About the exhibition:

After experiencing the wear and tear of teaching art for many years, Tom Sonnenberg created Sawdust and Eggshells to come to terms with his own aging body. The solo show features over 50 pieces of work, including prints, created from 2020 to the present. By using deconstructed materials, such as eggshells and sawdust, Sonnenberg creates new forms, calling it the  “Humpty-Dumpty effect”. 

Sawdust and Eggshells meditates on wellness and wholeness by metaphorically reconstructing parts of Sonnenberg’s body. During the quiet of the pandemic, the artist’s ideas of physical and spiritual reconstruction evolved into depictions of expressive figures. He then transformed the figures into images of the physical locations of his pain. 

The eggshell pieces showcase chicken eggshells arranged in a mosaic surface, depicting isolated body parts. Sonnenberg’s sawdust technique uses deconstructed furniture to make the armatures with a paper mache and sawdust overlay. By remaking the sawdust into a solid form, he attempts to focus diffused energy into the body.

The artist reflects on the materiality of his exhibition, expressing, “The show is inspired by my lifelong use of cheap, discarded materials—necessitated by post-art school poverty—and my upbringing in a household where wasting was considered a sin. Nowadays, I also see it as a way to be eco-conscious. The exhibition is also inspired by an ongoing dialogue with my body and how to maintain and care for it.”

The worn surfaces of the statues refer to the artist's Catholic boyhood, and as such the gallery will be fashioned to feel like a chapel, with dramatic lighting and benches to rest on.

Sawdust and Eggshells will be on view in Gallery 2 at Da Vinci Art Alliance starting May 30 until June 23. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, June 1, from 4-7 pm and there will be a live nude performance (Time TBD).

ABOUT THE Artist:

Tom Sonnenberg is a painter, sculptor and printmaker. He graduated with a degree in art from the University of Wisconsin and a graduate degree from the University of Delaware, where he majored in painting. He has had solo shows at the William Way Community Center, Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts. Past gallery associations include the Janet Fleisher Gallery, the Richard Rosenfeld Gallery and Nexus Foundation for Today’s Art in Philadelphia and Cavin-Morris and Civilization in New York City. Throughout the 80s and 90's, he received many community arts grants to create murals and mosaics in public spaces. In 2001, Tom had a fellowship at the International Center for the Study of Mosaics in Ravenna.