Exhibit "Tertiary Effects" Opens at NMH Gallery

For Jess Star, being an artist is about reckoning with the complexities and heaviness of the world, experiencing both joy and grief, and building a playful and oftentimes absurd visual language to communicate meaning.

Beginning Sept. 3, the NMH community and the public will have the opportunity to view Star’s work at The Gallery at the Rhodes Arts Center at Northfield Mount Hermon in an exhibit titled “Tertiary Effects.” The exhibit will run through Sept. 29.

“Tertiary Effects” brings attention to issues like climate change and colonialism, using bright colors and playful materials like sequins, artificial grass, glitter foil, and fabric.

The collection of sculptures, prints, and drawings displays images of horses with too many legs, ships that cannot sail, fragile icebergs, and other absurd and precarious imagery.

“The things I care about on a personal and humanitarian level are so dark and scary,” Star says. “So [in my art] I lean into this absurdity because somehow that brings me some levity that makes it survivable.”

Gallery Director Jamie Rourke says, “Star’s art practice explores fundamental questions of self and society that we all face and that are critical to our individual experience as members of any shared community. I look forward to NMH welcoming Star to campus and to getting to know more about the amazing person behind the work.”

Raised in western Massachusetts, Star studied art at Greenfield Community College before being accepted to a program at the San Francisco Art Institute. They are currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.

“My education has had a huge influence on my art and my process,” Star says, adding that learning is about “being invested in your investigations.

“That’s what I do as an artist. I learn constantly, and I’m very interested in my own practices of research, which are very non-traditional,” they say. Research for Star often involves finding synchronicity in unplanned events, histories, and materials.

From there, they create a visual “language” of sorts that often takes the form of symbols like horses, diamonds, and ships that represent power, strength, and wealth. 

“I don’t want to talk about colonialism; I don’t want to talk about global warming in those terms,” says Star. “I’ve been really trying to find these other ways to use symbols to point towards them.”

At Star’s exhibit at NMH, a piece titled “Past the Tipping Point 1” displays icebergs represented by bright pink rods that are held together with zip ties, forming barely stable triangular shapes.

“The zip tie, with a little sideways tweak, can just pop apart,” says Star. “So this is me going through the process of feeling and processing this very intense thing in our world, which is the icebergs melting. … But visually, they’re kind of playful.”

In a series of pieces called “Fleet of Impotence,” Star documents through photography two ships they made out of concrete, with feminized quilted sails.

“A ship that’s concrete can never go anywhere,” Star says. The piece, they say, is a reflection of a personal feeling of not feeling supported but also a reflection of impotence. “Ships that sailed to conquer the world, there’s a failure in it. Greatness was not achieved … and there’s this paradox of the feminine potential to get somewhere and the male-dominated ‘we’re gonna conquer you’ mindset.”

By photographing the ships, rather than displaying the sculptures themselves, Star says, “Even that process, for me, is symbolic of approaching a thing, reckoning with it, changing my relationship to it, and looking at it again.”

Star says they hope that young people who visit the exhibit will see that art and creativity can be a means through which to grapple with the fear, despair, joy, hope, and grief that accompany big issues like politics and climate change.

“Yes, the grief is very real, and we can talk about that. And also we can be creative, we can be playful, we can use colors, and we can find a way through this experience collectively where it doesn’t have to feel so heavy,” they say.

“I spent a lot of years really not wanting to be here when I was younger because it was too painful, and I found a way to be with that pain through creativity.”

Star’s show is the first of several exhibits planned at The Gallery for the 2024-25 season, including shows by visiting artists along with faculty and student shows.

The Gallery is open to the public Monday to Friday from 8 am. to 8 pm, and Sunday from 1 to 5 pm. The public is also invited to an opening reception for “Tertiary Effects” on Friday, Sept. 6, from 6:30 to 8 pm.

— By Maddie Fabian

Images, top to bottom: "Past the Tipping Point 1"; "Filles du Roi"; "What Now"; Fleet of Impotence 2"; artist Jess Star