BUY ART Providence Campaign Announces Artist Designs

Providence, RI - Mayor David N. Cicilline's BUY ART PROVIDENCE is gearing up for the 2010 Holiday shopping season by announcing the four local artists whose designs will be featured on the program's new series of advocacy buttons. This year's artists selected by a jury of participating galleries and retailers are: David Allyn, Andrew Moon Bain, Jason Brockert and Jing Xu. This newest group contributing their art to the pin campaign spans the artistic disciplines of ceramics, printmaking, and painting. The images themselves include architectural, animal, abstract and landscape imagery but will be revealed on the official November 18th Gallery Night campaign kick-off.

For the third consecutive year this arts advocacy initiative will provide "I BUY ART" buttons to all city arts venues and individual artists that sell art. The campaign works by having participating retailers and individual artists thank each person who purchases art with a button of their choice. Since the program's inception in 2008 shoppers and art enthusiasts alike have taken note of this creative campaign seeking out and wearing (and giving) the buttons proudly. Participation in the program is easy and comes at no cost to city retailers, arts organizations and artists. Interested parties should visit BuyArtProvidence.com to sign up and find out how to pick up their buttons during the month of November.

As the holiday season nears BUY ART Providence will announce further details about the campaign, where to shop for art in our city and how to show your button for a complementary cocktail at a December BUY ART Nite party to celebrate this year's artists and participating partners.

BUY ART Providence 2010 Button artist bios:
David Allyn
David is a 2003 RISD MFA graduate and currently works and teaches at The Steel Yard in Providence. He was a driving force behind the establishment of The Steel Yard's ceramics operation bringing in the equipment and now teaching many of the classes including his unique offering "Heavy Metal Ceramics". David makes ceramic work filled with color and imagery. Using photo decal transfers and silkscreen printing on porcelain he creates wheel thrown, one-of-a-kind porcelain objects. David's high-fire porcelain process offers a fresh vision of our contemporary age. David makes his artwork and curates exhibits in his studio / gallery at Monnohasset Mill, Thirsty's Gallery #104.

David's selected piece: Capco, various image transfers on hand made porcelain tiles, 2009.
www.davidallyn.net

Andrew Moon Bain
Following graduation from RISD with a BFA in Sculpture, Andrew, a.k.a. Moon, became very active in Providence's tightly knit art scene. He and other young printmakers contributed to the creative energy gathering in our city's Olneyville neighborhood. At the same time Andrew pursued his musical talent leading to the formation of a music label and contributions to Providence's Sound Session. Andrew's artwork has shown locally at Gallery Agniel, Stairwell Gallery, The Newport Art Museum and the RISD Museum's "Chazans' Choice" exhibition in 2005. He has also participated in community based art projects and is co-founder and head designer of Urban Social Empowerment, a company that focuses on branding positive social marketing concepts for Rhode Island youth. Outside of Rhode Island Andrew has shown in New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Cuba, Jamaica, Germany and Japan. A 2007 showing of Andrew's work at the Ad Hoc art space in Brooklyn, NY featured 16 Providence based artists and was titled 'SECRETS OF THE WOONASQUATUCKET RIVER' - 'SCREENPRINTS FROM PROVIDENCE'. Andrew continues to live and work in Providence, RI while also spending time in Brooklyn, NY, staying in touch with friends and helping to connect the dots between the two rich and bustling creative capitals.

Andrew's selected piece for BUY ART 2010: Houses For Ayiti (Golden City) mixed media on wood panel, January 2010.
www.andrewmoonbain.com

Jason Brockert
Born in 1971 as a native of Holliston, Massachusetts Jason's youth was mostly spent exploring the woods behind and around his house accompanied by his dog. He saw his rural town turn suburb in the short span of a decade from 1980-90 and that transformation in part fuels his current paintings. After a brief stint at architecture school, Jason graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1994. Jason now makes his home in Providence where he works as both painter and painting faculty at RISD. He exhibits his work in galleries across New England and is represented in many collections in the US and Europe. His work has been featured at such galleries as the CoSo gallery in Boston, the Wheeler Gallery in Providence, and the Central Gallery in Connecticut, among others. He has been awarded a Rhode Island State council of the art fellowship and has been a summer fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.

Jason's selected work for BUY ART 2010: American Landscape #23 : Divine Parking, acrylic on paper, 2007.
www.jasonbrockert.com

Jing Xu
Belgian-born Chinese raised in Sweden, Jing has taken Providence to be her new home since graduating from Brown University this year, with a concentration in Performance Studies. Her passion for painting was first triggered during a serendipitous summer in Krakow, where she met and developed a blossoming friendship with a local art-student. Having spent most of her years rehearsing and performing theatre, painting came as a refreshingly independent pursuit. A self-taught painter, Jing engages in constant experimentation with the movements and textures of paint. People in her life serve as her main inspiration, and portraiture is therefore an important indulgence of hers, where each subject demands and inspires a unique way of expression and the subject-artist. With her creative spirit deeply rooted in theatre, Jing's paintings often have a dramatic and character-driven focus, in which the personal and experiential, fused with fictional imagination, create the mise-en-scene of her artistic vision. Having yet to plan her first public exhibition, Jing hopes people will continue to encounter her art through fortunate and intimate occasions.

Jing's selected work for BUY ART 2010: Get off My Back, acrylic on canvas, January 2010.
jinxart.wordpress.com