GLIMMER OF HOPE, Works by Jean Shin
Curated by Eric Shiner at Powerhouse Arts

Jean Shin is a gatherer: a gatherer of objects, of ideas, of memories. Her practice delves into the nooks and crannies of time and place, revealing traces of our shared humanity, labors, and loves. Her sculptures, often made from found objects, obsolete technologies, or natural materials, become repurposed vessels of meaning. The sculptures included here from Shin’s Tidal Witness series are made from thousands of Mother-of-Pearl buttons hand-sewn onto wire mesh structures. The shell buttons were salvaged from a fashion warehouse in New Jersey and ultimately submerged in polluted water from the Delaware River that was filtered and cleansed by live mussels in Shin’s 2022 installation Freshwater. Fusing human production and natural healing, these blankets of buttons become carapaces that both protect and empower us from elements beyond our control.

The new prints included here were made at Powerhouse Arts with the goal of translating the textures and surfaces of the Tidal Witness sculptures. Utilizing innovative printing techniques and inks, the Tidal Reflections prints glisten in light, creating the illusion of actual three-dimensional buttons accumulated on a two-dimensional surface. Their glimmer takes the viewer into a theoretical and magical realm, one steeped in beauty and hope. Also included are three new sculptures that conjure ideas of cowgirls, Wonder Woman, and empowerment in the form of lassos looped around hemlock branches leaning against the wall. Shin views these works as amulets and power figures that also analyze our human relationship with nature.