Paradox of Peace

Press Release

Opening reception, May 15, 6–8pm

Nicelle Beauchene Gallery is pleased to present Paradox of Peace, a project space exhibition by Fall River–based artist Brittni Ann Harvey.

In a new series of wall sculptures, Harvey references the forms of First Person View (FPV) drones—remote-controlled aerial vehicles developed for commercial use but increasingly militarized as tools of surveillance and warfare. Prompted by her examination of the contradictions of technological advancement, the artist uses the drone form as a symbolic object at the forefront of human progress and destruction simultaneously, holding both promise and threat to the future.

Contrasting the real world functionality of drones, Harvey’s sculptures are static reliquaries created using analog processes and traditional materials. Cast bronze, braided copper, and steel construct the rigid geometries of the drone propellers and chassis, while textiles embroidered with iconographic images, such as Virgin Mary, Sargon of Akkad, or the Tower of Babel, adorn the ornamental centerpiece of each work, evoking moral, theological, and civilizational reckonings with sacrifice, entangled in ancient and contemporary contexts. By introducing layered registers of historical and spiritual complexity, the viewer is asked to consider the cycles of violence inherited through the materials and processes of daily life and in turn, whether peace is a universal value or a culturally contingent aspiration.

Each sculpture distinguishes itself from its drone form as a craft-intensive, sensual, and intimate object, embodying the contradictions at the core of contemporary violence— tools of destruction rendered with care, tenderness, and devotional detail. In this way, each drone becomes a paradox—an icon of aggression transfigured into a vessel for reflection. Existing in this dissonance, the sculptures suggest that peace requires constant vigilance against its own undoing— not a static ideal but a contingent and actively negotiated condition.

Brittni Ann Harvey (b.1992, Rhode Island) lives and works in Fall River, Massachusetts. She received her BFA in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2017. Harvey has presented solo and two-person exhibitions at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; NOW: Gallery, Lima, Peru; Someday, New York, NY; and Anthony Greaney, Somerville, MA. Her work has also been featured in group exhibitions at Nino Mier, Los Angeles, CA; the Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; P.P.O.W., New York, NY; Galleria Julien Cadet, Paris, France; Nir Altman, Munich, Germany; and Stilllife, Shanghai, China, among others. She is the co-founder of the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art in Massachusetts.