You're Invited To See How Art Can Flourish In The Gap At RIVAA Gallery Opening Reception For New Exhibition Saturday July 2 - RIVAA Go Fund Me Campaign Seeking To Raise $500,000 For Gallery Renovation

According to the Roosevelt Island RIVAA Gallery:

The Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association (RIVAA) is having an exhibition at Gallery RIVAA | 527 Main St. | 10044 YOU ARE INVITED Opening Reception – Saturday 7/2, 6-9pm

Roosevelt Island resident and RIVAA artist Laura Hussey reports:

Gap Show

7/1 - 7/17/2022

See that man in the poster, stretched to the limit, facing the void of time and space, in a confrontation with our common enemy Boredom, or worse, Nihilism? Enter: The Artist. 

An expert, a magician at creatively solving the problem of empty space, empty hours. A nightmare for most, this is an artist’s dream, an opportunity to shine, to express, to thrive.

In this two-week exhibition, squeezed between two longer shows, you will see how Art can flourish in The Gap, as the void becomes beautiful.

Gallery RIVAA adds:

Our artists – painters, photographers, printmakers, sculptors – are filling our gallery space with their unique and diverse expression. Please come, enjoy the work, meet the artists and your neighbors, be nourished by homegrown creativity, consider buying, bringing a work home,

join in and support our own Roosevelt Island cultural scene. We are a diverse group – inclusive, international and native-born – devoted to delivering culture to our entire Island community.

Join our group. Participate. Buy our work. Donate to our GoFundMe page.

Gallery RIVAA's new leadership under recently elected President Sandra Gavelyte

started a Go Fund Me campaign seeking to raise $500 Thousand for renovation of their premises. According to the RIVAA Gallery Go Fund Me Page:

In 2001, the Roosevelt Island community blossomed as a diversifying neighborhood for all ages, abilities and ethnicity; its residents saw the need for an art center where families and children could gather.

Right in the center of the east river, Roosevelt Island can be isolated from its more prominent neighbors, Queens and Manhattan. Their wealth of visual arts programs is not always easily accessible. There is only one bus and train line that our thousands of residents rely on. But in all necessity, Families, schoolchildren and adults old and young may go without the visual enrichment of the city’s arts and culture. The Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association was formed to fill this gap, as there was only so much such a small neighborhood could offer.

The Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association (RIVAA) came to “bridge” this gap by continually transforming the neighborhood into the Island of Art. Its mission, founded by Island residents and allies, is to encourage the sharing of art within the community. Some of its most anticipated events included the Fall for Arts Festival, where children and adults of all ages are given creative outlets all around Main Street to draw, paint, and use their murals to vouch for justice and world peace. For every community-day festival, from Roosevelt Island Day to the tourist-attracting Cherry Blossom Festivals, there is always an activity at the Gallery RIVAA. This past week, visitors were welcomed to a complimentary sculpting excursion inspired by the RIVVA’s temporary exhibition on Vitality in Stillness. Kids of the Island took to this especially; dozens of clay molds and interpretive drawings filled the gallery’s walls and tables.

We are looking to meet our goal of $500,000 so that RIVAA may continue to provide the love and beauty to maintain that Island of Art within us all. Unfortunately, art programs all over the country are closing by the day. Being a non-for-profit especially places us at risk of closure, as we rely on few but meaningful contributions our visitors are willing to make. Yet again, the issue of isolation has taken a new form in this post-pandemic future, as we must adapt to new ways of artistic inclusion. Meanwhile, we are eagerly promoting our space for the content of new and emerging artists worldwide, but we face the reality that this may not be as easily attainable as before.

Projection of needs - Accommodating the Resident's Population:

If we renovate our existing storefront space to meet the needs of a post-pandemic future, we will be able to lend our resources to our increasingly growing population. Over the past 20 years, the Island has experienced a steadily increasing rate of population growth:...

... RIVAA hopes you may consider our plea to fund the Gallery’s Renovation. It will be the first significant reinstallation project in over 20 years, and its neighbors are counting on them to be part of the arts and cultural revival. The revival of the Gallery cannot be done without your financial support, experienced advice, and dedication to the Roosevelt Island community. Thank you.

Click here for the Gallery RIVAA Instagram and Go Fund Me page and website.