"rolemodelplaytime," recent works by Hannah Barrett, Caleb Cole, Jane Maxwell, Randy Regier, Kent Rogowski, and TRIIIBE

David Winton Bell Gallery 

List Art Center, Brown University, 64 College St, Providence, RI   (view map)

Each word in the run-on title of the new exhibit at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery — “rolemodelplaytime” — carries equal weight. As they explain: “Life is a play with many roles. Whether from teddy bears, toys, or fashion icons, parents, siblings, or complete strangers, we seek out models for how to be human. This exhibition features recent work by New England artists [Hannah Barrett, Caleb Cole, Jane Maxwell, Randy Regier, Kent Rogowski, and TRIIIBE, a Boston-based collaborative] skilled in playful mimicry, inversion, and assemblage. Representing photography, collage, sculpture, and painting, the works shown here share a sense of ‘serious play’ with the modes, methods, materials, and processes of forming, inheriting, and expressing personal and social identities. They offer a reminder to children of all ages that identity is not fixed or inherited but made and maintained, and despite the differences and, at times, discord of our many senses of self, we share something in common in the way we enjoy the creative possibilities of becoming human.” “rolemodelplaytime” runs through July 8 at the List Art Center, 64 College St, Providence. The opening reception is on June 8 at 5:30 pm; the gallery is open Monday through Friday from 11 am to 4 pm and on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 4 pm | 401.863.2932 | brown.edu/bellgallery