NCWC News: Kenn Speiser Exhibit Opens At Mims Gallery November 5

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November 04, 2004

Kenn Speiser Exhibit Opens At Mims Gallery November 5

Rocky Mount, N.C.— Artist Kenn Speiser of Providence, Rhode Island, will open an exhibit on Friday, November 5, at 7 p.m. in the Mims Gallery of the Dunn Center for the Performing Arts at North Carolina Wesleyan College. The exhibit will begin with a reception that is free and open to the public.

At the reception, Speiser will talk about his artistic fascination with off-beat materials and his lifelong career making sculpture and prints in unconventional ways with everything from golf balls to zippers. In many ways, Speiser works a bit like a scientist and has appropriately titled his exhibition "A Rabble of Sports," which means a spawn of mutant butterflies signifying the unpredictable variety of rust stains found in his prints.

Born in New York City and trained as an artist with a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Speiser has lived and built his professional career in Providence, Rhode Island, for over thirty years. Outside of free-expression with a huge variety of art materials, Speiser has an extensive resume of commissioned sculpture and design projects for corporations and public institutions from Miami to Boston and as far away as London. He has well over sixty exhibitions, both solo and group, from his home city in Providence to New York City and Memphis, and is included in 25 public and corporate collections internationally.

Art critic Bill Van Siclin has written: "…Artist Kenneth Speiser is a materialist in the most basic sense of the word: he loves things…. Rather than starting with an idea, then trying to create or [find] an object that will communicate that idea, Speiser starts with the object, then lets his ideas develop from there." His elegant butterfly prints originated in the artist noticing interesting patterns where rusted metal had come in contact with other materials like industrial canvas, wood, and paper not unlike the paper he prints on. Folded patterns of rust resembled natural symmetry like a Rorschach Pattern used in psychological testing, and the butterfly had the right artistic symmetry for Speiser’s investigation.

All Mims Gallery receptions are free and open to the public. The gallery is located in North Carolina Wesleyan College’s Dunn Center. Viewers of Speiser’s exhibit may never look at rust quite the same again. The artist is a professional and earns his living by sales and commissions; all the pieces in the Mims Gallery are for sale. Gallery hours are 9-5, Monday through Friday. Tours are welcome; please phone 252-985-5268 for an appointment.

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