Art Beat: Method in the madness at 'Fear to Tread'

“Fear to Tread,” the inaugural exhibition at the Roger That! Gallery + Studios by Roger Williams University, is a bit of a hardscrabble viewing experience that nonetheless manages to be engaging, curious and ultimately rewarding.

The gallery is housed in an unassuming building a few blocks from downtown Bristol, Rhode Island. On the night of the opening, in order to see the show, visitors traversed a large room which serves as common studio space for Roger Williams art students, many of whom were on hand to enjoy the festivities and display some of their own work.

Curator Alexander Castro mingles the work of regional contemporary visual artists with some initially head scratching choices including an inkjet reproduction of an early 20th century entrance photograph depicting the entrance to Ferrycliffe Farm, the site on which RWU now exists, credited to Herbert Marshall Howe (possibly), a 1991 naive landscape painting by an unknown artist, and an ad for Osteo Bi Flex, originally printed in a 2003 issue of Ladies’ Home Journal.

And while not officially part of the show, in an essay, Castro makes a point of noting other items within the gallery such as a spray painted IKEA desk, a woven rug and a vampire Halloween decoration. But there is a method to his feigned madness.

William Kennedy displays an untitled acrylic painting depicting a young Black boy, sitting atop an automobile tire, against a background of two broad swathes of color, one a joyous sky blue and the other a non-committal beige. He wears a striped shirt and red athletic shorts. Maroon socks with yellow stripes rise above his black sneakers.

But the most striking feature is the lack of features on his face. There are no eyes, no nose, no smile or frown. He is a complete tabula rasa — a blank slate — as if anyone could project anything they wanted upon that featureless visage, be it for better or worse.

Sara Breslin’s “Aquarius,” a watercolor and mixed media illustration, depicts a pigtailed, bespectacled, seemingly adolescent girl, clasping a book or perhaps a sketchpad to her chest and smiling. The wings of an angel sprout from her back and it resonates with a quiet kind of hopefulness.

Sculptor Melissa Stern reveals herself to be a modern day Geppetto, with “Tripod,” a humanoid figure constructed of wood (a segment of a tree), clay and ink. It’s part Pinocchio and part the Zuni fetish doll that terrorized Karen Black in “The Trilogy of Terror,” the schlocky 1975 ABC Movie of the Week.

There is also something similarly disturbing in Tiffany Landry’s “Lover’s Quarrel.” A female figure (plush toy or statuette or cake topper?) with porcelain skin and bright red lips wields a flathead screwdriver as if she were ready to plunge it into her unseen partner and end that romantic tiff, once and for all.

The show is rounded out by works by Mark Kehoe, Ernest Jolicoeur, Barbara Owen, Will Forge and Linda Rogers.

Castro pokes a bit of fun at himself with the title of the show. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread but Castro is no fool.

In an essay that he wrote for “Fear to Tread,” Castro puts forth his curatorial intent:

“I thought I had happened upon some real poetic s**t. But then I lost the thread. Generally, I think it’s about attention. Proceeding from the love attention implies, a love of many things unbound by taste or class or hierarchy….When artworks gather, we glimpse something of the unreal. Juxtaposition means abolishing pointless or harmful boundaries.”

Nothing to fear. Tread on. Juxtapose away.

“Fear to Tread” is on display at Roger That! Gallery + Studios by Roger Williams University, 31 Burnside Street, Bristol, Rhode Island, until Dec. 5. The gallery will be open on Saturday, Nov. 12, from 1 to 5 p.m. Gallery viewings can be made by appointment at instagram@rogerthatgallery.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Art Beat: Method in the madness at 'Fear to Tread'