Rocky Mount, N.C.—"Nourishing the Spirit" an exhibit of art from the collection of Hospital Audiences Inc. (HAI), will be on display in the Four Sisters Gallery and Lobby beginning August 25, 2006.  Shown concurrently with the HAI exhibit will be work by Clarence Antonio (Tony) Wise - a quadriplegic visionary painter - and selections from the portfolio of the late bipolar artist William H. (Wiili) Armstrong.

The exhibit is open 9-5, Monday through Friday. The Four Sisters Gallery is located in the Pearsall Building (Admission Office).

A free public forum on disabilities and art will be held Friday, September 15, 1:30 -3:30 p.m. in the Mims Gallery and Powers Recital Hall of the Dunn Center. This forum will include panelists who represent important local advocates and health professionals from the Rocky Mount Mayor's Commission on Disabilities, the Hospital Audiences Inc. visual arts director and an HAI artist, and Durham artist Tony Wise.

The Four Sisters Gallery has been a leader in the acknowledgment, advocacy, and collection of artworks by self-taught visionary artists, sometimes referred to as "outsiders" because of their often marginalized social status due to a lack of education, poverty, and disabilities.

The exhibition is a display of "outsider" art by mentally ill adults who spent many years in state mental hospitals before HAI found them in community residences after they left the state institutions. Professional artists leading HAI-sponsored art workshops discovered these talented artists, and HAI has assisted in preserving their work and bringing it to public visibility. This exhibit features the personal styles and points of view of individuals who found therapeutic satisfaction and expressive release through art, "outside" of any mainstream art movements in the twentieth century.

Hospital Audiences Inc. is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1969 by Michael Jon Spencer to provide access to the arts to culturally isolated New Yorkers. HAI services and workshops are designed for people with mental and physical disabilities, mentally retarded/developmentally disabled persons, bed-confined/swheelchair-users, visually and hearing-impaired individuals, the homeless, the frail elderly, youth at risk, participants in substance abuse programs, persons with HIV/AIDS and individuals in correctional facilities.

Clarence Antonio (Tony) Wise: www.powerofcreations.com

This Durham, N.C., mouth painter will be making his second solo exhibition at the Mims Gallery in the Dunn Center. Paralyzed as a quadriplegic, a victim of a drive-by shooting in 1985, Tony is completely bed-ridden, in constant pain, and paints with his brush in his mouth. His paintings are bold and colorful; they are a dynamic testament to his visionary interpretation of the Bible.