The Phoenix and Hesterly Black galleries host art openings Jan. 16 & 23
January 15, 2026 | By Waterbury Roundabout Note: Resolution of issues between the building owner at 5-7 Stowe St. and the tenants, including The Phoenix are on hold awaiting action in Washington County civil court. Events at the gallery and music hall are proceeding as scheduled.
Two exhibitions are opening this month at The Phoenix Gallery and Music Hall and its upstairs sister gallery, The Hesterly Black.
The latter is an exhibition of photography, videography and performance art, “Fiona Small: Sea Talk,” launching with an opening reception and performance this Friday, Jan. 16, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., and running through March 13.
Fiona Small. Courtesy photo
The performance portion comes via a special dance presentation by Moira Smiley and Lauren Jenkins in The Phoenix's first-floor space to start the Friday event at 6:30 p.m. A Q&A with Small will follow in the upstairs gallery where the exhibit is installed.
A multidisciplinary artist born on San Juan Island, Washington, Small discovered her creative passion from an early age and began exhibiting her work at age 11. After studying musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York, she delved deeper into the arts during a six-year residency in Colorado. Small was recognized with Naropa University's Rising Artist Award upon graduating with a BA in Music and a minor in Performance in 2020.
Small’s work explores multi-sensory experiences, neurodiversity, environmentalism, grief, contemporary clowning, and whimsy through vibrant collage, performance art and multimedia pieces. After spending two and a half years in Vermont, Small is back residing on San Juan Island.
A dancer, choreographer, educator, and mother, Jenkins’ choreography emerges from experimentation and interdisciplinary dialogues involving contemporary dance, opera, music, and theater. LA Weekly writes that she creates “extraordinary movement/sound pieces in which the body becomes the most versatile of instruments, playing the music of an invisible dimension.”
Singer/composer Smiley has toured the world and recorded with indie-pop artists Tuneyards, performing with them on all the late-night TV shows and recently to re-open David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. She began her singing career in baroque and medieval music, collaborating with Paul Hillier, Fretless Consort of Viols, Dufay Collective and Sinfonye, BBC Singers, and New World Symphony.
Jan. 23: ‘Sensual Turns’ at The Phoenix
Next Friday, Jan. 23, the exhibition “Sensual Turns” opens in The Phoenix Gallery and Music Hall, with its own reception from 6 to 8 p.m. This colorful show features new work by guest curator and featured artist Elizabeth Powell, as well as pieces by artists Jenny Kemp and Bonnie Morano. (Click images above to enlarge.)
Powell is a painter and printmaker in Burlington who earned her MA and MFA in Printmaking and Painting from the University of Iowa in 2020 and a BA in Economics and Fine Arts from the University of Vermont in 2016.
She has a keen interest in color theory, patterning, and the morphology of shapes as psychological representations of femininity. Since finishing her MFA, Powell has had solo shows in Iowa and upstate New York, and recent solo exhibitions with Kishka Gallery in White River Junction and Hexum Gallery in Montpelier. She’s done residencies in Breckenridge, Colorado, Petaluma, California, and in Taos, New Mexico.
Morano is a native New Yorker, living and working in Brooklyn. She received an MFA in Painting from Hunter College in NYC in 2023. Her work has been selected for the XL Catlin Artist Prize and the CUNY Labor Arts Exhibition.
She has written numerous articles about studio life for the artist blog, “Two Coats of Paint,” and has exhibited her work in Los Angeles and New Jersey. She recently participated in a group show about artists working with pattern titled “Mindscape is a Pattern,” at Project Art Space in New York City.
Kemp received her BS in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her MFA in Painting from the University at Albany. Since then, her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at Duane Thomas Gallery in New York City and at exhibitions in Shenzhen, China, Montclair, New Jersey, and in New York City. She is a 2015 NYFA Fellowship recipient in painting.