Exhibitions
JOHN SHORB: A COSMIC WOMB
Tops Gallery / 400 South Front St. January 22, 2022 - March 5, 2022
John Shorb
In his second show at Tops, John Shorb continues his visual investigation of discarded texts, this time focusing on fragmentary ancient texts soaked in cryptic spiritual meaning. Shorb re-presents phrases and words, such as Child of Silent Silence or The Four Clouds, in handmade paper works comprised of vibrant pigmented linen and cotton pulp. These signs point to a place of impossibility: what does it mean to hear a song of Eve? to know children of the power? to return to a cosmic womb? Shorb seeks religion without religion, with the works proclaiming desires just beyond belief.
John Shorb is an artist living and working in Brooklyn. Shorb has had solo shows at the University of Mississippi Museum, Northeastern University, and Long Island University in Brooklyn as well as group shows at Santa Clara University and Wright State University. He was awarded a Hambidge fellowship in 2011 at the Hambidge Center in Georgia as well as a Winter Residency in 2017 at Penland School of Crafts. He studied film and literature at Carleton College and then received a masters in divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.
