NYAB Event - Sibylle Peretti "A Thin Silver Lining"

Sibylle Peretti "A Thin Silver Lining"

Heller Gallery

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Heller Gallery presents exhibition A Thin Silver Lining — new work by Sibylle Peretti.

Peretti creates dreamlike figurative work in which images of children are intertwined with flowers, bees, animals and water. In this exhibition she continues her practice of appropriating images of feral children from documentary and fictitious sources. Because they seem to hover between humanity and animality, feral children have attracted attention over centuries from scientists, storytellers and strangers alike.

Peretti’s works for A Thin Silver Lining range from wall panels to glass domes, cast glass busts and a life-size reclining figure. The wall pieces are a combination of photography and drawing and are built up from photographic images, engraving on glass or Plexiglas, drawings on tissue paper and mirroring – the thin silver line with which the artist draws the connection to nature. Peretti says the children in her images “have a special kind of communication without words that is natural and deep, they are closer to nature.” They awaken a powerful sense of humanity in us and set off our instinct to protect and save our own.

It is said that empathy and language are what separates humans from animals. The world Peretti creates for her children is mysterious, blithe and pretty, and underscores their magic, purity and innocence. By placing her subjects in idyllic, fairy tale-like surroundings, sometimes in proximity with another image of themselves, she symbolically rehabilitates them and amplifies their power to elicit empathy. The artist says “the children in my work impart a mystery around them; I think they may carry answers to our big questions, such as what makes us human.”

Sibylle Peretti received her MFA in painting and sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cologne, Germany. Her work is represented in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY; Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal, Canada; Museum fur Kunsthandwerk in Frankfurt, Germany and the American Glass Museum in Millville, NJ as well as other public and private collections in the USA, Canada and Europe.