Through a Glass, Darkly includes new and recent works by artists working with glass and glass-related materials and processes, exposing the material’s dual nature. Spanning across six galleries, selected works will engage the historical promise and power of the material to reveal and to bring clarity, while challenging viewers to acknowledge an inherent interconnectedness between enhancement and distortion.

To see “through a glass” — or mirror — “darkly” is to have an obscure or imperfect vision of reality. The expression comes from the writings of the Apostle Paul; he explains that we do not now see clearly, but at the end of time, we will do so.

Historically, glass has augmented human perception, allowing us to view parts of the world that are otherwise elusive to our limited natural senses. While revealing the minuscule and distant, preserving the fleeting, and encapsulating the fragile and reactive, glass also obscures our perception of the very things it helps us to observe. The nature of the material is two-sided; it both enhances and subverts vision. Glass is an instrument for enlightenment, and at the same time, it is a driver of misinformation.

Anchor Artists: David King, Helen Lee, Kristin Neville Taylor, and Bohyun Yoon have been curated into the exhibition as featured artists, and have several works included in the show.

We are also pleased to include incredible works by Rebecca Arday, Sarah Blood, Sarah Briland, Kayla Cantu, Kate Clements, Caroline Cox, Daniel Cutrone, Davin Ebanks, Christy Georg, Kim Harty, Brynn Hurlstone, Matthew Jacob, Jessica Julius, Christopher Kerr-Ayer, Sharon Koelblinger, Ying Chiun Lee, Amy Lemaire, Matt Meyer, Lukas Milanak, Dan Mirer, Anthony Monahon, Paige Morris, Kaitlin Pomerantz, Madeline Smith, Aric Snee, Carolyn Spears, Justin Spillers, Christie Stidham, Heather Sutherland, Kimberly Thomas, Abegael Uffelman, and Zac Weinberg.

Kristin Deady is the Assistant Dean of Glass at Salem Community College. She received her AFA from Salem Community College, her BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology, and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University. Kristin's work investigates the constructed nature of human perception. Her work freely crosses mediums and is more tightly bound to her investigations than to a specific material, though her ideas are often provoked, and informed, by her relationship with glass.

Jenna Lucente is an Associate Professor of Art at Salem Community College and a practicing studio artist at The Delaware Contemporary. She received her BFA from Syracuse University with a focus in drawing and painting and then her MFA from CUNY Queens College in the same discipline. In addition to exhibiting her drawings and paintings locally, Jenna is a public artist who has been commissioned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority (Arthur Kill Station, Staten Island, New York), as well as New Jersey Transit  (upcoming, Elizabeth Station, New Jersey)

Alexander Rosenberg is an artist, educator and writer based between Philadelphia and New York. He received a Master of Science in Visual Studies from MIT and a BFA in glass from Rhode Island School of Design. His artistic practice is rooted in the study of glass as a material, in conjunction with broad interdisciplinary investigation crossing over into many other media and research areas. He was cast on the Netflix series Blown Away in 2018 and currently has an exhibition on view at Eastern State Penitentiary. He teaches in the Glass Education Center at Salem Community College and is the Glass Studio Director at Wheaton Arts.

Bohyun Yoon’s work exists at the intersection of glass craft, music, performance art, video art, and experimental participatory theatre. A core concern for Yoon is to unravel the nature of communication. Yoon takes on the defined societal categories of race, gender, class, and age and reshapes our preconceived notions of the self and other through light, reflection, sound, the body, and technology. The result is a unique utopian vision, one open to interpretation, however, undeniably generous to the spirit and universally relatable. Bohyun Yoon is an Associate Professor of Art at Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the recipient of many international awards, fellowships, and residencies, and his work collected by prominent institutions, including the Corning Museum of Glass, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the West Collection.

Helen Lee is an artist, designer, and educator. She holds an MFA in Glass from RISD and a BSAD in Architecture from MIT. Her work uses glass to think about language and identity. Recent exhibitions include: Translucency, the Tallinn Applied Art Triennial at the Kai Art Center in Estonia; Momentum | Intersection at Toledo Museum of Art; New Glass Now at Corning Museum of Glass; and the 2019 Burke Prize Exhibition at Museum of Art and Design. Lee is an Associate Professor and Head of Glass at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and serves as the Director of GEEX, the Glass Education Exchange.

Kristen Neville Taylor is a Philadelphia artist whose diverse practice combines drawing, sculpture, and glass which converge playfully in installation style environments. Her work considers the impact of the stories we tell about nature, calling attention to the systems and events that establish definitions and shape public perception of the environment. She is a co-founder of The Green Sun, a multifaceted project focused on the intersection of art and policy as they relate to the history of energy, energy democracy and possible energy futures.

David King earned an MFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA in 2011. King’s work has been exhibited at a number of museums, and he has extensive teaching experience. He is a founding member of the artist collective, Flock the Optic, along with Liesl Schubel and Abram Deslauriers. King is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH.