ART! URI students’ art shown at Providence Art Club

Photo: Keira Gonsalves in front of her drawing with College of Arts and Sciences Dean Jen Riley at the Providence Art Club’s 2024 College Exhibition. (courtesy Keira Gonsalves)

Artistic works by eight students from the University of Rhode Island will be on display and available for purchase through March 7 at the Providence Art Club as part of its 2024 College Exhibition. Located in the Maxwell Mays Gallery at 11 Thomas St. in Providence, the exhibition is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Sunday through Friday noon to 4 p.m. 

Renowned artist and URI professor of photography Annu Palakunnathu Matthew, who teaches the capstone senior seminar course for art students, has made applying to the exhibition – now in its second year – part of the course curriculum. According to Matthew, this is intended to “demystify” the intimidating process of applying to galleries, and making decisions about pricing and presentation. 

Less than 50% of applicants were approved to exhibit in the show, Matthew said. More than half of Matthew’s capstone students were selected, out of an applicant pool that included students from the Rhode Island School of Design and other Rhode Island colleges and universities with larger art programs.

URI students Betzy Cordon, Kayla Ebbeling, Emeril Estrella, Keira Gonsalves, Grace Horner, Araya Mckeon, Michael Miller-Sprafke and Klyee Rodrigues will be showing their work as part of the exhibition. 

Betzy Cordon

Cordon is a Guatemalan-American artist and senior from Cranston who has lived in Rhode Island for her whole life. Centering the stuff of fairy tales and folklore in her art, the pastel schemes and fantastical subjects integrate a signature sense of whimsy into her work. 

“My artwork celebrates and embraces a childlike sense of wonder and creativity through the utilization of fantastical elements and vivid colors,” she says. “The work calls back to a happier, simpler time seen through a child’s imagination. My pieces rekindle that childlike curiosity, reminding us of the fairy tales and stories that we had grown up with ourselves; tales that once stirred our own imaginations.”

Kayla Ebbeling 

Lincoln’s Ebbeling is a senior and a member of the shark and bird watching clubs. Ebbeling is a 2023 winner of URI’s Calabro Sculpture Award.  She has also experimented with paper mache, and a variety of digital art methods. Her preferred subjects are animals and nature, and she has used her platform as an artist to advocate against climate change, poaching, and other threats to wildlife and their habitats. In 2022, Ebbeling participated in the Camp Cronin Beach cleanup, sponsored by Save The Bay.

Emeril Estrella

In 2023, Providence-native Estrella received the Soloviev Art Scholarship award. His preferred medium is digital art, and he specializes in creating landscape portraiture. He worked as an illustrator and graphic design intern at the Clouds Hill Museum, where he illustrated accurate maps of a historic site in Warwick, and assisted with web and brochure design.

Keira Gonsalves

Gonsalves, of Ashaway, is a senior art major and dean’s list student who runs her own art business known as Stone Soup. In 2021, Gonsalves participated in Providence’s “Utility Box Project,” a mural series organized by local art collaborative The Avenue Concept.

Grace Horner

Horner of Dighton, Massachusetts, has been featured at the Hera Art Gallery in Wakefield. Her preferred medium is charcoal. Originally a kinesiology major before switching to fine arts, Horner has maintained her interest in the human body as part of her work. Her realistic depictions of the human form enhance the mundane, representing the body with a keen eye for detail and an intuitive sense of its structure. 

Says Horner, “My portfolio consists of photorealistic portraits created with graphite and charcoal. Using the human form and expression to convey aspects of the human experience, I want my drawings to transcend realism and offer something a camera cannot.”

Araya Mckeon

Warwick’s Mckeon was one of three recipients of the Dean’s Choice Award at URI’s Juried Student Art Show in 2023. Mckeon self-describes as an illustrator but will be showcasing a painting at the Providence Art Club. She has experience sculpting with a variety of mediums, including porcelain and clay.

Michael Miller-Sprafke 

Miller-Sprafke, of Providence, was also one of three recipients of the Dean’s Choice Award at the Juried Student Art Show in 2023, for a wire sculpture titled “Sad Marcus.” Miller-Sprafke’s work tows the line between simplistic themes and particular detail, but he never spares the comedic element tenable in his art pieces or what he decides to title them. His drawings–both digital and manual–range from subjects found in pop culture, to subjects that are fusions of animals and creatures, to comics-style drawings of a plethora of rodents. Additionally, Miller-Sprafke illustrated the cover art for The Strange Death of Agnes Pharr by Caroline S. Miller.

Kylee Rodrigues 

Rodrigues’ chosen medium is black and white photography. In 2023, she was the recipient of the Bart Parker Photography Scholarship Endowment, and interned at Cate Brown Photography in North Kingstown.  She is employed at Flash Powder Photography in Cumberland. 

“This series of images explores the bond between my little sister and I. Our sisterhood goes further than the resemblance we share,” says Manville’s Rodrigues. “Each image captures a moment of shared laughter, quiet conversations or an unspoken understanding. I chose the simplicity of black and white to contrast the content of my images which show the intricate dynamics sibling relationships hold.”

All of Matthew’s senior seminar students will have their work showcased April 6 through May 4 at the Hera Gallery and Educational Foundation in South Kingstown. 

This story was written by Samantha Melia, a senior journalism and political science major at the University of Rhode Island and an intern in the Department of Marketing and Communications