In Library of Amorphous Matter,
Jocelyne Prince considers the material properties of glass, an amorphous or non-crystalline solid that is the central protagonist of a fantastical library of cracks, drips and scars. Slide Library (2002-present), exhibited in the Redwood’s Rovensky Delivery Room on custom “athenaeum-like” bookcases, features hundreds of intimately scaled, hand-blown glass slides, attesting to what Prince calls her longstanding “love affair with libraries.” Outside on the Library grounds, the artist has installed one hundred and ninety-two glass panes in the windows of Abraham Redwood’s eighteenth-century summer house to create the site specific installation Octadic Beacon (2021). The historic structure, illuminated from within as if lit by a fiery hearth, transforms into a radiant edifice: a shining beacon on a hill. Semi-post-pandemic, the stakes of this Puritan image – and whether it can remain an American ideal – feel very timely.
Curator: Leora Maltz-Leca
Rovensky Room
Jocelyne Prince earned a B.F.A. from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and an M.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design. She exhibits her work in museums and alternative galleries and venues across North America, Asia, and Europe. Notably she was awarded a Howard Foundation Fellowship and the Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching at Rhode Island School of Design – where she is a full-time member of the faculty and Head of the Glass Department. She lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.
Jocelyne Prince Library of Amorphous Matter | Curator’s Notes by Leora Maltz- Leca
