Against an adobe background, beige, red and aged white forms writhe into consciousness like the blood anointed spirits of horns, bones and feathers rising for a final charge and flight. Rita Rogers, a graduate of Bard College, studied at the Arts Students League in N. Y. and holds a M.A. in contemporary literature from Columbia University. She has shown widely, won numerous awards, and taught at Stonehill College, Portsmouth Abbey School and the Newport and Brockton, Massachusetts Museums. In addition to her painting she does painting restoration work for the Preservation Society. A woman of centering presence, Rogers interacts fearlessly with the atom s underlying form.
Good examples are the three paintings with blue backgrounds to the left as one enters.
In these, shapes morph like escaping tree spirits, twisting and writhing, streaming out in tendrils. This series of flowing forms, seaweed with bladders, claws, the spiral of a Christmas tree worm, is backlit, seemingly suffused with phosphorescent light. Rust has explored the linkage between vertebrae and another man-made coiling shape, cable, and effectively interspersed this image among the sea forms. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Rust pursued further study at Southern Connecticut State University and completed an internship with Walt Disney Animation. He has lived in Newport since 1993, but has been away on tour with the band for periods of time.