Skip to Main Content

Harcum Art Gallery’s Spring Semester Exhibit Features Jacci Delaney’s ‘Banquet of Artworks’

Art
Exhibit for Campus Only Due to Pandemic; Others Can View on Website Jacci Delaney's works in glass feature themes of overcoming loss and tragedy as presented in a Harcum Art Gallery exhibit titled "Convivial" and running from Feb. 1 through April 17. PICTURED: Jacci Delaney's artwork titled "Future Trees" is featured among pieces in her exhibit called "Convivial." BELOW: "Fragile No More" Due to the pandemic, the show is limited to the campus community, however, pieces of Delaney's work can be viewed on the Harcum Art Gallery page of the College's website at HARCUM GALLERY. For the campus, gallery hours are weekdays, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment arranged by gallery curator Hal Shunk, professor of art. Delaney explained the show's "banquet of artworks" are designed to convey a variety of emotions through pieces she created over the last 10 years of her 18-year career. There's the piece about triumphing over death called "The Stoic Old Woman," which highlights one's survival while persevering as an artist following the passing of a spouse. "Some of these works deal with overcoming depression or abuse. 'Finally!' is about the abused spouse that decides she’s not taking it anymore and leaves," Delaney said. Fragile No MoreShe's also glad society is starting to recognize the challenges associated with mental illness and that a movement has started in this country both encouraging people to seek help and endeavoring to de-stigmatize mental illness. Indeed, the two pieces, “Break Through” and “It Takes Time,” mark the first instance in which the concept of overcoming mental illness has provided a major theme in her work. "These two are about people rising out of their closed-up selves and the glass bubble-wrap around the person’s head illustrates that," she said. "They are rising above that and scraping away the bubble wrap." Delaney asks her audience of the "Convivial" exhibit to look for these emotions and universal themes and realize "when it's not so obvious in each artwork — it's still there." Other pieces in the exhibit, the glass cubes, also use bubble-wrap, but the context is different, she noted. "These are about that fact that plastics are in our environment and they are not going away. These pieces look like geodes or something underwater, but they are glass bubble-wrap and it is still beautiful." Brandt-Roberts Galleries in Columbus represents Delaney.