Recognizing Earth Day with the “Above / Below” Artist Talk

Celebrate Earth Day by joining us for the Above / Below Artist Talk!

Everything is relative, and the environments in which we live are no exception. Join us as we shift our points of view – shrinking the monumental, making the miniscule colossal, and discovering unseen worlds. Curated by Curatorial Assistant Megan Horn, Above/Below features works of art from the permanent collection that explore the surprising and beautiful ways we find ourselves inextricably linked to our environment. Each artist will speak briefly on their works on view, and the role the natural world plays in their larger studio practice. Q&A to follow.

Free. 
Talk will take place virtually on Zoom!
Reservations required to receive Zoom link. 

Jesse Burke was born to be a storyteller. He spent his childhood exploring the wilds of New England and traveling from NYC to Maine skateboarding with his crew. This migratory lifestyle has instilled in him a sense of wonder for whoever he meets, making friends everywhere he goes. He is always on the lookout for a deeper connection to the places he travels, documenting along the way. Jesse divides his time between personal projects and commissions. His photography and film works often deal with themes related to human’s complicated relationship to nature. He is widely known for his personal project, Wild & Precious, which documents road trips to introduce his 3 daughters to the natural world. You can follow along on the never-ending adventures with his wife and kids, where you may also catch a glimpse into their home life on Sweet Bean Farm in Rhode Island, where they raise honeybees, hens, Flemish giant bunnies and Juliana mini pigs.

Jesse received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the US and abroad and is held in many private and public collections including the MoCP: Chicago, MFA: Boston, MFA: Houston, the Princeton University Art Museum, the George Eastman Museum, the North Carolina Museum of Art and the RISD Museum. Jesse was named by Time Magazine as a top 50 US photographer to follow on Instagram and by T: The NYT Style Magazine as a top 5 to follow on Instagram.

Neal Rantoul is a career artist and educator, having taught for 30 years as head of the Photo Program at Northeastern University in Boston, and 13 years at Harvard University. He now devotes his efforts full time to making new work and bringing earlier work to a national and international audience. For the past three years, Rantoul has photographed, aerially and on the ground, the devastation from firestorms in Southern and Northern California.

In addition to the Newport Art Museum, Rantoul’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA, the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Biblioteque’ Nationale in Paris, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA, the High Museum in Atlanta, the Princeton University Museum, the RI School of Design Museum of Art, Harvard University Museum of Art, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Boston Athenaeum, the Addison Gallery in Andover, MA, among others. Mr Rantoul’s work is represented by Insight Art Management.

Teddy Trocki-Ryba is a Rhode Island based visual artist & photographer working with photogrammetry, virtual reality, 3d printing and projection to create installation based artworks. His work deals with issues such as surveillance, the fragmentation of memory, historical preservation, and the ways in which our increasingly digital experience of space and current events shapes our perception of and relationship to the external world. He is currently employed at the Jamestown Arts Center, in residency at AS220 and assisting with 3D scanning services at Functional 3D. More info and a portfolio can be seen online at www.teddys.art.

Artwork:

Neal Rantoul, Wheat, Edition 1/10
2015, Archival inkjet print, 17 x 25 inches
Newport Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 2021.002.001. © Neal Rantoul