Exhibit from closed URI galleries going to RIC?

It looks like an art exhibit that would have been the fall opener at the University of Rhode Island Fine Arts Center Galleries, before it was announced early this month that the program would be shut down, will instead be presented at Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery in Providence.

“It appears now that RIC is going to support the exhibit that was going to be there in September,” interim Bannister Gallery director James Montford said today.

The show, organized by laid-off URI galleries director Judith Tolnick Champa, is a selection of paintings and collages by Arnold Mesches of Gainesville, Florida. Montford said RIC faculty who would have been featured in the Bannister’s annual faculty art show in September have given up their slot to support Tolnick Champa and the URI show.