Exhibitions

Love Your Mother | Jennie Thwing

Curated by Beth Giacummo

August 26 - October 17, 2024

Gallery Event

Closing Reception & Gallery Talk with the Artist

October 17 from 4:30–5:30 p.m.

Brother Kenneth Chapman Gallery 

Love Your Mother is an installation that includes sculpture and animation. It paints a picture of the earth as an eternal source of natural resources, the animation begins with lush natural imagery and sound (bubbling rivers and swimming fish.) The animation evolves into a cacophony of natural and man-made sounds and images (falling trees, human voices, oils drills and rock slides) and ends with an erratic dance of environmental destruction. The sculptural elements include costumes and a series of wall hangings.

In Love Your Mother the artist explores the ties between motherhood and mother nature. It is rooted in a love for the natural world and the artist's identity as a mother. The source material comes from personal experience, nature, world events, and family mythologies. The visuals depict the natural world and often show the anthropomorphism of environments, objects, and materials. All of the work is driven by sound, with found sound (creative commons) edited into dense ambient soundscapes that match the mood, movement, and events in the animations. The sound is intended to conjure emotion and memory.

The artist creates animations using a mix of stop motion, collage, and hand-drawn cell animation. The animations are often paired with sculptures based on the visuals, themes, and materials used in the animations. The sculptures are hand-cut, sewn, or adhered. Most of the animations explore the limits and influence of the materials used.

ABOUT JENNIE THWING
Jennie Thwing is an artist, animator and educator. She received her BFA from Tyler School of Art and her MFA from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She teaches animation at Alfred State College in New York. She has had solo exhibitions at Grizzly Grizzly, Local Project, Chashama Space to Present, the Arlington Arts Center, the Center for Emerging Visual Artists, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, The Mainline Art Center, Soho 20 Gallery, School 33, Fleisher Art Memorial Dene M. Locheim Gallery, Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art, Studio 34 and 20.20. Thwing has curated numerous multidisciplinary exhibitions and attended residencies in the US, Norway, New Zealand, and Canada.  She has received numerous awards including the 2014 Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art; an Environmental Art Project Grant at the Schuylkill Center; a 2013 - 15’ Center for Emerging Artists Fellowship; a 2014 SPARC Artist in Residence grant, a 2014 & 2019 Queens Arts Fund Grant and a 2024 Wyoming County Individual Artist Grant.

Past Exhibitions