What's Going On Here?

What's Going On Here?

Rowan University Art Gallery presents

Jeanne Silverthorne What's Going On Here?

November 8, 2021 - January 8, 2022


Through cast rubber sculptures, Silverthorne embraces her studio as a metaphor for abandonment, collapse, and entropy as it relates to the absurdity of social constructs and the misguided perceptions of stability and constancy. Her rubber crates, workshop dollies, lamps and light bulbs are imbued with cast rubber weeds, vines, and insects, becoming humorous, comedic versions of their authentic counterparts. They teeter and bob in their flimsy and clumsy form as if they are about to collapse from their own “weight.” In their unsteadiness something is “not quite right.” and we are compelled to wonder “what's going on?”  

Silverthorne’s sculptures can be seen as excavations of the studio that has been neglected and haunted by the “vanished voices” of deceased artists, family, friends, and studio assistants. Natural forms such as dandelions, sunflowers, and insects contrast the remains of the studio that is both metaphorically and literally frozen in a state of collapse and decay. Searching through the rubble unearths lost artifacts, lost art forms, and brings to light what has been concealed or hidden in a state of deep storage. Today as we reflect on the work created between 2009 and 2021 it resonates with our current state of social isolation and displacement.

Listen to the artist talk about her work while viewing images of the exhibiton: Jeanne Silverthorne opening program talk.

Jeanne Silverthorne What's Going On Here?  Exhibition Catalog