The Newport Art Museum will welcome four new exhibitions to its galleries this summer, including Rania Matar’s A Girl and Her Room, which will be on view May 26 – August 5. Joining A Girl and Her Room will be Joan Hall’s Sea of Heartbreak (May 19 – July 29), Cristi Rinklin’s Paramnesiac (June 15 – September 2), and Shara Hughes’ Sun Salutations (June 15 – September 3). Matar’s A Girl and Her Room was made possible by the generous support of Karl and Teryn Weintz.

An Opening Reception for all shows will be held Thursday, June 14 from 5 – 7 pmduring the Museum’s popular late night event, Art After Dark. The Museum will remain open until 9 pm that evening. Museum members are admitted free, non-members $10 suggested donation, cash bar.

The Newport Art Museum is located at 76 Bellevue Avenue, Newport, RI. Visitnewportartmuseum.org or call 401-848-8200 for details.

Rania Matar: A Girl and Her Room
On view May 26 – August 5, 2018

For her acclaimed series, “A Girl and Her Room,” Rania Matar photographed teenage girls, in their bedrooms, from two seemingly disparate worlds: the United States and the Middle East. These two worlds are ones familiar to Matar, who was born in Lebanon and moved to the United States where she now lives and works. In these portraits, the bedrooms become an extension of the girls’ personalities. With each photograph, Matar offers an intimate glimpse into each girl’s life, perspective, and identity. In the words of the artist: “I became fascinated with the similar issues girls at that age face, regardless of culture, religion and background, as they learn to deal with all the pressures that arise as they become conscious and aware of the surrounding world wherever this may be.”

Born and raised in Lebanon, Rania Matar moved to the United States in 1984. Initially trained as an architect at the American University of Beirut and at Cornell University, she studied photography at the New England School of Photography and Maine Photographic Workshops. Matar began teaching photography in 2009 and offered summer photography workshops to teenage girls in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps with the assistance of non-governmental organizations. She has won many awards, including a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship for her ongoing series “SHE.” Matar has widely exhibited her photographs nationally and internationally. She currently has a large solo exhibition, entitled “In Her Image: Photographs By Rania Matar,” at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, TX. She has work in numerous permanent collections at museums around the country and has published three books. The series “A Girl and Her Room” became the subject of Matar’s second book, published with the same title by Umbrage Editions. Matar lives and works in Massachusetts, where she also teaches at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.

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