Artist vanessa german opens her talk with a song at the Rowan University Art Gallery. Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. Glassboro, NJ. (Staff Writer / Kacie Scibilia)
American artist vanessa german spoke at the Rowan University Art Center, and at that reception, it was love at first sight; the audience was enamored.
When speaking in front of the crowd, german, confident and poised, took the attendees on an expedition, drifting from piece to piece, detailing her internal and ancestral drive behind each piece’s creation. This metaphorical journey spoke to the artist’s heritage, opinion, and spirit.
The exhibition, titled “Breathe Through the Diaphragm: Our Eyes Are in Our Lungs,” features a variety of sculptures, born of glass beads, wood, fabric, spray paint, buttons, bottle caps, bottles, and much, much more.
Mary Salvante, director and chief curator at the Rowan University Art Gallery and Museum, organized the exhibition, which opened with a reception on Sept. 10 after more than two years of preparation.
“Typically, when I do shows, I do a lot of research to look at artwork I go to a lot of galleries, I go to New York, art fairs, I read a lot of publications, I go online — I do a lot of research online — and I first saw vanessa’s work in a gallery in New York…maybe 10 years ago,” said Salvante.
That work left an indelible mark on her mind.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got to have her at Rowan. I was slowly working toward a time when it would be appropriate, and a couple of years ago, I reached out and we started talking about putting a show together…it took a few years to schedule it, but here we are,” said Salvante.
The exhibition features a variety of bejeweled heads, hearts, hands and a lot of soul. german calls these creations “power figures,” something she later learned was reminiscent of the minkisi n’kondi, or protective charms for the people of Kongo, her ancestors.
The gallery that night buzzed with activity and lively conversations about the meaning behind the sculptures. Students, professors, and people who lived in the Glassboro area roamed from piece to piece, utterly entranced.
“I think it has a lot of symbolism like struggles of womanhood and…the main goals of womanhood. I feel like a lot of stuff just has to do with…choosing between having a husband and kids and having your own personal life…that separation of what you want independently and…the family life,” said 23-year-old senior Alison Angeles, majoring in radio, TV, and film.
And womanhood, in all of its struggles, played a definite part in the work.
“That’s something that as a woman I feel like we all struggle with, because it’s hard to choose between what you want and what feels like has been the goal your whole life,”
Then it was time for the main event: german began her talk about the meaning of some of her pieces and how they blossomed from inkling to creation.
The central theme of the work was healing. We live in stressful times, with our personal issues, work, school, injustice, and an attempt at the suppression of our voices, and we need to search within ourselves to find that inner peace. It’s the symbiotic relationship between the heart and the mind. Driving that point home, german even led a meditation session on Sept. 10 in Westby Hall, offering students their own gateway to internal peace.
This artistic polymath dips her fingers into many metaphorical pies. Her artistic endeavors include, but are not limited to, painting, performing, writing, poetry, and, of course, sculpting. That said, when asked by anyone, she always responds with the phrase, “I’m a sculptor.”
german started the speech by leading the attendees in a brief meditation of thankfulness and sang a song in a language unlike our own. She smoothly melded into her thoughts on the selection of pieces.
One thing that stood out was the extraordinary addition of the color blue. Cobalt, sapphire, lapis, there is no shortage of that family in her exhibitions. By using those hues, german seeks to convey the healing power of water in all of its capacities.
“The way that I use color in work is as a complete multidimensional language, so when I’m using a lot of blue, it is speaking to the multidimensional power of water and also the frequency of blue being a frequency of life and truth that is communicated through music, through the blues and rhythm and blues, that the blues are the thing itself,” said german.
german went on to further explicate her motivations in detail.
“It’s not just singing a song. It’s not just telling a story. It’s not just a song, and it’s not just music, it is a whole powerful force of energy that has within it experienced the capacity to transmute and to divine and to make, and those blues are so powerful because it’s how you are able to bring sorrow and grief, despair, hopelessness [and] rage out of your body, into a movement of sonic art that is healing and mending and sealing the seeping, leaking places of heartbreak,” said german.
The very deliberate application of blue stones, beads, and whatnot in their symbolism feels like inner peace is intrinsic to german’s very nature. If you spend five minutes with her, you’ll come to realize that it actually is. This New Work Times-celebrated Renaissance woman radiates love, tolerance, acceptance, and peace, but her work also embodies passion, which can manifest in rage and injustice at oppression, poverty, and rampant violence.
Another key aspect of german’s work is that she gives viewers the chance to see who they are and evaluate their purpose through introspection and the strategic use of mirrors: the viewer literally sees themselves in her art.
“My partner introduced me to german’s work, and we saw some in a gallery in New York a few years ago. So when I heard it was coming to Rowan and the artist was going to talk, I made it a point to be there…It’s amazing to have her work on campus,” said Rowan’s Associate Professor in the journalism department, Professor Mark Berkey-Gerard.
german says she works on several sculptures at the same time.
“I’m working on several sculptures at the same time, so there’s a way that some of it’s like ‘process.’…I get to a place where the work is maybe 95, 97% to its completed stage, and I just live with that work as long as I can around me so that I can experience it at different times of day and different moods of light and different moods of my being, and stay in communication with the sculpture until…I have heard all that I need to hear from the sculpture to move it into its place of its final self,” said german.
The exhibition, “Breathe Through the Diaphragm: Our Eyes Are in Our Lungs” at the Rowan University Art Gallery remains on view through Nov. 1.
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