Marking our sixth year of partnership with the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, A4A is thrilled to welcome these seven talented Rhode Island artists into our Capacity-Building Grant Program!

Dawn Spears

Ashaway-based Dawn Spears (Narragansett/Choctaw) is a doll maker, photographer, clothing and multimedia artist who uses the cultural symbolism and vibrant colors of our natural world as inspiration for her work. Her primary practice includes customizing shoes, clothing and accessories. More recently she’s explored ways to incorporate contemporary styles into her traditional corn-husk dolls. Before the pandemic, she often sold her work at fairs and markets. She works as a Native arts advocate, a grandmother, a mother, and as a wife.

k. funmilayo aileru

Visual and installation artist k. funmilayo aileru (Providence) employs radical imagination, research and Afrofuturism to engage hir creative discipline from an alternative perspective that centralizes and elevates the experiences of marginalized identities and marked bodies. To do this, funmilayo enlists a variety of materials and media with a focus on ancestral memory, trauma and Otherness. funmilayo seeks to shift the oppressive framework of Western technology, with a current focus on what ze identifies as the West’s current obsession with Mars as the new frontier. The work asks what marginalized identities and communities might look like in a celestial space and what marked bodies might feel like on Martian lands. funmilayo’s work is informed by Christian history and iconography as well as Yoruba and Narragansett traditions and folklore.

Matt Tracy

Through his painting, map-making, and mixed-media work, Providence-based visual artist Matt Tracy explores the many ways humans perceive of the world. His years owning and operating a Rhode Island farm are major influences for his creative practice, which he returned to in 2018 after a several year hiatus into environmental and agricultural science. A lifelong fascination with systems and networks has been the fuel for his sustained, deep interest in history, the things that people build, political economy, and language. Today he integrates Rhode Island native and invasive species into his work to explore solastalgia and other climate-related anxieties.

S. Tourjee

S. Tourjee (Providence) is a writer, performer, educator, and media & book artist. They are the author of Sam Says, Sam, published by Spuyten Duyvil in October 2018, as well as two chapbooks: Ghost (2013) and When Tongue Was Muscle (2016), both published by Anomalous Press. They are also a collaborative artist who works with musicians, media artists, book artists, and choreographers. They make small-edition, handmade books through their own imprint Ghost Hum Arts and are currently developing a hybrid work that explores lineage, U.S. healthcare policy, and neurological illness.

Si Jie Loo

Si Jie Loo (Pawtucket) is a Malaysian-Chinese artist whose artistic practice draws from traditional Chinese ink painting techniques. She frequently ventures on art pilgrimages for inspiration from legendary, ancient locations throughout China (on hold during the pandemic). Her work reflects the rich legacy of Chinese art, originating from her studies with renowned Malaysian artist Dr. Cheah Thien Soong while pursuing her Studio Art degree at Dartmouth College. An eclectic artist whose work reflects her roots in the Chinese diaspora, Loo’s practice constantly absorbs new influences from a range of cultures, musical genres and languages. Her work depicts captivating people, renowned musicians and dancers, and the natural world she encounters during her travels.

Slitty Wrists

Slitty Wrists (Providence) is a 24-year-old Dominican multimedia artist from Providence, RI, who believes that we all have the ability to change the world and expand human consciousness through various art forms and to redefine what it means to be an artist, lyricist, and a human. In 2019, he was a member of RISCA’s inaugural Creative Workforce Development program.

Sondra Wiskari

The work of Sondra Wiskari (Charlestown) follows two disciplines. One takes the form of meticulous, abstract pointillism that draws the viewer into its meditative, interior space. Beginning with an aerial tracing of linear gestures that will ultimately become the armature for the drawing, each work is a slow process of building up and mixing tiny points of color, which often obscures the original line and gives shape to fluidly sculpted forms and negative space. Sondra’s second practice explores digitally and hand-printed textiles, where she melds hand-wrought sketches, painting, photography, and tablet work to create constructed imagery to print on natural fabrics. Printed in limited editions, her scarves are finished by hand in a traditional artisan rolled technique.

In addition to the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, our 2020 programming in Rhode Island is possible because of our wonderful funders & partners, specifically the United States Department of Agriculture.