“Call & Response” Artist Talk: Amy Giese, Kevin Gilmore & Kelsey Miller

Join us for the first of a series of “Call & Response” conversations with Senior Curator Francine Weiss and exhibiting artists. Glimpse at the Museum’s permanent collection through the fresh eyes of regional artists working in an array of media, and learn more about their selections and evocative responses.

This first talk will feature artists Amy Giese, Kevin Gilmore, and Kelsey Miller. Giese’s original photography and sound work responds to the architecture of the historic John N. A. Griswold House, designed by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt in 1864, and Gilmore’s original sound piece responds to the decorative stained glass window by Hunt’s friend and contemporary, famed glass artist John La Farge. Miller’s work responds to a powerful carved slate relief sculpture by artist Claudia Widdiss titled Hearing Impaired. Join us for a fascinating conversation with the artists.

Talk will be delivered Live on Zoom, and link will be sent directly to registrants.

Amy Giese

Amy Theiss Giese is a Boston-based artist. Her practice is grounded in photography but often is out at the edges of the medium, critiquing the materials of production as well as searching for points of intersection with other mediums. Giese’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including Pingyao International Photography Festival in China, the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona FL, Granary Art Center, Utah and the University of Maine Museum of Art. In addition to the Newport Art Museum, she has upcoming an exhibition at the McDonough Museum in Youngstown, OH. Giese has recently been featured in publications including PreCog Magazine and Art New England. She received her MFA in Photography from Parsons and her BA in Fine Art from Amherst College. 

Kevin Gilmore

Kevin Gilmore is an interdisciplinary artist, working as a painter, experimental sound composer, and educator. Originally from Rhode Island he spent over a decade exploring the landscapes of Wyoming, Oregon, Italy, and Brooklyn. As an abstract visual artist working with collage, acrylic and oils, the sense of place becomes the subject of his abstract canvases. Gilmore also works with sound as a medium, composing experimental soundscapes from field recordings, contact microphones, digital instruments and analogue synthesizers. His teaching philosophy has developed through a similar intuitive process, with experience leading workshops and teaching undergraduate art classes at RISD, University of Rhode Island, and Anna Maria College. After starting a family in NYC, Kevin returned to his native state… as Rhode Islanders often do.  His interdisciplinary art practice is located close to the sea where he also lives with his wife, two children and his dog.

Kevin Gilmore received his BFA in Fine Art at the University of Rhode Island and more recently, his MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier.

Kelsey Miller

Kelsey Miller was born in Antigua, West Indies, and now lives in Portsmouth, RI. She is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is rooted in printmaking and expands on its inherent qualities of repetition, accumulation, and layering. Miller earned her MFA from the University of Connecticut in 2018. Since then, she has taught drawing and printmaking courses at the University of Connecticut, the University of Georgia Study Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy, and Wellesley College. She has been an Artist in Residence at Proyecto ‘Ace in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has been selected as a participant for the 2021 Arctic Circle Residency in the International Territory of Svalbard. Miller is a 2019 recipient of the MacColl Johnson Fellowship from the Rhode Island Foundation.