PROVIDENCE -- Ask Nigerian-born painter Bólájí Campbell about his work and he´s likely to preface his reply with an old West African proverb: "A river that forgets its source dries up."

      "Basically, it means that you can´t go through life ignoring or being ignorant of the past," he explains. "The past of your ancestors, the past of your culture, the place you come from -- these are the things that nourish you, both as an artist and as a person."

      "At Campbell´s suggestion, the proverb, originally from West Africa´s Yoruba People, also appears beneath the title of a new exhibit, ""Crossing Borders," at Brown University´s Hillel House.

      At Campbell´s suggestion, the proverb, originally from West Africa´s Yoruba People, also appears beneath the title of a new exhibit, "Crossing Borders," at Brown University´s Hillel House.

      The exhibit, which opens tomorrow and runs through Wednesday, is part of this year´s Providence Journal/Brown University Public Affairs Conference, which explores issues of security and immigration in the post-9/11 era.

      The conference, "Homeland Insecurity: The Changing Face of Immigration," also gets underway tomorrow.

      As usual, the event features a series of free public lectures and panel discussions at the Salomon Center for Teaching on Brown´s College Green. Among this year´s topics: "Immigration and Security: A Post-9/11 Report Card" (Sun., 5 p.m.), "War on Terror or War on Immigrants?" (Mon., 6:30 p.m.) and "Yearning to Breathe Free" (Tues., 6:30 p.m.).

      But according to Isabelle Hunter of Brown´s public affairs office, conference organizers also wanted to get beyond the politics and policy issues surrounding immigration. Rather than seeing the issue from the outside, they wanted to know how it felt from the inside.

      And for that, they turned to artists.

      "We really felt the conference would be incomplete without an arts and culture component," Hunter says. "At the evening events, the focus is mainly on immigration as a public affairs issue. For artists, it´s a much more personal experience."

      "Crossing Borders," for example, features the work of three artists who approach the immigrant experience from very different perspectives.

      Campbell, an assistant professor at the Rhode Island School of Design, was born in Nigeria but has spend most of the past two decades teaching, writing and making art in the United States. Nevertheless, his paintings draw heavily on his West African background, particularly the religious art of the Yoruba region.

      "The Yoruba have a very long painting tradition, most of it done by women," he says. "In my own work, I try refer to that tradition while also expressing my own personality."

      As an example, Campbell (whose first name is pronounced " bo-lah-gee") points to a work called Ancestral Faces. Painted in earthy browns, blacks and ochers, the canvas features a series of mask-like faces, each shaped so that it fits snugly against its neighbors.

      "In traditional Yoruba art, it´s rare to find so many images together in one piece," he explains. "But for me, the goal was different. I was interested in creating a kind of processional flow or rhythm across the painting, so it made sense to do it that way."

      Even Campbell´s choice of materials reflects his status as a contemporary artist who finds inspiration in traditional sources.

      In works such as Ancestral Faces and the equally striking The Headwrap Is Good Only When It Fits, the pigments are based on soil samples that Campbell collects on his travels around Africa and America. But in several other works, he uses Western-style oil paints.

      "It all depends on the subject and what I want to do with it," he says. "For the more traditional works, the earth-based pigments are the best. But when I want a brighter palette, the oil paints are better."

      In addition to Campbell, the show features works by Cuban-born painter Raphael Díaz and Nhia Lo, a Hmong artist who specializes in the embroidered cloth panels known as Pa Ndau (pronounced "pan dow").

      In Caution I and Caution II, Díaz draws on his own memories of coming to the United States to evoke the loneliness and isolation that often face newly arrived immigrants. Both paintings depict young men slouched in corners and bedecked with strands of yellow "Caution" tape.

      Lo, meanwhile, is represented by a huge Pa Ndau mural depicting the Hmong´s harrowing flight out of Laos at the end of the Vietnam War, their internment in refugee camps in Thailand and, ultimately, their settlement in the United States.

      Both Campbell and Díaz will be on hand for tomorrow´s 2 p.m. opening, which will also feature performances of traditional Portuguese fado music. Regular hours for the exhibit are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Monday through Wednesday.

       Other conference-related events at Hillel House include:

A reading and discussion by father-son authors David Shrayer-Petrov and Maxim D. Shrayer at 3 p.m. tomorrow. (See story on page 1.)

Performance by storyteller Len Cabral at 5 p.m. and readings by Latin American playwrights Jonathan Ceniceroz and Quiara Alegria Hudes at 8 p.m. Monday.

Talk by Trinidadian author Elizabeth Nunez at 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Hillel House is at 80 Brown St. (at Angell Street) in Providence. For more information on the Providence Journal/Brown University public affairs conference, "Homeland Insecurity: The Changing Face of Immigration, " visit www.brown.edu/projo.