"Beyond Will Power" at Top Drawer

From my review of "Beyond Will Power: The 5th Annual Top Drawer Group Show" at Top Drawer Art Center in East Providence:

The painting that sticks in my mind from "Beyond Will Power: The 5th Annual Top Drawer Group Show" at Top Drawer Art Center is Anthony Brun's mixed-media painting "Jason Killed Freddy."

It depicts a sort of stick-figure-like figure in scrubby red and black and gray stripes on brown board. At the top is a circle head with ominous red eyes. Something gray — a knife? blood? smoke? — comes from the figure's blue right hand. The subject seems to be the 2003 crossover slasher film featuring the two famed movie killers. But the artwork is like a child's dream of a monsters, both wary and fascinated, rendered monster-size, in this case pieced together on seven boards arranged something like a hopscotch grid that add up to about eight feet tall.

"Beyond Will Power" is a sampler of work made by participants in Top Drawer's art programs for adults with developmental disabilities. Like a lot of group shows, it's a mixed bag. Some of the pieces are excellent, some strange, some just messes.

Read the rest here.

"Beyond Will Power: The 5th Annual Top Drawer Group Show," Top Drawer Art Center, 2731 Pawtucket Avenue, East Providence, Aug. 8 to Sept. 4, 2009.

Pictured: Anthony Brun, "Jason Killed Freddy."