New Jersey Stage logo
New Jersey Stage Menu


?>

 

Garden of Earthly Delights? Artists in Rowan University Art Gallery Examine the ‘Cultivated Space’


By Ilene Dube, JerseyArts.com

originally published: 05/19/2022

Ever since – even before – Joni Mitchell penned the words “and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden,” humans have been seeking to do just that. A return to the “Garden of Eden,” the original utopia. Paradise.

Contemporary scientific studies reported in medical journals repeatedly point to the health benefits of being in natural spaces. And more than 100 years ago, Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Movement advocated the importance of designing cities around spokes of greenery.

The Rowan University Art Gallery is building on this with the exhibition Cultivated Space, on view through July 16. When the daily bombardment of news proves to be too horrific, what better salve than to escape to a garden, here, one cultivated by artists using natural and recycled fibers and materials.

Tufts by Fritz Dietel, Cultivated Space Installation Image, 2022. Image courtesy of Rowan University Art Gallery

A visitor enters the gallery through a forest of sorts – tree-like sculptures by Linda Brenner. Many were carved from Christmas trees that had been discarded, as well as other felled city trees. Brenner carves them in honor of the places from which they came – the site of a demonstration in response to the murder of George Floyd, for example -- and uses salvaged materials gathered from abandoned factories to Florida beaches. The result is a colorfully painted cacophony of whimsical shapes and forms.




Please support the advertisers at New Jersey Stage!
Want info on how to advertise? Click here



“They are like something you’d see in fairy tales,” says Gallery Director Mary Salvante. She curated the exhibition as a team project with Syd Carpenter, whose previous exhibition at the gallery, Earth Offerings: Honoring the Gardeners, focused on African American land ownership and farming, and Marsha Moss, a Philadelphia public art curator. While the exhibition grew out of Carpenter’s ideas, each curator put together a list of artists whose work addresses the theme.

Artwork details by Anonda Bell, Henry Bermudez, Linda Brenner, Fritz Dietel, Steven Donegan, Rachel Eng, Darla Jackson, Martha Jackson-Jarvis, Mi-Kyoung Lee, Michelle Marcuse, Sana Musasama, and Joanna Platt. Courtesy of Rowan University Art Gallery

The 12 artists in the exhibition represent different cultures, with birth places ranging from Australia, Venezuela, and South Africa, to Rochester, N.Y. and Lynchburg, Va. Many are professors and gallery directors. They have won awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Pew Fellowship, Puffin Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts. Others have exhibited in such venues as the Hunterdon Museum of Art, Museum of Art and Design, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cranbrook Museum, and many others.

“Our shows tend to focus on artists taking action on issues such as the environment, feminism, and LGBQT rights,” says Salvante. “As a university gallery we can extend the classroom discussion and cross into other academic areas important to our audience. We believe in the power of the visual – how non-verbal communication resonates for people who may not otherwise have awareness of the issues, offering insights or a perspective they hadn’t yet considered. We never hit anyone over the head with messages, we want people to come to their own conclusions while also experiencing something of beauty, looking deeply at what the artist is trying to communicate.”

Going past Brenner’s whimsical forest, one encounters Sana Musasama’s “Fallen Yet to Rise” installation on the floor, composed or ceramic pieces and organic materials, from light and black-colored sand, crushed glass, and pine mulch. It is part of her Maple Tree Series. Native Americans taught the Dutch how to tap maple trees for syrup, as an alternative to the slave labor in the sugar cane plantations, according to Musasama’s statement in the gallery guide.

“It’s infused with her way of storytelling,” says Salvante. “The organic materials resonate with the natural environment. It’s like walking along the beach at high tide, and you see the line when the water recedes. The glass suggests water, or a tidal pool.”

From this floor assemblage, outstretched hands, made of ceramic, appear as if the appendages of oppressed people trying to dig their way out.




Please support the advertisers at New Jersey Stage!
Want info on how to advertise? Click here



Martha Jackson-Jarvis’s “Umbilicus II” snakes its way around the gallery floor, suggesting a figure or a living creature, ornamented with jade, glass mosaic, and cypress. Covered with what look like seeds, it promises renewal and regeneration.

Mi-Kyoung Lee creates beauty out of industrial waste. “Yellow Forest 2” is like a shimmering yellow tapestry made from twist ties and zip ties.

And speaking of beauty, Steven Donegan has created a woven cotton tapestry, more than 12 feet wide, based on his Philadelphia backyard, with snakelike vines that relate to other works in the show. The sculptor began by making a digital painting. “There is so much going on in the three panels,” says Salvante.

Rowan University Art Gallery, Cultivated Space Installation Image, 2022. Image courtesy of Rowan University Art Gallery

A reimagining of the Garden of Eden takes up the entire back wall of the gallery. Titled “Neither Shall You Touch It,” the mixed media on cut paper assemblage includes at its center biblical characters Eve and Lilith. “Lilith represents another stereotype of femininity; the witch or whore,” writes artist Anonda Bell, Director and Chief Curator of the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University Newark. “As Adam’s first wife, she was an independent thinker, with a mind of her own. She was eventually banished from the garden into the ether, to be replaced by a more compliant wife, Eve.” Eve appears here with a full rib cage, perhaps a reference to the biblical account of Eve being created from one of Adam’s ribs.

Surrounding the women are glow-in-the-dark dragonflies, butterflies, bees – all those pollinators that are essential to the ultimate garden story – but, sadly, this garden is not the Eden of our dreams. “It is not one of lush fecundity, nature’s splendor, but of probably doom,” says Bell. “The Tree of Knowledge references environmental fluctuations, read as part of a larger narrative brought about by long-term climate change.  

Another work, titled “Eden” by Joanna Platt, is a Brutalist cement panel that has fractured, and through the ragged opening we glimpse a garden – a video of a garden, actually, filmed on a sunny summer day at Philadelphia’s Bartram’s Gardens. There’s a voyeuristic delight in getting just a peek of a natural oasis through this harsh concrete material, a suggestion that nature will prevail, despite it all. We need it.




About the author: Driven by her love of the arts, and how it can make us better human beings, Ilene Dube has written for JerseyArts, Hyperallergic, WHYY Philadelphia, Sculpture Magazine, Princeton Magazine, U.S. 1, Huffington Post, the Princeton Packet, and many others. She has produced short documentaries on the arts of central New Jersey, as well as segments for State of the Arts, and has curated exhibitions at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie and Morven Museum in Princeton, among others. Her own artwork has garnered awards in regional exhibitions and her short stories have appeared in dozens of literary journals. A life-long practitioner of plant-based eating, she can be found stocking up on fresh veggies at the West Windsor Farmers Market.

Content provided by Discover Jersey Arts, a project of the ArtPride New Jersey Foundation and New Jersey State Council on the Arts.



EVENT PREVIEWS

New

New Jersey Photography Forum presents "Artificial Intelligence: Transforming Our Lives" Panel Discussion

(SUMMIT, NJ) -- The New Jersey Photography Forum is excited to present a free panel discussion, Artificial Intelligence: Transforming our Lives on June 22, 2025, from 2:00pm to 4:00pm in the main gallery of the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Immediately following the panel discussion there will be a wine reception to celebrate the opening of the NJ Photography Forum's exhibit "The Garden State" in the Art Center's main gallery.



Nork!

Nork! Photo Fest 2025 Honors Newark's Film Legacy with Month-Long Public Art Celebration

(NEWARK, NJ) -- This summer, Newark's revolutionary history in film and photography takes center stage with Nork! Photo Fest, a month-long public art installation and cultural celebration hosted by The Nork! Project. Kicking off Sunday, June 1, 2025 at Military Park, the festival commemorates the city's lasting impact on visual storytelling—dating back to 1898 when Reverend Hannibal Goodwin invented celluloid film at the historic Plume House in downtown Newark, forever changing photography and making motion pictures possible.



Gallery491

Gallery491 presents "Urban Fragments" Featuring Monique Sarfity's Mosaics

(MONTCLAIR, NJ) -- Gallery491 presents Urban Fragments, an exhibition featuring Monique Sarfity's breathtaking mosaic artistry from March 13 - June 27, 2025. Known for channeling the vibrancy, unpredictability, and beauty of New York City into her work, Monique brings a unique and dynamic perspective to the timeless medium of mosaic art. The show promises an unforgettable exploration of contradiction and transformation.



The

The Art House Gallery presents: "Through My Eyes", a group exhibition featuring artists living with disabilities

(JERSEY CITY, NJ) -- Art House Productions proudly presents "Through My Eyes," a group exhibition showcasing the work of artists living with disabilities. The exhibition will be on display at the Art House Gallery from Friday, June 6th to Sunday, June 29th, 2025.



Smithsonian

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition "Black Wings: American Dreams of Flight" opens on February 7th in Rahway

(RAHWAY, NJ) -- The City of Rahway is pleased to announce the opening of Black Wings: American Dreams of Flight at The Gallery Space (1670 Irving Street) in Rahway. This is a powerful exhibition chronicling the story of African Americans who, despite facing tremendous racial barriers, attained amazing achievements in aviation history. This exhibition will be on view at the Gallery Space from February 7 through June 30, 2025.



FEATURED EVENTS

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY

To narrow results by date range, categories,
or region of New Jersey
click here for our advanced search.


Paint

Paint Pouring Workshop

Friday, June 20, 2025 @ 3:00pm
Middletown Arts Center
36 Church Street, Middletown, NJ 07748
category: art


 

Play

Play Festival Reading Series: "Angel's Share"

Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Premiere Stages - Bauer Boucher Theatre Center
1000 Morris Avenue, Union, NJ 07083




 

2025

2025 Annual Juneteenth Celebration

Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 4:00pm
New Brunswick Performing Arts Center (NBPAC)
11 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901



Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls in 35mm Followed by a Motown/R&B Dance Party

Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) - Main Stage
1601 Irving Street, Rahway, NJ 07065



Early

Early Elton Trio

Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC)
30 North Van Brunt Street, Englewood, NJ 07631



Trouble

Trouble Man: A Tribute to Marvin Gaye

Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Axelrod Performing Arts Center
100 Grant Avenue, Deal Park, NJ 07723