ART! IMAGO Gallery Focus – Carl Keitner, Gary Heise, GIFFA

Photo, top: “You’re My Heart,” 36 X 48” spray paint on canvas by GIFFA

New group exhibit at IMAGO Gallery focuses on IFA photographer Carl Keitner’s recent soul journey to Hungary, Spotlight Artist Gary Heise and Guest Artist GIFFA

IFA Exhibiting Artist Carl Keitner emigrated from Hungary as a child with his family in 1957. He returned via motorcycle from Paris in 1986 and while there experienced an epiphany in the midst of a rainstorm that if he had a soul it was there in Hungary. In 2025, the year he turned 80, he traveled back again, this time with a camera, to find out if it was true.

Photographic images of the people and places he encountered on this journey are part of a new group exhibit presented by Imago Foundation for the Arts on view from May 7 – June 13 at Imago Gallery, 36 Market Street, Warren, RI. The exhibit also highlights IFA Spotlight Artist Gary Heise, Guest Artist GIFFA and other IFA artists.

The public is invited to attend an opening reception for all the artists from 5 to 8 p.m. May 9. Musical accompaniment will be provided by harpist Mary King.

As a special feature of this exhibit, Keitner is inviting people to visit him in the gallery on Saturday, May 30 from X to X to look closely at his work and share their thoughts and questions with him.

After emigrating to Canada with his family, Keitner eventually earned a fine arts degree in graphic design and photography at Ecole des Beaux Arts de Montreal. After graduating, he owned and operated a graphic design studio where his clients included advertising agencies, magazines and local businesses. He moved to Providence in 1990 where he opened a photography studio in Wayland Square on the East Side, specializing in black-and-white portraiture. For the last several years, he has experimented with alternate photo processes, created sculptures, and painted on canvas, but never left behind his true passion—black-and-white photography.

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Heise’s artwork in this exhibit draws on the traditions of Chinese brush painting and Japanese sumi-e, emphasizing the vitality of the brushstroke and a directness of expression. He paints in ink and watercolor on Chinese rice papers, depicting scenes of coastal Rhode Island and the rolling hills of the Hudson River Valley, as well as imaginative, semi-abstract land and seascapes. He says, “My paintings explore the transient beauty of nature, illustrating how everything—from the fleeting aspects of weather to the ancient rocks beneath our feet—is both alive and ever-changing. I invite the viewer to pause and connect with these precious, shared experiences of nature’s beauty.”

GIFFA spray paints on canvas. He spends hours with a pencil, pen, and small knife, sketching, refining, and cutting intricate stencils before transferring them to canvas and spray painting. He says, “My work swings between moods: sometimes gritty and emotional, sometimes playful or steeped in irony. Some paintings dig into deeply personal experiences; others wink at the absurdity of daily life. Each work carries its own tone and its own message.”

He says, “At its core, my work is about connection – a pause, a laugh, a hit of recognition. The work invites you to feel, to reflect, to pause – even for a moment. Because for me, that moment might just be everything.”

Other IFA exhibiting artists whose work is in the exhibit include Dot Bergen, Jim Cain, David Clarke, Eileen Siobhan Collins, Mary Dondero, Stephen Fisher, Philip Gruppuso, Lisa Lowenstein, Eileen Mayhew, Linda Megathlin, Catherine Moylan, Rina Naik, Mercedes Nuñez, Anne Marie Rossi, Howard Rotblat-Walker, Lenny Rumpler, Duff Schweninger, Suzanne Taetzsch and Pat Warwick.

Regular Imago Gallery hours are 12-3 p.m. Thursdays, noon to 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and noon to 4 p.m. Sundays. 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.