Scattered Pictures Depict 'Shelter' at SJU Gallery
A new photography installation at the SJU Gallery explores complex emotions through the lens of storm cellars in Oklahoma.
"Unnamed," a photo looking through a storm cellar ventilation chimney.
In Oklahoma, where tornadoes touch down at an average rate of 50 per year, storm cellars are a regular part of life. Andy Mattern, a visual artist who teaches photography and digital media at Oklahoma State University, explores the complex feelings one can experience in a cellar in his exhibit “Shelter,” currently on display at the Saint Joseph’s University Gallery.
“These cool, dim spaces are both havens and tombs,” Mattern explains in an artist’s statement. “They are designed as sanctuaries to guard against extreme weather, yet they engender a palpable sense of vulnerability and fear.”
Mattern’s exhibit plays with representation as well as abstraction — the prints represent a documentation of the cellars while their arrangement tells a larger story.
“Small ventilation chimneys punctuate the landscape in Oklahoma, poking up from grassy mounds in backyards, and hint at the presence of storm cellars,” Mattern says. “To reference this dispersion of safe places, the prints are presented in a scattered arrangement on the gallery wall.”
Mattern feels as though the act of seeking shelter “below the surface” is all too familiar in his home state. As unsettling as this feeling may be, he has found “connectedness” and “hope” within it, and he communicates those emotions in his art.
Saint Joseph’s University Gallery is located on the second floor of Merion Hall at 355 N. Latches Lane in Merion Station, Pennsylvania. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., and Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.