Artists:

Rebecca Carter spent her childhood frequently moving house with her family. By the age of eight, she had relocated to thirteen homes, in three countries, two states, and countless towns. Through these moves, she was forced to constantly purge the toys and objects of her life that were deemed unimportant causing her to develop close relationships with the objects that could be taken.

“ These objects are not actually me, and in the end, are impermanent, unsatisfying, unfulfilling. They act as an anchor to my life, limiting my ability to feel free in the world. In this performance, I am slowly carrying the pieces on my body, keeping them close to me, creating a costume out of them, letting them define me, but also exploring the physical and emotional weight of this kind of material attachment, and the struggle.”

Kelly Goff collects and studies moments of muted opposition. The nuggets that he finds become the reasons for sculpture: the unique among the mass-produced, the industrial material that evokes its origin in nature, and the carefully-made in a culture that favors speed. Eroding surfaces, busted architecture, and wobbly shopping carts remind him of darker truths that contrast themselves with his relative luxury. He feels compelled to remedy these situations. By restaging them, he seeks to understand and expose their condition.

“I spent several days carving maple veneer with the goal of producing a shaving that was just the right shape, length, gesture, etc. Wood shavings are indexical markers of a woodworker's love for monotonous labor, exquisite sharpening, and quest for surface perfection. Cadmium red points to Fine Art, and blood, as in toil and procedure (ala striped barber poles as signage for their surgical offerings.)”

Jeff LeBlanc is an artist, a skateboarder, a bar-b-que pit and a beer. He enjoys social interactions and the observation of his surroundings, which often translate into his work.

“When Bryan approached me with the opportunity to provide sound for his video, I told him that I would have to sleep on it. That night when I went home to retire into my bed, I noticed that there was something odd about the height at which my bed was off the floor. It was a good foot higher than usual; I said to myself, “Maybe it’s the sheets.” I crawled into bed and went to sleep with Bryan Wilson on my mind, and thought, I cannot believe I am going to bed with Bryan Wilson on my mind.”

Mallie Loring is an artist working in glass, video and other sculptural media. Her work is often influenced by a desire to dissolve into thick fog.

“The need and desire for water is universal. In this work, I view water as a universal solvent, as a transformative material. My early spring bath both strips me of my current skin and creates a new one, a salt skin on my body. I ask how a literal change in atmosphere transforms first the skin, then the body and mind. By tasting my new salt skin, by ingesting it, I am perhaps cleaning, renewing, preparing my skin for spring. As screens for projection, the salty windows provide a frame within which the video and the projections exist. They reference the duality of skin as the organ that both absorbs the environment and protects from it. “


Suzanne Peck is a recovering poet. She strives to take the ordinary and reframe, rescale and recapture a sense of discovery. Currently, she is investigating touch- using it as the great distiller for many points of interest. In addition to art and art making, Suzanne loves ponies, the search for the perfect bite, and an Australian. She hates itching.

“Skin covers our whole bodies and all of it is sensitized. In the long ago past we were also covered in thick hair. We used this covering to emote: fear, aggression, and arousal. And now, virtually naked, our skin plays the part, triggered by the same stimulus. Goosebumps. Its uncivilized, undomesticated. We emote through our follicles. It is honest, uncontrolled.”

Erin Perry: I have questions that over time build into overwhelming concerns that must become materially manifested.

“Pulling a sweater over your head, for a moment unrecognizable, in the dark pushing and pulling yourself back into sight.”

“Become intimate with the pillow shark and open the zipper.”

Alexandra Pisarro-Grant was born in Los Angeles, CA. She is completing her final year at the Rhode Island School of Design, pursuing a B.F.A. in Painting. Her paintings often submerge personal narrative beneath a facade of impersonal found images or text.

“The paintings in "A Thin Veneer" attempt to address death (our own and other's); concepts which we all have to confront and can relate to each other about, but which we each ultimately experience alone. It is important that the paintings are simply and revealingly constructed, inviting and implying an easy read, but then firmly remain ambiguous in their narrative content and actually denying interpretation.”

Sunita Prasad makes films, videos, performances, and photographs in Providence, RI and Brooklyn, NY. Her work has shown at several film festivals, galleries, and performance venues, including the Brooklyn Museum as part of the Brooklyn International Film Festival, Dixon Place as part of the Hot Festival, and Symphony Space as part of the Reel Venus Film Festival.

“Kiss brings my two drag personae, Sunny and Benny, into skin-to-skin contact with one another for the first time. This is a very special moment for these two characters. The history of their relationship includes online and phone chats, a little dancing, a little shape shifting. But this is the first time they stand face-to-face, gaze into each other's eyes, and express their oneness through a gesture of love. The piece also meditates on bisexuality by taking the term literally, mixing and matching gender combinations within a single kiss.”

Nora Salzman was born in Chicago, IL. The RISD library has a video that her late mother made called “Four More Years.” The “documentary covers the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. Particular emphasis is placed on the younger people who attended it.” Call number: JK2353 .F68 1972

“Masking” represents the magical but temporary transformation between genders or identities. The transformations are “just enough” approximations in order to create a believable fiction. I lengthen the belief in the fiction by exploiting the embedded expectations of truth-value intrinsic to each medium. For example, a painting implies fantasy while the photo is fact. I take the assumptions of truth-value from one genre and lend them to another by cycling through painting, sculpture, and photography. As a narrative, the multiple iterations and combinations of props confuses what is real and who is the original.”

Steve Silber: a jester-idiot, an artistic genius, or just a little bit crazy? Guess it doesn't much matter; either way, as long as you like me. As long as you take part of me home with you.

“I reflect and experiment. I author works that are both particular and accessible. I search for any excuse to activate an audience, to excite them, but leave them pondering. I use a thought process that concentrates more on the question than the answer. For it is within a series of questions that the answers I search for lie. A question is open to possibilities; an answer is finite. Visual art is not linear, nor is it an objective to obtain, but a thought to more completely understand. Investigating in this way, I remove zeitgeists and can look at my work as though I had never seen it. I search as though I had never seen before at all.”

Brett Swenson was born and raised in the North Chicago suburbs. He attended Beloit College in 2005 and transferred to RISD in 2007. He is currently a 3rd year Undergraduate Glass Major at RISD.

“ The face acts as a projector of identity and displays a person's state of being at any given time. The language of the face is universal, while at the same time capable of trickery and deception. The individual hides behind their face while others project their own conceptions onto them.”

Zuriel Waters recently got his ears pierced at Claire’s in the mall, plays free-improvisation saxophone and attends the Rhode Island School of Design for painting.

“orange peels that won’t rot, surgery on men’s magazines, finding that you are wearing someone’s skin, sun tan lotion, not showering, big butts, nice suits, manicures”

Bryan Wilson is a glassmaker, filmmaker, and performer. He grew up in Missoula, MT and enjoys death metal.

“The choices we make to display our bodies, how we perform our gender, race, and sexuality all contribute to our understanding of persona. Occasionally, we realize that we have accumulated so many symbols and markers of identity that we have forgotten who and what we are. Symptoms of this condition manifest as profound confusion and cognitive dissonance. The antidote presents itself as an affirmation of the body as a blank canvas, a ritual to acknowledge the accumulation of these symbols, and the choice to accept or break free from their constraints. The cure may include discomfort, humiliation, and trauma, but it can present one with a newfound love of the air, skin, and the freedom to choose.”


Ben Wright is a biologist, craftsman and conceptual artist of diverse expressions. A Thin Veneer is his virgin attempt at a curatorial assault on the conventions of art consumption.

“Above all else A Thin Veneer probes the problematic membrane between art and its audience. By blurring this distinction it drives to illuminate the assumptions made on each side of this elastic barrier. Unorthodox juxtapositions catalyze creative thought in both the artist and the viewer”

A Thin Veneer: Expressions Through Skin


In the beginning

knowing our world through the unworried skin of our chubby palms
and the moist nodules of our gaping maws.

our eyes take command

we endeavor to define I.


Budding adolescence

bringing elastic, ecstatic pleasures of the flesh
paired with cringing calcification of protective shells.


Defying adult narrowness

artists probe and project, lick and shave, stretch and tear, reveal,
play and hide within

literal, cultural and mythical metaphoric crusts.


Stick your finger in the pie

what are we without our barriers?

erode the ever-present membrane between art and nonart, artist and nonartist


Probe the thin veneer between you and not you