Okay, Here’s tonight’s Gallery Night Providence schedule and some information on this month’s celebrity guides.
5:20 Celebrity Tour with Susan Bennett
Bert Gallery
Galleries of the Providence Art Club
Joan McConaghy: Painter
John Brown House Museum
5:40 Contemporary Celebrity Art and Artisan Tour with Walter Silvia
ArtProv
Gallery Belleau
The Peaceable kingdom
Three Wheel Studio
6:00 Contemporary Celebrity Tour with Ricky Gagnon
Anthony Tomaselli:Painter
Copacetic
Dryden Gallery @ Providence Picture Frame
Studio Hop
6:20 Collectors’ Tour with Russell Ricci
ArtProv
Cate Charles Gallery
GRIN
Studio Z
6:40 Contemporary Tour
AIAri
Adirah
Dryden Gallery @ Providence Picture Frame
RISD Museum of Art
7:00 Downtown Walking Tour
Adirah
AIA ri
ArtProv
Copacetic
We’re very excited to have local painter Susan Bennett leading our 5:20 tour!
Susan is an Artist/Painter happily living in Providence RI. After receiving her BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design,she began her career as a fashion designer working in Boston and NY. Eventually, after rising to the position of Director of Design, She decided it was time for a change. So Susan started her own decorative painting company, designing Murals and painted finishes for clients such as Pepsi Corp, Hasbro’s Transformer Ball, Karta Bar, and the Bank of RI executive offices.
Based on this love of painting, she started producing her own personal paintings. Susan’s work has been shown in San Francisco, Detroit, Atlanta and Various Galleries in the Rhode Island Area . Her paintings have recently been featured in Catapult Art Magazine.
After having worked as an assistant to some successful artist(s) and once worked for a BIG toy maker and a children’s gift-ware company, Walter Silva realized a dissatisfaction in making objects and designs for someone else. This realization led him to fabricate his own designs and market them online, taking charge of what he wants to make and finding his own visual voice.
Walters’s passion for European illustrators, Mexican folk art, grids, quilt patterns, and vintage toys are what fuel his ideas. He also likes making mature art for adults, like collages, day of the dead items, and sculptures.
“My love for Art since I can remember stems from my fascination with Vintage Fisher Price Pull Toys? The Illustrations prints mounted onto those wood substrates are a delight to the eye! My collection makes me smile… I suspect this fascination is what inspired me to illustrate and decoupage.”
Native Rhode Islander Ricky Gagnon is a self-taught artist who has been creating since his childhood, working in every medium available to him. He studied mechanical drawing and architecture at Toll Gate High School and the Community College of Rhode Island as well as taking ceramic, weaving and painting classes during this time.
“In 1998 I began to focus on my painting when I purchased a beach house in Riverside, RI near the old Crescent Amusement Park. That started a ten year rehab project to restore the house to a 1950’s to 1960’s retro look. I decorated the house with furniture and collectibles from the same era. I created amusement park themed pieces of art for every room. My house looks like a fun house gift shop, crossed with Ripley’s “Believe it or not” museum and a Christmas light display.”
Since 2008 Ricky has been showing his work in many New England galleries, juried shows, and has won a variety of awards. Ricky is also the Director and Curator of The New Hope Art Gallery at the Thomas C. Slater Training School, located in the Youth Development Center in Cranston, RI. The mission of the gallery is to provide inspiring 2D and 3D artwork of all styles, from local artists, to the residents of the training school and the community.
Russell Ricci
As a huge follower of the Providence music scene, Russell often found himself in the presence of not only cutting edge musicians but many visual artists as well. It was in the 1980’s when a favorite haunt “Rocket” had a fundraising auction called “Artists Against AIDS”, where he first encountered art that was affordable, and so his collection began.
Since then, Russell’s collection has grown to include works by Edna Lawrence, Edna Martin, Ann Korb Henry, Jessica Rosner, Mark Perry, Kathy Hodge, Mark Freeman, Vicky Wolf, Umberto Crenca, and Michael Davis to name a few.
Gallery Night Providence 