Weybosset Facade: various artists

Building name: Providence National Bank Facade

Architect: Howe & Church

Date built: 1929, added 1950’s

Preservation aficionados will know the story of the Providence National Bank Facade and how this architectural feature came to remain a visual stronghold on Weybosset Street. Today, The Facade offers a space for artists to stretch, challenge themselves, imagine and create work in an unusual and non-traditional mural configuration.

The Avenue Concept’s Weybosset Residency is an annual call for local artists to submit for a chance to paint on the front or back of The Facade. Our first installation on the front side of The Facade was in 2016 with Phillipe Lejeune whose depiction of trees on plywood (using his signature coffee style) created a conversation between material and imagery depicted on it.

Since then, The Facade has been home to emerging muralists to work at a challenging scale, experienced painters to wrestle with a new format, storytellers to bring us to new dreamy landscapes, and voices to emerge that are in concert with happenings in the world. The Weybosset Facade at one moment honors and enlivens a historic structure and creates a space in which the community gathers, be it to observe art and artistic process or to listen to live music during the city’s festivals. The Facade lives on as an elemental asset in the Downtown Corridor.

About the Artworks Currently On View:

Ode to Artist in Spraypaint by Kendel Joseph (2021)

Kendel Joseph honors artists and activists in this multi-portrait series. Joseph fills the space with rich color and depth, working entirely freehand and wiith spray paint.

Material: C2 Paint, Montana Gold Spray Paint

Artist IG: @lucidtraveler_art

Sponsors: Paolino Properties, Adler's Design Center & Hardware

Ruins by Heather Annis (2021)

Heather Annis asks us to consider the monumenalizing of decay in her series of ruins famous to RI.

"We are proud of our ruins; many have become treasured landmarks. Somehow in that space between creation and decay a strange transformation occurs. In a country that many believe stands in ruins – devastated by systemic racism, government corruption, a climate in crisis, and an ongoing pandemic – it is our obligation to acknowledge and address the brokenness before we can honor it, before we can envision new opportunities to rebuild, renew, and celebrate." -Heather Annis

Material: C2 Paint, Wood

Artist IG: @hannisarts

Sponsors: Paolino Properties, Adler's Design Center & Hardware

Past Installations:

• Untitled, Phillipe LeJune (2016)

• Takes All Types, Umberto Crenca (2017)

• Party Shark, Sam O. White (2018)

• Dear Urban Females, AGonza (2019) (back)

• Somnium, Mike DeAngelo (2019)(front)

• We Are One Flock, Amy Bartlett Wright (2020)(front)

• Young, Gifted, & Black, Sagie Vangelina (2020)(back)