Gallery showcases professor and painter Gerry Perrino’s 25-year career at Salve

Gerry Perrino, associate professor in the Department of Art and Art History, has taught painting for a quarter of a century to thousands of Salve students. This legacy is being highlighted with the opening of an art exhibit in the Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery entitled “Empirical Evidence: Gerry Perrino – Painter & Mentor,” which runs through March 24.

Gerry Perrino has taught in a number of art programs, including Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and Wesleyan University, where he was the John Frazer Visiting Artist for two years. In total, he’s been teaching 41 years, but more than half of that time has been spent at his beloved Salve Regina.

“It’s a special place,” Perrino said. “Twenty-five years has been a blur of convocations, commencements, and syllabi — but it’s never been a blur of faces. I see a former student from Salve Regina, and I know them all. Salve is a big family, and you don’t forget family.”

Mr. Perrino has exhibited widely over the past 30 years and is represented by Hallspace, a well-respected gallery in Boston, Massachusetts. His work is on display in numerous public and private collections, and his still life arrangements of toys and miniatures craft visual narratives that are at once playful, poetic and political.

“Critics see the artwork, and they get it,” he said. “I use humor to engage, the titles are funny, but the messages are often about social justice and that we have to do better as a society.”

Perrino with his artwork (on left) — “Women Can/Still Life with 6 Toys and Photo” showcases a theme of feminism that he often emphasizes in his work.

“Perpetual Machine/Still life with Toys, Boxes, Currency and Painting” is an example of Perrino’s usage of soldier figurine-type humanoid forms to tell a narrative, such as men leering at a woman and the consumerism of pornography in this painting.

Reoccurring themes in Perrino’s work include the tragedy of war and the importance of feminism. In multiple paintings, he uses toy soldier-type figurines to depict a human narrative, an idea he got when he found some toy solders while clearing out a neighbor’s garage years ago.

“You’re trying to express something to human beings within the still objects, and there’s nothing that a human being will relate to more in artwork than the human form,” he said. “Using these figurines injected the human form into my still lives, and the doors just opened — because it was a potent way to attract attention, and the narratives just started to come together.”

Perrino’s students

Along with highlights of Perrino’s most recent work, paintings of fourteen Salve alumni from across the country are on display. While Perrino has taught thousands of students, he had specific criteria for the artists selected for this show — including that each is active in the visual arts and has carved out a unique career path since graduating from Salve.

“Some went on to pursue a terminal degree in painting and others are professionally engaged as artists,” he described. “Some have become teachers and others work in art museums. I’m so proud of our art alumni in general.”

As a professor of painting and drawing, Perrino said that he engages his students in the problems of visual thinking and teaches them how to understand and interpret empirical evidence.

“‘Empirical evidence’ has clear, scientific roots,” said Perrino. “In art, it represents the idea that artists glean truth only after keen study and analysis of their environments.”

Largest canvas is “Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche FW03” by Nora Sands, framed by with three paintings by Gerry Perrino. 

The exhibit includes a mix of Perrino’s paintings and his student’s.

A close study of one’s environment is also why Perrino is so adamant about the benefits of a liberal arts education.

“I was the product of a liberal arts curriculum — and I think that’s tremendously important, as opposed to a professional curriculum where kids get into a silo of painting and that’s all they do,” he explained. “I tell students, ‘That sociology class you’re not crazy about might inform your artwork in 10 years, so try to pay attention. It’s worth it. You get ideas from those other classes.'”

From foundation drawing to advanced painting, Perrino inspires new and authentic relationships between teacher and student — helping each person he teaches find their own voice.

“I’m remarkably proud of the fact there’s no one in this show whose work resembles mine,” said Perrino. “That’s something that we try to foster here in the art department. Students have to find themselves, they have to be themselves.”

This exhibition brings together the artwork of the following alumni that Perrino mentored.

Victor Aguirre-Williams ‘21
Jennifer Bulay ‘07
Rachel DeLuca ‘16
Megan Garbe ‘10
Serena Lafond ‘16
Jeremy Lukasiewicz ‘21
Patricia Jurkowski ‘23
Mia Loia ‘14
Cara Lopilato ‘14
Lauren Roeser (formerly Bingham) ‘15
Nora Sands ‘03
Tommy Slocum ‘03
Maddie Squizzero ‘21
Jordan Thuman ‘16

The Dorrance H. Hamilton Gallery is located in the Antone Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina. It is a fully accessible space with parking along Lawrence Avenue and Leroy Avenue. The gallery is open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 4 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays.