Exhibitions: Current | Upcoming | Past
Exhibitions: Past
Bristol Community College
Art and Design Faculty Exhibition 2023
November 2–December 15, 2023 
The gallery closes 2023 with the return of the Bristol Community College Art and Design Faculty Exhibition. We last had an opportunity to exhibit faculty work in late 2019. The current show features work by Bhen Alan, Maryellen Atkins, David Barnes, Brooke Mullins Doherty, Erik Durant, David Stephan Graves, Kathleen Hancock, Kat Knutsen, and Beth Thomas.
Art and design faculty exhibitions serve a number of purposes. They enrich the educational experience for students. They provide a platform for students to witness the creative process and engage with innovative ideas, and to encourage a deeper commitment to their own arts education. Ultimately, they can also inspire everyone to expand their artistic talents and creative boundaries.
Additionally, art and design faculty exhibitions are invaluable tools for broadening community engagement. While celebrating the transformative power of the arts in a teaching and learning environment, they attract audiences from the surrounding communities, including Bristol alumni, and can enhance the college’s role as a culturalbeacon. They encourage dialogue between the college and the public and support the regional arts scene.
Kathleen Hancock
Director
Artists
Bhen Alan
Bhen Alan is a visual artist, dancer, and educator. In 2019, he received his BFA in Painting at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. In the same year, he pursued a Business Accelerator Certificate from the Entrepreneurship For-All in SouthCoast Massachusetts. He earned his MFA in Painting and Certificate in
Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design at the Rhode Island School of Design. He is a U.S. Fulbright scholar of 2022-2023 in the Philippines, where he researched and worked alongside master weavers of indigenous tribes in 14 different islands.
He has exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Praise Shadow Gallery in Brookline, Massachusetts, 808 Gallery at Boston University, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Hunter Gallery in Middletown, Rhode Island, EIK Gallery at Yale University, Culture Lab LIC in New York, the Providence Public Art Library, St. Botolph Club Foundation in Boston, John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto, Canada, Shockboxx Gallery in California, Providence Art Club, Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at the New Bedford National Historical Park and many more. He organized the first Filipino Heritage Festival during the 2022 PVD Fest in Providence, Rhode Island.
Maryellen Atkins
Maryellen Atkins is a Professor of Design and Digital Media at Bristol. Atkins has lived, studied and worked professionally on four continents. Prior to working as an animator, Atkins worked as a digital artist, employed by world-renowned photographer Clint Clemens; Hamburg, Germany based retouching house Zerone CGI; and Boston based visualization firm Neoscape. Atkins holds an MFA in Animation and Digital Arts from New York University Tisch School of the Arts and a BA from Stonehill College. When not working on films, Maryellen can usually be found on the ocean swimming, surfing or sailing.
David Barnes
David Barnes is a mid-career artist who lives in Middletown, RI and has his studio in Bristol, RI. Primarily a painter, his work engages contemporary social and political issues through the lens of landscape painting.He holds an MFA in painting from UMASS Dartmouth and a BFA from the University of New Hampshire.
He has received numerous awards and grants for his work. Most recently a RISCA fellowship for 2018 and a Pollock-Krasner Grant for 2016. His work is held by the RISD Museum, Salve Regina University, Newport Art Museum and numerous private collections. He currently teaches at Bristol Community College in Fall River MA, Roger Williams University and the Newport Art Museum.
Brooke Mullins Doherty
Brooke Mullins Doherty’s sculptures, drawings, and prints have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. She has had recent solo shows at New Bedford’s Co-Creative Center, S&G Project Gallery in New Bedford, the New Bedford Art Museum, the Cotuit Center for the Arts, Van Vessem Gallery in Tiverton,
Colo Colo Gallery in New Bedford; Leslie Powell Gallery in Lawton, OK; Anderson Gallery at Bridgewater State University; Frame 301 at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA, 80 Border Street Cultural Exchange in East Boston; and the Student Union Art Gallery at the University of Massachusetts. She has also participated in numerous exhibitions including New Bedford’s Seaport Art Walk and Art in the Park in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Erik Durant
Erik Durant is a figurative sculptor based in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, he studied History and Sculpture at Southern Connecticut State University. In 2001 he moved to New Bedford to attend the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, receiving an MFA in Sculpture in 2004.
An Elected Member of the National Sculptors Society, Durant exhibits his work nationally, showing in New York City, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Georgia. He has also shown work in upstate New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Oregon, Iowa, Texas, and throughout southern New England.
In addition to Durant’s personal work, his public commissions include the New Bedford Fisherman’s Tribute Monument, the memorial statue for former Massachusetts State Representative Tom Lopes, and the memorial for Elizabeth Taber. His most recent commission was the Mahoney family for the North Hampton Public Library in New Hampshire.
David Stephan Graves
David Stephan Graves is an alum of the Graphic Design program at Bristol. He transferred to UMass Dartmouth for his BFA before receiving his MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has worked as a designer and creative director in the printing and manufacturing fields, and has maintained a photography studio since 2012.David is co-founder of Material Creative Studio, acting as both a design studio and workshop resource. David’s work explores materiality and social issues in tandem, including topics of waste, temporality, identity, and mental health with both traditional and experimental making processes and mediums, often merging analog and digital techniques. His research, writing, and presentations explore the inclusion of art therapy techniques in art and design pedagogy, as well as exploring discourse supporting the decolonization of art and design and inclusionary research.
Kathleen Hancock
Kathleen Hancock is an artist, educator, curator/director, and volunteer. She is the founding director of the
Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts. Her current studio practice under the name KathleenHancockStudios combines a multitude of interests and dualities. Through the prisms of remembrance and storytelling, along with the meditative practice of sewing and model making, she confronts and explores early childhood experiences and intergenerational trauma and healing. As part of her practice, The Chair Project was launched in 2014 and her sixth scale designs are in held private collections around the world.
Kat Knutsen
Kat Knutsen is a dynamic artist whose multifaceted creativity draws from her experience growing up around Mexican, Alaskan Native, and European influence. Her skills span painting, animation, mural design, music, education, and community engagement. Her paintings are portraits of friends posing in theatric allegories that present multiple scopes of interpretation.
Kat has been a faculty member at Bristol Community College since late 2015, where she not only imparts artistic skills but also nurtures an entrepreneurial spirit among her students. She firmly believes that artists can thrive as both creators and entrepreneurs. Her work serves as a catalyst for change and unity. Kat’s art reflects her passion for networking and team building. Her work transcends boundaries, inviting all to experience the beauty of human expression.
Beth Thomas
Beth Thomas is the founder, lead designer, and WordPress developer at the print and digital agency Beth Motta Design & Marketing. She also helps her husband with his restaurant and catering business, The Bearded Chicken, and coaches her daughters’ gymnastics teams at Strive Gymnastics in Somerset. She enjoys gardening, hiking, kayaking and yoga. Beth resides in Swansea with her husband, two daughters, Gemmah and Harper, dog, Jax and cat, Pepper.
