[IhAPPY] About the Artists

Arne Asaumi is an artist from Honolulu, Hawai'i, they are currently based in Los Angeles. Arne's prolific work in tattoo, drawing and digital painting tell stories of despondent mascots at the helm of a forceful, cruel and absurd integration. The subjects beckon to the viewer.

Joshua Boulos is a multidisciplinary Hawaiian artist from the island of O'ahu. He is the co-founder and director of Apartment 13, a Providence apartment gallery (2019-present) and a member of the art collective Wainstop Enterprises and Sufer Girl (2024-present) as "loveismydojo". He is based in Providence, RI.

Baijun Chen is an artist and designer from Guangzhou, China. She is based in Providence, RI. Baijun works across sculpture, painting/drawing, curation, design and publishing. She is the co-founder/director of Apartment 13 (2020-present) and Sufer Girl (2024-present).

Maxime Belykh is an artist, designer and skateboarder from Providence, RI currently based in Philadelphia. He has worked prolifically in design/fashion, video/music and fine art. He has exhibited at Apartment 13 and the Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (Fall River, MA).

Garrett Davis is a prolific animator/designer, artist and musician from Pennsylvania based in Westerly, RI. His college film, “Story From North America" became a cult hit and has amassed millions of views online since its release in 2009. He has since worked extensively in the animation industry while maintaining a prolific personal art practice.

Dan Talbot is an artist and musician from Little Compton, RI. He is known locally and in the art world for his daring and skillful surreal paintings. Wordplay and semantic gags superimposed, recognizable figures mutating/characters, still lifes; Dan's work, initially appearing terrifying/confusing at first glance, offer incredible depth and relatability. 

Brittni Ann Harvey is an artist, educator, and curator based in Fall River, MA. She is the co-founder/director of Fall River Museum of Contemporary Art (FR MoCA), A non-collecting museum nonprofit based in Fall River. Her work spans sculpture, metalsmithing and textiles.

Harry Gould Harvey IV is an artist, educator, and curator based in Fall River, MA. He is the co-founder/director of FR MoCA, he has exhibited extensively and is represented by PPOW. His practice includes drawing, sculpture, woodworking/metalsmithing, music/performance and photography.

Fiona Walther is an artist from San Francisco, CA, currently studying painting at RISD. Her paintings are characterized by a tacit rupture through the boring moments of sustained contact. She refers to German TV/pop media and folklore.

Lindsay Weitzman is an artist and is an interdisciplinary artist based in Providence, RI. She received her BFA from Boston University in 2012 in Graphic Design and Printmaking. She has participated in residencies at The Steel Yard (2022), Vermont Studio Center (2016, 2017) and the Arquetopia Foundation (2017, 2020). Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and in Japan, most recently at the Steel Yard Resident Artist Exhibition in Pawtucket, RI. She has taught both adult and youth printmaking and ceramics workshops at AS220 Industries and The Steel Yard with Project Open Door.

02/22/2026 | Curator, Joshua Keonaona Yamauchi Boulos writes:

“Our job in the faith of all of this is to be the best possible practitioners of absolute life living as possible. iHappy is a step in stratifying our immense beauty and reality into the minds and hearts of so many others who have to push themselves harder and harder to live. This is a show about comfort, through the weight of it all. I thought a lot about World's Fair's home-y charm/programming… People go into World's Fair for insight and tools for charm life living. Baijun Chen and I do that same thing, in a youthful and often confrontational way, curating lifestyle experiences. What may appear darkly to some may be warm to the heart of another. The pan-psychic realm, where understanding/misunderstanding EXISTS to create dynamic balance for the general whole (audience). The degree to which we find ourselves understanding or having no clue about something, art uses conceptual resource to lead us back to our own heuristic register. I love all the artists in this show, there is an extreme degree of truth and innocence in each person's practice, they all happen to make incredible home/lifestyle/fashion furnishings, all equipped with their respective home-yness. What I mean by this is that each artist in this show articulates the dust and dawn of their lives in a really beautiful way. Most of us make our work at home, some of us made our homes into art themselves or galleries/venues etc. I feel this show will see your heart, I smile writing this. Thank you for spending your time to be here.”

HUMANPHORIA: pAOLO pORELLI

PAOLO PORELLI

Paolo Porelli, Rome Italy (1966). After graduating in painting (Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, Italy), Porelli began a period of experimentation in ceramics in which he identified an anthropomorphic figure as his preferred expressive form. Clay remains his principal medium, although he often integrates ‘ready-mades’ in his sculptures as well as casts of found objects. Life-size to small-scale figures stand alone or in installations. In recent work, Porelli uses 3-D images and 3-D printing to create prototypes for a series of figures, individualized through modifications, additions, and subtractions. 

Porelli is the co-founder of CRETA Rome (2012), an international centre for ceramics and fine arts. In 2021, Paolo was elected a member of the International Academy of Ceramics.

The artist has exhibited widely in Europe, the US and Asia. His works have been presented in 20 solo shows and more than 90 group exhibitions, including international biennials. The subject of feature-length articles in the US, Asia and Europe, Porelli has participated in symposia and residencies at RISD, The International Ceramic Studio in Keskemet, The Bray, The Clay Studio of Philadelphia, European Ceramic Work Centre, Jingdezhen International Studio and more. 

In 2026, Paolo will have museum shows in Germany, Italy and the USA. At the Stadtmuseum in Siegburg, Germany, the double solo exhibition "Zeitgenössische Keramik aus Italien" will contain a retrospective of his past and more recent installations. During Argillà 2026, at the Museo Zauli in Faenza, he will present “A Party for Betty”, created during a residency at Betty Woodman’s studio in Italy, alongside a selection of Betty Woodman’s pieces. His itinerant exhibition, Figure Out. Catastrophe or Regeneration, will be shown in two American venues, first at the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum in 2026, followed by its presentation at the Fuller Craft Museum in 2027.

At Alfred, a new large-scale series printed in 3D, made during a residency at RISD, will be presented for the first time. At the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery of Keene State University in New Hampshire, the "Green Regeneration" installation will be shown alongside works on paper.

World’s Fair Gallery is proud to present Humanphoria, a rare oppurtunity to see Paolo’s 2D works paired with his sculpture. Join us on January 22nd at 6 PM to celebrate the occasion. The show runs through February 22nd, 2026.