Works by
Robert Rustermier
Susan Schrader
Julie Shelton Smith

September 13 through October 11, 2001

This exhibition provides an in depth encounter with three contemporary artists who directly reference the body in their work. Within this ‘body’ framework, each artist has developed distinctly different goals and methods as they strive to achieve a clarity and integrity of vision.

Robert Rustermier’s goal is to make “strong, beautiful, interesting objects.”
“Honesty, simplicity, a sense of immediacy and directness are important to me in this process.” His current works, which employ the bust as its format, reflect the effects of emotion, light, atmosphere and the passage of time. His sculptures are derived from drawings, and through the process of drawing and redrawing his works become a distillation of important forms that move from representation toward abstraction.

Between 1993-95, Robert studied ceramic sculpture as a Fullbright Fellow in Prague. He holds a M.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design and has most recently exhibited works at Lenore Gray Gallery in Providence and at the Attleboro Museum. He lives in Providence.

Susan Schrader is a Canadian artist currently living in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She has an M.F. A. from Illinois State University and has worked as a professional printmaker in British Columbia.

Her work focuses on painting and drawing as the means to express aspects of the human experience. Her imagery is derived from fragments of the body which express and reflect physical, emotional or psychological states of being. These basic ideas ask the viewer to think about larger, more universal issues such as public/private display of the body, transcending the familiar and the anxieties that arise from experiencing difficult or new situations. Susan has most recently shown works at the Bromfield Art Gallery and 808 Gallery in Boston as well as the Art Center of Northern New Jersey in New Milford.

Julie Shelton Smith, is a painter with an intense passion and an idealist who spent much of the 1990’s making works and giving public presentations about her experiences as a lesbian and feminist artist/political activist. Her most recent works explore the paradox between ‘the nude,’ as the sign of the ideal in western art and as the spectacle of gossip as reflected in the late 20th century political sex scandals. Using photographs of the figure as raw material, she digitizes them, then transforms them into intricate compositions. Fragmented and complex, her works maintain coherence and remain “charged with emotions and tensions.”

She most recently exhibited her works at the Newport Art Museum. She holds an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design and teaches at St. George’s School in Middletown, RI. She resides in Portsmouth, RI.