Walking between oval mirrors mounted above altars on opposite walls in the entryway of the Pawtucket Arts Collaborative gallery in Lorraine Mills, the theme of the mixed-media and immersive In-Between group exhibition became readily apparent. As a sign of welcome, an alabaster hand and an ebony hand reached out from one mirror, while a white hand projected from the other. And hands could be seen at play in many of the distinctive artworks of the three Providence artists who exhibited: Kim Arthurs, Hannah Hallett, and Lydia Therrien.
Some hands clasped, others did a pinky swear, some stretched toward each other or the viewer, and others pointed in different directions. The hands symbolized what we choose to hold on to, what we choose to carry, and what we choose to give, according to Arthurs. “It’s very whimsical, the way we got this whole thing together,” Arthurs said on opening night of In-Between, which ran from mid-to-late July. Robert Easton, pop-up show coordinator of the Collaborative, contacted Arthurs in early April and offered the slot. “I told him I’d be able to do it with two others,” the cyanotype artist related.
A pillar of the exhibit is Arthurs’ Carry the Blooms, Burn the Weeds, which was the cover of Motif’s Outdoors issue last May. Cyanotype uses a solution of iron salts that reacts with ultraviolet light to create a Prussian blue background against which can be silhouetted hands, ferns, or flowers. The exhibit also offered mixed media, mirrors, foil printmaking, collages, analog double-exposure photography, and non-linear memoir. “This installation whirlpools around the idea of where you can find the self in the past, present, and future; to take a moment to pause, and reflect. And while lingering in this space, and exploring the In-Between, you’re becoming a part of the art,” Arthurs explained.
Hallett, a self-taught mixed-media artist and founding member of NicheWorks Collective in Providence’s Valley Arts District, first connected with Arthurs while curating the Roots and Routes exhibition at CIC Providence last November. For the past two years, Hallett has specialized in foil printmaking, an art process that uses heat and metallic foils to create layered and reflective compositions. “This technique allows me to build depth into each piece, and I value how the iridescence causes everyone to see the work differently,” she explained. Her personal favorite artwork on display at the Collaborative was a triptych of a butterfly, a dragonfly, and a moth. “I’m drawn to wings. They’re uplifting symbols,” Hallett said. The holographic foil used in her pieces gave them an iridescent look that meshed with the cyan-blue of Arthurs and the colorful double-exposure photographs of Therrien.
The art festival director for the Wickford Art Gallery, Therrien is also a tour guide at the North Burial Ground in PVD. Her study of cemetery culture and Victorian flower language inspired her ongoing project Garden & Grave which uses analog double-exposure techniques to blend images of gravestones and botanical life. Therrien knows Arthurs from when her photos were exhibited at New Harvest Coffee Roasters, where Arthurs displays the work of a featured artist each month. Arthurs is the head coffee roaster. Shot on an Instax Mini 90, each image in the exhibition was created in-camera through two deliberate exposures that produced layered analog compositions. Therrien said her favorite one was of a patina angel and autumn beauty sunflowers. In flower language, the sunflower stands for adoration and loyalty.
Its title is The Angel Says It All. Therrien recounted that a man commissioned the sculpture for his wife and, when asked if he wanted to add an epitaph, replied, “No, the angel says it all.” At the entryway, a short film of looping naturescapes paired with nature soundscapes was projected onto the interactive display designed by Arthurs. For the closing reception on July 27, a new film with a new soundtrack was projected onto the display. This was Arthurs’ largest contribution to the show: a 30-minute film featuring a memoir written by Arthurs, recorded with music composed by Max Shakun, and nature soundscapes designed by Emily Baroody.
Using the same display in the gallery and an analog projector, there were improvised performances by Arthurs, Jared Manzola and Rachel Wallace that brought the story to life. The films served as both the beginning and the end of an artistic dreamscape where visual storytelling explored perception, evoked memory, bent time, and invited transformation through reflection. •
Artwork by Lydia Therrian.