Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge/Gallery

The Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge, located on the second floor of the Student Center, has a beautiful view of Westhaver Park. There are work tables and comfortable chairs for students to use for individual study. This space hosts campus events including galleries, guest speakers, book signings and academic breakout sessions.

Gallery

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA offers innovative exhibitions of regional, national, and international artists and designers. We are celebrating lifelong learning and involvement in the arts through exhibitions emphasizing artistic excellence found in diverse disciplines.

2024-2025 Exhibition Proposals

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is currently seeking solo or group exhibition proposals from artists for the 2024-2025 academic year. Please send interest by email to alison.poordonahue@curry.edu and state what you may be interested in along with a link to your site.

Current Exhibition

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA is proud to present, Michele Boshar’s, Life as a Dance.

“The body says what words cannot.” — Martha Graham

In the delicate weave of existence, life unfolds like a dance. For women, this dance is a nuanced journey, depicted here through art. Merriam Webster defines dance as “to move rhythmically in a pattern of steps,” yet in life, this movement transcends mere steps; it embodies complexity—quiet, tumultuous, graceful, and poignant.

The expectations of this dance for women are uniquely layered. We navigate societal assumptions and personal aspirations, each step a negotiation between conformity and self-expression. Sometimes, we leap over obstacles with resilience, other times, we savor moments in quiet reflection. Our movements are multifaceted—juggling. roles, emotions, and ambitions, all while masking our passions under the veil of societal norms.

As a female artist, each piece I create becomes a snapshot of my being—physically and spiritually. My art narrates my journey through time, past, present and future. It speaks through images, words, and colors—each stroke a testament to the layers of my experience.

My creations aspire to evoke qualities of strength, independence, courage, and resilience. They aim to transcend gender, inviting viewers to find fragments of themselves within the narrative. Through my work, I hope to ignite dialogue about our shared humanity, celebrating both our differences and our connection.

Ultimately, I believe that art can bridge divides, fostering empathy and appreciation for the diverse stories that shape our lives and our world.

In this exhibit, I invite you to witness the dance of life—the intricate choreography of existence, where every brushstroke, every word, every hue, tells a story waiting to be heard and understood.

Curated by: 
Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair, Visual & Performing Arts Department

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator at alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is located on the second floor of the Student Center at:

Curry College 
1071 Blue Hill Avenue 
Milton, MA 02186

Recent Exhibitions

March 6 - April 19, 2024

I’ve photographed my daughter and three nieces for over a decade. There’s something sacred about the lives of girls, and their innocent, confident relationships to themselves, their world and one another. Between them is an intimate and spiritual knowledge, both ordinary and extraordinary, and I aim to capture the brilliance of their communion. I hope when they look back on this work, they’ll see their beauty, and their devotion to each other, and find themselves here, in this work we made together, reflected with love.

The girls have grown up within the frame. Over time their relationship to being photographed has shifted. They became collaborators and have helped with editing, location choice, and offer feedback about where the work should travel. As they matured, and became more confident talking about race, we've been able to discuss the impact of contributing images into the photo world that are neither stereotypical or trendy. There are notable bodies of work about girlhood, but Cousins is unique. It chronicles the lives of girls of color, which is a perspective that remains under-embraced. Additionally, each frame is wholly female. Teenage angst does not enter the frame. Instead, it’s their connection that stays in focus, their adolescent changes are unprovocative. Lastly, the girls are invested. They all agree – they want to have a visual presence.

Kristen Joy Emack is a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a Saint Botolph Fellow, and a Massachusetts Cultural Arts Fellow. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, in galleries and photo festivals, and has been published in magazines including Vogue Italia, National Geographic, OATH, The Horn Book and The Sun. She has lectured at Harvard, Hofstra, and Boston University, among others, and her work is in multiple private collections and institutions in the US and Europe. Kristen released her first book, Cousins, published by L’ARTIERE in 2023. Kristen is also a public-school educator who lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Co-Curated by: 
Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair, Visual & Performing Arts Department

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator at alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

Kristen Joy Emack is represented by Gallery Kayafas in Boston.

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is located on the second floor of the Student Center at:
Curry College 
1071 Blue Hill Avenue 
Milton, MA 02186

Art Reclaimed: An exhibition of art works by Gerry Hayes

January 22 - February 26, 2024

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA was proud to present Art Reclaimed, an exhibition of art works by Gerry Hayes.

Hayes' painting medium currently, and for the past several years has been in the area of 'painted reliefs'. 

He comments: "In recent artwork, I have added molded fiber relief forms - that are found in packaging, - to the surface of my paintings. 'Molded fiber', one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging forms that is made from recycled paper and water. The pressed paper forms are most often thrown away or recycled with the boxes that they came in. By adding them to my art works, I take them from disposable to desirable.

Found objects, yes, but I don't use them as they come. I cut, glue, combine and transform elements that fit the ideas for each painting. The painting of shapes with colors, completes the completed look of each work.  

In addition, relief paintings are unique and set themselves apart from traditional, flat 2-dimensional painting. This hybrid of painting can be viewed as extending the tradition of Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades in Dada, to the ‘combines’ of American Pop artists of Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and others."

Gerry Hayes has had a highly successful career as an educator and a painter, installation sculptor and conceptual artist.

Hayes' academic career has been at Pratt Institute where he served as graduate faculty, teaching seminars in painting, drawing, and printmaking. In addition, Gerry served as an administrator in the Undergraduate Painting and Drawing Department and later as Assistant Chair of the Fine Arts Department. In 2006, Professor Hayes resigned from Pratt and moved with his family, from New York City to Marblehead, Massachusetts where he currently lives and maintains a studio.

Gerry’s work has been the subject of numerous group and one-person exhibitions at several national galleries and museums including the Denise Bibro's Platform Gallery, the Mitchell Algus Gallery, the Reese Palley Gallery, David Hall Fine Arts in Wellesley, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the Krannert Art Museum. Hayes' work is also included in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Hayes has been working with packaging materials in his paintings since 2017, and recently, REPURPOSED, a series of paintings presented on packaging materials was the subject of a one-person exhibition at the John Molloy Gallery in New York City.

Art Reclaimed was Co-Curated by: 

Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair, Visual and Performing Arts Department
and
Jim Fitts
Professor, Graphic Design

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator at alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

Gerry Hayes' early work is represented by David Hall Fine Arts, Wellesley and recent work by John Molloy Gallery, New York.

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is located on the second floor of the Student Center at:

Curry College, Student Center
1071 Blue Hill Avenue
Milton, MA 02186

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA was proud to present, Olivia Parker’s, Persephone’s Graffiti.

Every year in my backyard messages are written in the darkest ink. In late October and early November white spires push through the earth, grass, and leaves. As the mushrooms open and lift their caps black spores shower out and soon the ink follows, sinking back into the earth. Wrenched from their habitat and placed on paper these mushrooms perform, sending out black powder and then a copious amount of black ink that looks blue if it reflects the sky. These are messages left just before winter, just before their originators disappear into the earth. These pictures are a collaboration between the mushrooms and me.

As harbingers of a tough New England winter to come these markings seem to speak of the strange winter of 2020 and to me they also hint at the dark times in the 17th century when my European forbearers invaded New England and one of my ancestors was hung as a witch by her own people. Life has, however, a way of seeming joyful and once in a while funny even in the worst of times. The reflections of blue sky and the persistent insect tracks remind that life above ground goes on.

After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in Art History, Olivia Parker began to make and photograph ephemeral constructions in 1973. Represented in major private, corporate and museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Hirshhorn Museum, The Peabody Essex Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Parker’s work has been published in four monographs and in numerous magazines in the United States and internationally. She has had over 100 solo exhibitions in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad. Also, she has lectured extensively and conducted many workshops. In 1996 she received a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award. Residencies include Dartmouth College, The Aegean Center for The Fine Arts, MacDowell, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and Cassilhaus. In 2019, Olivia was inducted into The International Photography Hall of Fame. In 2022, Lesley University awarded Parker with an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

A skiing accident in 1995 ended Parker’s view camera photographs. Unable to work in the studio or darkroom for a year because of a shattered leg, she experimented with computers and digital software. As software and equipment improved, fine images and stable prints evolved. Although Parker misses making silver prints, new ways of photographing with digital cameras have opened worlds. “Digital allows me total freedom to experiment without worrying about film usage or precise camera set up. In the beginning, view camera work was, however, a much better teacher for me than digital would have been. It made me slow down, consider image edges and think about the dynamics of what falls between the edges.”

Co-Curated by: 
Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair, Visual and Performing Arts Department
and
Jim Fitts
Professor, Graphic Design

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator at  alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

Olivia Parker is represented by Robert Klein Gallery in Boston.

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is located on the second floor of the Student Center at:

Curry College 
1071 Blue Hill Avenue 
Milton, MA 02186

Joe Lyons, Branded

March 20 – April 21, 2023

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA was proud to present, “Joe Lyons, Branded” a solo exhibition that featured project profiles on 15 of Joe’s client projects. Each client is different, from different industries with different audiences, but all of the work involved Joe designing or redesigning their branding.

Joe Lyons is a creative problem solver with a reputation for being hands-on with design challenges. As the owner and creative director of Boston design studio, Spin350 Creative, he has developed a massive body of work in design and music that includes 4000+ design deliverables over the past 23 years.

Joe’s expertise in design has led to speaking engagements at Apple’s landmark store in Boston, Mount Ida College and Curry College for AIGA and press mentions on/in Boston.com, BostonMan Magazine, The Source, Okay Player, WickedLocal and more. Joe was the 2021 fall cover of InBoston Magazine, where writer David Bruce did an in-depth feature on Joe’s design career.

Joe’s awards include the 1999-2000 Bridgewater State College Event of the Year, the 2010 Main Streets Boston Business of the Year Award and the Crossen-Sullivan Award for Outstanding Support. He wrote and directed the music video “Jesus” for country music singer/songwriter Louie Bello which was chosen as a 2021 official selection by the Peachtree Village International Film Festival.

Joe’s personal brand, “Every Day is a Canvas” is an initiative that he started in 2019 to foster creativity, inspiration and collaboration, both on Instagram (@everydayisacanvas) and in-person at the Spin350 design studio. Joe has collaborated with musicians, photographers, videographers, athletes, celebrities, and more on limited edition apparel releases, give-aways of his artwork, IGLive specials and various other mediums of content creation.

Since opening Spin350 in 2001, Joe has had the opportunity to work with many high profile clients including James White of the New England Patriots, Reebok, Harvard, etc. and his branding and design work has appeared in local venues including Fenway Park, the Boston Marathon and the Boston Garden. His work has also appeared in publications including The Boston Herald, Globe and Metro and on national television shows including Ch.5’s Chronicle, TNT’s Boston’s Finest, Good Morning America and Extreme Home Makeover.

Curated by Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair
Visual and Performing Arts Department

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact curator Alison Poor-Donahue at  alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery is located on the second level of the Student Center at:

Curry College 
1071 Blue Hill Avenue 
Milton, MA 02186

Left Brain, Right Brain

January 30 - March 3, 2023

Curry College’s Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge Gallery presented the work of thirteen artists that engage with science in a new exhibition - Left Brain, Right Brain at Curry College showcases works by artists making art in a broad range of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, digital print, 3D print, and animation. Objects in the exhibit comprise a powerful sample of art made in conversation with science, including work inspired by the human body, the microscopic world, climate change, and the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Exhibition Overview

The Left Brain, Right Brain Exhibition was curated by Julie Martini, Assistant Professor of Studio Arts at Curry College. “I am so excited to highlight the work of these talented artists and their creative inquiries into human experiences like extreme weather and the Covid-19 Pandemic that we are living through,” shares Martini.

The title of the exhibition, “Left Brain, Right Brain” refers to an oft-repeated theory that scientists believe is likely a myth- that the right side of the brain is more active in creative personalities, and the left side of the brain is more active in analytical personalities. “This myth is a proxy for the idea that creativity and logic, as well as art and science, are totally unconnected, even cut off from one another,” says Martini. The objective of the exhibit is to create a cross-disciplinary dialogue that explores the connections between art and science.

The exhibition included works by David Bligh, Colomba Klenner, Julie Martini, Nathalie Miebach, Anna Mogilevsky, Lior Neiger, Leah Netsky, Liz Nofziger, Paulina Perlwitz, Steve Sangapore, Elizabeth Shores, Keri Straka, and Andy Zimmermann. A reception was held on Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 6:30 p.m.

General Information

Press Contact

Julie Martini
Assistant Professor of Art, Exhibition Curator/Artist
jmartini0814@curry.edu
617-333-2192

Faith Ninivaggi: Unwavering Spirit

October 14, 2022 - January 23, 2023

Listen: Audio Guide
The exhibition was accompanied by collective voices of Unwavering Spirit featuring an original piano piece by Composer Valeriia Vovk of Odesa, Ukraine.

Unwavering Spirit, an exhibition by artist Faith Ninivaggi at The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery, was recently broadcast as a featured event by Chronicle on WCVB. The exhibition documents and presents Boston area students affected by the war in Ukraine and is on display until January 23, 2023.

Featured in What Will You Remember December’s Best Photo

The Shelley Hoon Keith Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA was proud to present, Unwavering Spirit, a new exhibition of portraits and interviews by artist Faith Ninivaggi documents and presents Boston area students affected by the war in Ukraine. Far from home, from the onset of the Russian invasion, this young generation banded together in solidarity to support one another and raise awareness about their besieged home nation. Ninivaggi’s photos capture their perseverance and strength amidst uncertainty and fear. The portraits demand the viewer’s attention, and for a brief moment instill a calm into the subject’s life; a respite from the ongoing war. These young Ukrainians turned activists for their people, country and culture now recognize that the skills and knowledge they came to the U.S. to learn will be critical in helping to rebuild a better and stronger Ukraine. As our country grows numb to the horrors abroad these portraits and their words remind us that their stories matter. The viewer cannot and should not, look away from these photographs, and the truths they present.

Faith Ninivaggi’s black and white, 4x5, large format film portraits of young Ukrainians living and studying in Boston feel immediate and at the same time effortlessly timeless. With a refined and humanist vision born from years as a photojournalist, Ninivaggi captures the most historical and influential moment in these seventeen lives, as their world is thrust into sharp focus, fearing for their families and reimagining home from afar. Ninivaggi’s camera bears witness to the physical and psychological effects of the war on these young adults. Through a collaborative process, Ninivaggi creates a platform for participants to be seen and heard. “Now looking back, it was so lovely to have someone to talk to, to really listen. I am very grateful of you.” noted Darya who was interviewed in her Somerville apartment as the war broke out. She has since moved back to Ukraine, her home - “where I am meant to be.

The raw and fluid emotional interviews raise awareness and evoke compassion - giving viewers pause to recognize and question how we are all descendants of war. It is a notion that struck Ninivaggi deeply in 2017 when she witnessed her own Grandfather's passing. She notes, “In the forty years I had on this planet with my grandfather he never told me stories about the time he served during the war. It was esoteric to hear him asking for the friends he had made during the war in his last days with us. It really got me thinking how much the war affected his life and about the transgenerational effects war has on all of us.

In this body of work Ninivaggi continues to highlight Generation Z, investigating how this generation will fare in the future. Recognizing the psychological toll the pandemic was having on teenagers Ninivaggi spent two years documenting their experience. In March of 2022 her attention quickly turned to the young Ukrainians who suddenly did not have the luxury of “getting back to normal.” A group whose coming of age has already been greatly impacted by living through a pandemic, is now completely uprooted by war. “The mother in me really feels for these young adults. Photography is a means for me to connect and in my own small way make a difference."

Faith Ninivaggi is a Boston/New England Regional Emmy Award winner. Her work is currently on view in the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Award Exhibition at the FotoNostrum Gallery, Barcelona, Spain as well as in the exhibition, Tender Age at the Panopticon Gallery, Boston, MA. The past three year she has been a Critical Mass Finalist. Ninivaggi has been exhibited at the International Center for Photography, New York, NY; The Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA; Centro Fotográfico Manual Alvarez Bravo, Oaxaca, Mexico; Vermont Center of Photography, Brattleboro,VT; Robert Raizes and VanDernoot Galleries, Cambridge, MA, and the Wotiz Gallery, Milton, MA. Ninivaggi has spent the past two decades working as a photojournalist and has been published extensively worldwide. She has received numerous awards recognizing her work. Ninivaggi received her BFA from The Art Institute of Boston and her MFA from Lesley University. The artist was born in 1977 in Weehawken, New Jersey and moved to the Boston area in 1997 where she still resides and works.

Curated by Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Professor and Chair
Visual and Performing Arts Department

The Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator of Unwavering Spirit at alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

Reconstructed Remains

March 21 – April 28, 2022

The Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge Gallery at Curry College in Milton, MA was proud to present Reconstructed Remains, a gallery of mixed media artworks by Jim Fitts and Stephen Sheffield.

This exhibition included original works of art from the artists’ private collections. Many of the pieces had never been previously exhibited.

Both artists do not utilize any digital production techniques in creating their work, and even though both artists incorporate found materials into their art, their approach to their work and the resulting pieces are quite unique.

Jim Fitts states that he “has collected anything that has caught his eye, no matter what media or subject matter, and attempts to incorporate it into a sometimes-chaotic composition based on a formal grid structure.”

Stephen Sheffield states that he is “influenced by past and modern masters of collage and montage such as Robert Rauchenberg, David Hockney and Alexander Rodchenko, I work to construct iconic and sensitive intersecting moments between the past and the present.”

Jim Fitts is currently a Lecturer at Curry College. He has been a graphic designer, fine arts photography teacher, lecturer, and curator for over 30 years. He has had an award-winning career in both advertising and design. His mixed media work has been included in numerous group exhibitions and the subject of a solo exhibitions.

Stephen Sheffield is a native of the Boston area. He obtained his BFA in painting and mixed media from Cornell University in Ithaca NY in 1988. He went on to receive his MFA for photography and mixed media from the California College of the Arts in Oakland CA in 1993.

Stephen has exhibited nationally and internationally for many years and has a few large-scale commissions in Boston, Cambridge and New York, Philadelphia and beyond. He has been exhibiting his work every year since 1990 and his work has been featured in many national and international publications. Spanning the past 18 years Stephen has been represented in Boston by the Media Gallery, the Judi Rotenberg Gallery and most recently by the Panopticon Gallery.

Curated by Alison Poor-Donahue, MFA
Associate Professor, Graphic Design
Visual and Performing Arts Department

The Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge Gallery would sincerely like to thank the executive team for making this exhibition possible. For information or a private tour, please contact Alison Poor-Donahue, curator of Reconstructed Remains at alison.poordonahue@curry.edu or 978-407-3121.

Shelley Hoon Keith Quiet Study Lounge Gallery
Curry College 
1071 Blue Hill Avenue 
Milton, MA 02186