The Hope Gallery

The Hope Gallery provides an opportunity for artists in recovery, and for those artists who believe in recovery from mental illness, to exhibit their work -- artwork that is a personal expression of their life, their experiences, their feelings, their traumas, and their victories.

The goal is that we as individuals and as a community will learn together, experience together and grow together in compassion and tolerance through the influences of these artists.

Now Exhibiting

Brett S. Poza, Bonnie J. Twomey & Petronila Rivera

present

Summer Perspectives

Opening Reception

Friday, June 19
5-7 pm
at The Hope Gallery

Open to the public.

The gallery is located at the
Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation
940 Commonwealth Avenue West
Boston, MA 02215
Click here for directions.

Exhbition

June 19 - August 31, 2009
Monday - Friday 10 am - 4 pm

Featured Artists

Petronila Rivera

Born 1962 in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

I grew up and reside in Lawrence. I attended Lawrence Public Schools and my favorite subject was and still is art.

I come from a large family.  I have two brothers and five sisters.  My parents came from Puerto Rico in 1959 and settled down in Lawrence.  My youngest brother was a good artist. He did a lot of drawings and passed away when he was thirty-three years old. The reason I speak of him, is because I will always remember that he told me never to give up on my artwork no matter what.  After he passed away, I held true to my promise.  I enrolled in art school and began to really focus on my artwork.

From 2006-2007,  I studied Liberal Arts at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, MA. College was a forum for me to display my artwork.  As a result of one of the art shows, I was chosen to attend the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA and the New Hampshire Institute of Art.
 
From 2005-2007, I studied acrylic painting using still life and live models at Essex Art Center on 56 Island Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

On April 24th 2009, I went to MASSPRA and displayed some of my artwork.  There I met Artist RamRam Abdellah and have been invited too attend the Hope Gallery at Boston University.  

As a child, art came easy to me.  I would use crayons and pencils to draw and color cartoon characters, flowers, birds and sceneries.  I remember feeling at peace when I did my artwork. Through my creations, I get these feelings of peace. It’s a wonderful thing to overcome the stress and worries of life.  I tend to change my emotions and focus on the beauty of things around me.  So I paint another peaceful world around me and I become one with the painting.  

I love to paint more than draw I find it easier to express myself.  I always have an open mind towards art.  I like to learn new things and ways to create nature’s beauty.  

Artist Statement

Hello everyone, I would love to welcome you to the world of art.  Art to me is like a mother and her newborn child as she shares her love and compassion holding her child dear to her heart.  Nourishing and caring for her child and watching her/him blossom into this world. 

Art is my life, my escape when things go wrong and my celebration when they go right.  I love to paint sceneries, especially nature’s beauty such as: oceans, lakes, rivers, meadows, animals and people.  I also paint things that come to me in my mind.  I use real subjects sometimes to help me paint and make my paintings more realistic, this helps me when I need to know where and how the light and shadows are cast upon my works.

 I use acrylic paint, watercolors, charcoal, chalk, ink, graphite pencils, drawing pencils and molding paste.

I want people to see my art and feel the peace, warmth, serenity and beauty of nature.  My grandchildren call me sunshine.  I wish I could transform my paintings into a little or a lot of that sunshine to everyone.

Brett S. Poza

Brett S. Poza seeks to illuminate more than the form and function of the objects of our everyday lives. Growing up in a household with handmade crafts, original art, and antiques, it became evident early on that the objects in our lives come with a story- who created them, why, and for what purpose? In her obsessively patterned, stark pen and ink drawings, wrenches gaze back from the page with a contemplative stare, while plain white boxers orbit over a bleak landscape, and an old vacuum cleaner realizes an empty future. The story continues, as we see not only where the objects that surround us have been, but where it is they dream of going.  

Brett graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 1981 with a degree in textiles. After spending the next 5 years working in window display, graphic design, textile color separation, as a gallery clerk and as a waitress, and experiencing both professional and personal crises, she found herself in a major depression. Coming out of that experience she determined that her employment would be in some form of service and she eventually was hired to work in a clubhouse for psychiatrically disabled adults. Her own experience of voicelessness and depression combined with the stories she heard from the club members inspired her both personally and professionally. In 1993 she graduated from Lesley University with a concentration in Expressive Therapies. She currently works in a State Hospital promoting creativity and recovery. 

Brett was raised in Massachusetts and lived for 23 years in Rhode Island. She considers herself a die-hard New Englander who should be living in a tropical climate. She has two brilliant, creative children, one questionable and one sweet cat, and a wonderful husband who is a composer. They live in a little house west of Boston. 

Artist Statement

My engagement in art school was as a perpetual outsider. I studied textiles because it was familiar and comfortable. I still have a love for textiles and materials connected to fiber arts; however, my mind always felt constrained by a medium that is very grounded in technique and largely non-narrative. As a result, I have tried over the years to develop my drawing to speak more to the outsider perspective that I am familiar with. My drawings are meant to tell stories, often stories that I imagine from the viewpoint of things or situations that are voiceless. I look for contradictions and try to add a humorous edge to the pictures through the way I draw. So although I think the drawings look “serious” because of the pen and ink technique I use, they are supposed to be kind of funny, sometimes even surreal. I enjoy playing with ideas, especially silly, contradictory ideas. Ultimately, the commonality between my artwork and my work as an art therapist is an interest in stories.  

Bonnie J. Twomey

I began my artistic journey at the age of 14, finding oil painting my preferred medium.  To learn other techniques I participated in oil classes at the Museum School of Fine Arts in the mid to late 1980’s, then enrolled at the boston architectural center at about the same time. I later received commissions to sketch home portraits. I studied at the DeCordova Museum School and at Bill Velmure Studios in wakefield, ma.  I majored in graphic design at Northeastern university for two years, receiving my bachelors of arts in psychology. 

Being involved in the mental health field I found a group called, “artists without borders,” at Lesley college.   As a member I engaged in discussions with other mental health professionals who like myself, share an interest in art and find it an essential part of recovery and self-identity and discovery.  This group conveyed a sense of unity with professionals and clients without any boundaries or unrealistic expectations.

I have been a member of the Winchester art association, the concord art association the Lexington arts and crafts society and the west Medford open studios.

I enjoyed the position of Co-Chairperson of the painter’s guild at the Lexington Arts and Crafts Society. Senator Edward Kennedy was presented a piece of my art work for his dedication to the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health. I have also won several ribbons for my work at juried competitions. 

Presently, I continue to show my art at exhibits in the Boston area, and attend classes at the lorraine degroot Studios in Arlington, ma. 

Artist Statement

When I pick up my paint brush the whole world disappears.  It is just me and my creative muses.   Upon completion of a successful painting I am inspired to do more and to share it with others.  For me, painting is part talent and part technique.   I enjoy the challenge of creating a piece of art in its purest form.

The subject matter in my art is mainly seascapes or peaceful nature scenes. Spending most of my life on cape cod at our family vacation home, i grew up on the water.  I feel connected to the ocean and find it completely awe inspiring.  I have an earthy personality and love creating the fall season full of its changing colors and foliage.

View archive of previous exhibitions.