PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The David Winton Bell Gallery presents Breaking Even, an exhibition of new work by Providence-based artist Kelli Rae Adams at the Cohen Gallery in the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, 154 Angell St. The exhibition will run from Monday, June 10, through Friday, July 19, 2013. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

An installation of several thousand handmade clay and ceramic objects and several hundred jars of local produce canned by the artist, Breaking Even expands on Adams’ ongoing investigations into materiality, process, labor, and value. In this special project for the Bell Gallery, Adams addresses the current economic moment, particularly as it relates to creative endeavors, offering a participatory inquiry into the nature of value and the mechanisms through which we receive and quantify the work and energies of others.

Commenting on the exhibition, Adams said, “Breaking Even is an installation in three parts which together compose a balanced equation of alternate currencies resulting from five months of creative labor. Larger-than-life dominoes, home-canned foods, and porcelain coins represent the work, the energy required to produce the work, and the funds invested in the work, respectively. Through these three currencies, the installation offers a means of comparison by which visitors can consider what constitutes value and exchange in artwork and artistic production.”

Adams’ art is propelled by a desire to create work that can be exploratory and yet not wasteful, complete and yet not necessarily permanent, according to notes prepared by Ian Alden Russell, who curated the exhibition. Apprenticing in Japan under master potter Tetsuro Hatabe, Adams developed a deep and sincere respect for her materials, evident in her considered and limited use of formal permanance and mindful avoidance of waste. Her work to date is distinctive for its use of greenware, or unfired clay in various states, which she later recycles through a simple process of rehydration. Engaging her audience as collaborators in the activation of her exhibitions, viewers have the opportunity to become complicit in the life story of her works. Viewing and handling, perhaps unmaking or breaking the works, visitors to Breaking Even are given time and space to consider and assess the values of materials, their states and aesthetic forms, and the artistic labor required to produce them — each deciding for themselves what constitutes a valuable experience or exchange with the artist through her work.

Adams lives and works in Providence. Her work engages themes of mindfulness and slowness, using unfired clay, fired ceramic components and video to create environments of experience for the viewer. Born in Virginia, she has exhibited internationally in private galleries in Japan and India and at the Museum of International Ceramic Art in Denmark and the Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool. She holds an M.F.A. in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and a B.A. in visual arts and spanish from Duke University and has been an adjunct faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design.

David Winton Bell Gallery

The David Winton Bell Gallery is Brown University’s contemporary art gallery and home to an important part of the University’s permanent art collection. The gallery hosts four to five major exhibitions each year, as well as annual exhibitions of student artwork and a triennial exhibition of artwork by Brown faculty members. Broadly concerned with the exhibition of exemplary work by artists living today, the gallery shows artwork irrespective of media, content, or subject and makes special efforts to support and show the work of emerging or under-recognized practitioners locally, nationally, and internationally. For more information about the Bell Gallery, visit www.brown.edu/bellgallery.

The Cohen Gallery at the Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, where Breaking Even will be on display, is at 154 Angell St. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 401-863-1934.