Distributed May 29, 2001
For Immediate Release
News Service Contact: Mary Jo Curtis



June 9 through July 8

Bell Gallery to exhibit latest Fessler work and new acquisitions

The David Winton Bell Gallery will present Ann Fessler: Close to Home and Recent Acquisitions by Yitzak Elyashiv, Richard Fleischner, Irene Lawrence, and Howard Ben Tré June 9 through July 8, 2001, in the List Art Center.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The David Winton Bell Gallery will present Ann Fessler’s multimedia installation Close to Home, along with an exhibition of the gallery’s newest acquisitions, from June 9 through July 8, 2001.

The complex installation is the latest in a group of works by Fessler devoted to issues of adoption. The exhibition of her work will be coupled with a second display, Recent Acquisitions by Yitzak Elyashiv, Richard Fleischner, Irene Lawrence, and Howard Ben Tré. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, June 7, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the List Art Center.

Close to HomeThe autobiographical Close to Home takes viewers into a darkened gallery, in which projected images, sound tracks and Midwestern corn cribs create the ambiance of a farm community of the 1950s. The sights and sounds of the farm provide the backdrop for the story of a young girl who grows up in a rural community and is later propelled by coincidence, dreams and fate to the hometown of her biological mother.

Fessler, a professor of photography at Rhode Island School of Design, is a native of Ohio; she studied at Ohio State University and the University of Arizona. Her earlier works based on adoption themes include Genetics Lesson (1990), Ex/Changing Families (in collaboration with Carol Flax, 1996) and Cliff and Hazel (1999), a humorous and poignant film portrait of adoptive parents.

A selection of recent additions to the gallery’s permanent collection will be on display in the foyer of the List Art Center. It will feature four Providence artists who show their work widely throughout the country – Yitzak Elyashiv, Irene Lawrence, Richard Fleischner and Howard Ben Tré.

The exhibition is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. The Bell Gallery is located in the List Art Center at 64 College St. For further information, call 401-863-2932.

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