This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place, produced as a capstone of the inaugural Accelerate program, is a month-long mixed media exhibition of works from the five Accelerate artists: Julio Berroa, Kiara Costa, Sydney Sousa, Ysanel Torres, and Jared Winslow. The exhibition is a collection of works that celebrate the variety of perspectives of the artists, as well as a reflection of the artists’ personal voices. By intersecting their aesthetics and mediums in this exhibition, the artists hope to inspire viewers to find the beautiful connections and contradictions that create the worlds within us and around us. This Must Be the Place in total, is an honoring of storytelling through art.  

On view in the WaterFire Arts Center gallery from Thursday, June 30 through Sunday, July 31, 2022. Opening night is Thursday, June 30, from 6-9 pm. The WaterFire Arts Center store + gallery hours are Wednesday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. and Thursday, 10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. 

Artist Bios:

Julio E. Berroa (BER ROH-uh) was born in Salcedo (s-aa-l-s-EH-d-oh), Dominican Republic, and a Providence resident since 2012. Berroa earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Digital Media Curriculum and a minor in Photography from Rhode Island College. His passions include the Arts, Sex and HIV Education, and Youth Advocacy. All of this drives him to share his experiences through Art to help advocate for young aspiring artists of color. He hopes to inspire and influence his viewers. Known for his multi-faceted approach to the field of art and design which weaves both the analog and digital, Julio is often creating hyperreal and immersive scenes of intense experiences using vivid colors and organic shapes and textures depicting very intimate moments. Julio was an Andrew W. Mellon intern in Creative Production at the RISD Museum in summer 2020 and 2021 Rhode Island College Senior Art Award Recipient.

Kiara Costa is a multimedia artist living in Providence, RI. Self-taught, her colorful artwork often references pop culture and personal experiences. Her subject choices, even the materials she chooses to paint and draw on, seem superficial on the surface, but a closer look displays an exploration into the convergance of Costa’s Caribbean and American roots. Using mediums such as acrylic paint, watercolors, spray paint and markers, she creates bold portraits and images which give the viewpoint of a millennial who is nostalgic, but also trying to find meaning in a Westernized world that romanticizes capitalism, sex and celebrity. 

Sydney Sousa is a Rhode Island based artist who earned her bachelor’s in art with a concentration in painting along with a bachelor’s in psychology from Rhode Island College. Sydney creates abstract paintings that are motivated by moments and experiences that evoke an emotional response. She strives to take something intangible and make it tangible in the form of a painting. Color choice and depictions explore mood, and the use of paint is in a playful way, touching on youthfulness. Sydney is constantly investigating what it means to be human with personal experiences and emotions through painting. Her goal is not to make a perfect painting but rather hopes to gain an emotional response from the viewer.

YSANEL Torres  YSANEL is a Providence, RI-born and -based public artist and poet of Dominican heritage whose work has been displayed locally and regionally. In 2017, she was awarded her first Public Art Residency by the City of Providence, and since then has been featured in Providence Monthly, worked as an Artist-in-Residence at the Dirt Palace, and was employed as a Mural Arts Instructor/Teaching Artist with AS220. One of her most well-known public art projects is a 60′ wide, permanent mural on the exterior of Madeline Selim Rogers Recreation Center. YSANEL was classically trained in painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. You can keep up with the artist’s work on her website YSANEL.com. 

Jared Winslow is an artist based out of Providence, Rhode Island. He earned Bachelor’s Degree in Graphics, Multimedia, and Web Design from the New England Institute of Technology (2018), which he feels has equipped him with a variety of outlets to explore. To his surprise, he left the program with a deep desire to make photographs, after taking a required photography course. He’s always been a curious observer, loving to search for the beauty in the mundane, which has led to his genuine pursuit of photography. For him, wandering with his camera has been his favorite way to escape, reconnect, and express himself. It’s a form of therapy. His work has been featured in Motif, PVD Monthly, RI Monthly, and Hey Rhody magazine. Jared is also the owner and designer of pvdluv, a clothing brand that was created to share his love for the city of providence and its community. He’s had the pleasure of being a volunteer photographer for WaterFire during the 2019 season, and a graphic design intern with their media department in 2017. He hopes that seeing the world through his eyes, it’ll make you stop, and feel the beauty of life that’s right in front of us.