Enveloping Barnacles, a brass and copper sculpture by Providence artist Ashley Vick, is part of this year’s “All Media Juried Exhibition” at the Providence Art Club.

Providence Art Club

Most artists, I suspect, have a love-hate relationship with juried exhibitions.

On the one hand, there’s always a chance that the “jury” (typically composed of one or more well-known artists, critics or academics) will take a liking to your work and decide to include it in the exhibit. In that sense, juried shows represent the art world at its most democratic. On the other hand, if the jury doesn’t like your work, you’re out — no explanations given. In that sense, juried exhibits are closer to a benign form of artistic dictatorship.

For viewers, too, juried shows are often a mixed bag. While they tend to be more open and less predictable than other kinds of exhibits, they’re also more likely to lack an organizing theme or vision. They also tend to be more uneven.

As it happens, two of the state’s most storied arts organizations — the Providence Art Club and the Newport Art Museum — have opened major juried exhibits this month.

At the Art Club, the “10th Annual Fidelity Investments All Media Juried Exhibition” features works by 44 (mostly) New England-area artists. (If you’re keeping track, this is the third time Fidelity has sponsored an all-media exhibit in the 10 years it has sponsoring these shows. Other exhibits have focused on specific art forms, such as prints and drawings [2007] and ceramics and jewelry [2006].)

There were three jurors for this year’s show: Diana Gaston, a curator for Fidelity’s corporate art collection; Emily Moore Brouillet, an assistant curator at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art; and Nancy Friese, a painter and printmaking instructor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Together, this distinguished group sifted through more than 800 submissions, leaving behind an exhibit that’s especially strong in drawing and photography. (Not coincidentally, perhaps, both disciplines are on art-world hot streaks at the moment.) Photo fans, in particular, will find a wealth of material, ranging from documentary-style works (Rania Matar’s portrait of a young Lebanese family strolling through a bombed-out neighborhood) to elegant still lifes (Paul Clancy’s Dreyfus Cornice and Reenie Barrow’s Epulae de Apollo) and nature studies (Mary Lang’s Esplanade, Boston and Didi Suydam’s Scarlet Twilight).

The show’s photographers also explore matters of faith (notably Scott Indermaur’s powerful Revealed: Harleigh U. and Iris Donnelly’s Jesus es mi Pastor), as well as more mundane topics such as game shows (Jim Turbert’s zany Gameshow) and storage cabinets (Nicole Hatanaka’s Cabinets).

Other works on paper, including prints, drawings and watercolors, are similarly eclectic. Among the highlights: Darrell Matsumoto’s ghostly drawing of a vintage boy’s-wear advertisement (Untitled [Boy]), Samantha Field’s Pop Art-ish take on a Japanese literary classic (Tale of Genji) and Thomas Gastel’s postcard-ready watercolor study of a Rhode Island landmark (Slater Mill).

Painting, meanwhile, seems to be in a bit of a funk this year. Still, there are notable works from Beverly Barber, a Massachusetts artist whose semi-abstract industrial scene (Industry) seems almost literally to be going up in smoke, and Molly Kugler Dickinson, a Middletown artist whose photorealist painting of a gas station (New Pastoral) wryly captures a familiar slice of the modern American landscape.

In Newport, the “2008 Newport Annual Members’ Juried Exhibition” features works by more 70 artists, mainly from Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The show was juried by Michael Rush, a well-known writer and critic and director of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

Though it’s nearly twice the size of the Art Club exhibit, the NAM show features a similar mix of prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures and other artworks. And it, too, has a pronounced photographic streak, although here the effects are more likely to show up in other disciplines.

A good example is the exhibit’s best-in-show winner, a marvelous charcoal portrait by North Dartmouth artist Brenda Levasseur. Actually, make that half a portrait, since Levasseur’s Windows of the Soul zeros in on the eyes of her elderly sitter with the precision and intensity of a photographic close-up. The resulting portrait is both a technical tour de force and a haunting, Rembrandt- esque study of old age.

Photography also plays a role Luke Randall’s The History of Rock ‘n Roll, which took top honors in the show’s painting category. A kind of musical self-portrait, the work is dominated by a series of lovingly painted album covers — notably The Band’s The Band, The Grateful Dead’s Workingman’s Dead and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s Déjà Vu. All three albums have photographs on their covers.

As always, there are plenty of scenes of boats and water. (This is Newport, after all.) Yet there are also glimpses of more exotic locales, including Holland (William Heydt’s watercolor study of a stylish young Dutch shopper), Italy (Michael S. Mendell’s photograph of a picturesque seaside villa) and even the former Yugoslavia (Richard Grosvenor’s painting of Slovenia’s Lake Bled and its fairytale castle).

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two shows can be expressed in one word: multimedia. In Providence, multimedia works are nonexistent; in Newport, they’re omnipresent.

Among the highlights: Rupert Nesbitt’s Instances in the Field, a multiscreen digital animation that won top honors in the photography/video category; Mary N. Hurwitz’s video/performance piece Custom Maid, which won in the mixed media category; and Caroline Woolard’s Released to the Sky, a strangely captivating video in which Woolard carefully cuts her hair, then sends it aloft tied to helium-filled balloons.

The “10th Annual Fidelity All Media Juried Exhibition” runs through April 4 at the Providence Art Club, 11 Thomas St. Hours: Mon.-Fri. noon-5 and Sat.-Sun. 2-4 p.m. Contact: (401) 331-1114 or www.providenceartclub.org.

The “2008 Newport Annual Members’ Juried Exhibition” runs through May 11 at the Newport Art Museum, 76 Bellevue Ave. Hours: Mon.-Sat. 10-4 and Sun. noon-4. Contact: (401) 848-8200 or www.newportartmuseum.org.

Elsewhere

The Providence Art Club isn’t the only East Side gallery in action this month. The Wheeler School’s Chazan Gallery, for example, is exhibiting works by four young artists whose concerns range from sex roles and muscle cars to warring gangs of futuristic robots. The cars belong to Michael Owen, a Providence artist whose small finely detailed paintings are filled with pop cultural references drawn from movies and advertising. An installation by Bohyun Yoon, meanwhile, uses a combination of mirrors and see-through silhouettes to explore the nature of sexual and racial identities.

Sculptor Fitzhugh Baylies Karol contributes a series of elegant wood sculptures and assemblages, while sci-fi illustrator Krzysztof Mathews shows more of his futuristic models and inkjet prints.

At the Lenore Gray Gallery, Ben Anderson is showing a series of ceramic sculpture that suggest a cross between shiitake mushrooms and miniature pagodas. The results give a whole new meaning to the phrase “green building.”

The Chazan Gallery show ends today at the Wheeler School, 228 Angell St. in Providence. Hours: noon-5. The Lenore Gray Gallery show runs through April 10 at 15 Meeting St. in Providence. Hours: Mon-Fri. 10-4.

bvansicl@projo.com