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Like fairy tales, in Rappleye�s drawings and sculptures there is an air of magic and unreality to familiar things. Will nature ever become this perverted and strange? As animal and bird species die, evolve or are destroyed, what will take their place? What are the ramifications of an ever increasing human population and technology on the natural world?

In Nightwood Bloom, a stoic deer has lost one of its antlers, in what appears to be a natural process. Yet the head of the deer sprouts a wire, which had been connected to the antler. The deer appears healthy, and perhaps, against unknown forces, will survive.


This is Jon Rappleye�s second exhibition at the gallery. His solo exhibition, Out of the Silent Planet, is on view at the Jersey City Museum, New Jersey, through August 12. Upcoming solo exhibitions include, Strange World, at the Salina Art Center, Salina, Kansas (fall 2007) and the Clough-Hanson Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee (early 2008). He was recently an artist-in-residence at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where he made the cast china sculptures featured in the exhibition. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.