Join us for a special in-gallery musical performance, featuring Cicely Carew—one of the 2023 James and Audrey Foster Prize artists—on singing bowls, and Rhéa Gibson on cello. 

Cicely Carew wields the formal, material, and sculptural aspects of painting to evoke feelings of radical joy, hope, and liberation. Her works explore the fleeting magic of the present through vibrant color, rebellious mark-making, sweeping gestures, and references to the terrestrial and cosmic worlds. In addition to group exhibitions and commissions by Now + There at the Prudential Center in Boston, she has had solo exhibitions at the Fitchburg Art Museum, the Commons in Provincetown, Northeastern University, and Simmons University. She is the recipient of the 2021 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award, an Artful Seeds Fellowship, and a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award. Her work is in the collections of Fidelity, Simmons University, Northeastern University, the Cambridge Arts Council, and the Federal Reserve of Boston. In addition to her studio practice, she is a wellness coach and educator, having served as the 2021–22 artist in residence at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, as well as teaching workshops for the New Art Center in Newton and screen printing for Lesley University. Carew earned a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from Lesley University’s College of Art + Design. She resides with her son in Cambridge. 

Rhéa Gibson, originally from Cambridge, MA, is an educator and musician who began playing cello at the age of 7 after hearing Yo-Yo Ma perform at a school assembly.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and music (cello performance) from Emory University and a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education with a concentration in Arts in Education.   

Her cello has taken her overseas as a member of various ensembles and led her to become an orchestra director for several public and public charter schools in Atlanta, GA.  She enjoyed performing on occasion as part of a duet called “Solely Strings” in Atlanta until moving back to Cambridge with her 3 young boys in 2016.  Most recently her cello has brought her to her current position as Director of Programs for City Strings United, a youth development/music education program based in Roxbury, MA.  Offering sound baths for meditation, relaxation, and healing is her most recent musical endeavor which she finds particularly enriching and rewarding.