eileen Mayhew, Linda Megathlin, Mercedes Nuñez, Anne Marie Rossi, Lenny Rumpler, Duff Schweninger, Pat Warwick, and Meredith Wolf.
Regular hours at Imago Gallery are Thursday 12:00 - 3:00 PM, Friday and Saturday 12:00 - 6:00 PM, and Sunday, 12:00 - 4:00 PM.
IFA is a non-profit organization run by artists for artists whose mission is to inspire creativity and promote art-making that enriches our communities.
