When you think back to your childhood, what toys did you play with? For me, as a suburban boy growing up in the eighties and nineties, it was G.I. Joe, Transformers, and a whole lot of plastic guns that looked a lot more realistic than the blasters kids are exposed to today.
My sister, however, is five years younger than I, and she played with a lot of what at the time would have been called “girly stuff,” especially if it was pink and Barbie related. For 36-year-old SCAD graduate student Joanna Paige Silver, the experience was similar. Older and wiser, she’s looking back on those experiences in a new light with her excellent first solo exhibition “Candy Coated Memories” at the Jewish Educational Alliance’s Montag Gallery.
“As children, we have all these toys that we’re given that are supposed to be just fun and colorful,” she related, as we stood amongst paintings and prints that depicted vibrant plastic Dream Houses and toddler-sized vanities. “And we’re playing with them, but really they’re teaching us to clean homes, and cook dinners, and take care of babies; all the things that are put onto women as young as two years old.”
Maturing as an Artist
Silver is from Miami, and the intensity of the color in the pieces speaks not only to the molded plastic and printed cardboard forms that she’s representing, but also to the environment within which she formed her image of the world. When we spoke, she was wearing all black, but she admitted to wearing almost exclusively bright colors through her teenage years. Even back then she would often wonder why she was “supposed” to wear certain things and play with certain toys.
“I had two boy cousins, and a lot of my friends growing up were boys,” she recalled. “I always wanted to be one of the boys, but also was super girly at the same time, since I had two sisters. So, I was always questioning it.”
She ended up pursuing art immediately out of high school, going to undergraduate school at the prestigious Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C. But, she admitted, she “was too immature” back then to explore her creative muse in a real way, instead opting to go into fashion, following in the footsteps of her family, who owned a shoe business for over 45 years.
That may have been her lifelong path, but just before the pandemic, Silver suffered an injury that forced her go on disability and leave her job at the luxury brand Jimmy Choo. To pass the time, she started doing her personal artwork again while she was just “sitting around the house,” she said. At first, she was making t-shirts, and doing hyper-realistic portraits of “anything,” including dogs, people, and houses. It was making her money, but she wanted to dig deeper. Before she knew it, she was enrolled at SCAD, 10 years older than most of her peers, and starting work on work that was more personal, exploring the concepts she’s showcasing in “Candy Coated Memories.”
“I was painting every day,” she said of her decision to attend the local, nationally recognized art institution. “I was like, ‘Okay, I think I can do something with this.’”
“I think it’s nice to be here”
Silver’s exhibition at Montag Gallery isn’t a SCAD-related project, however, even though many of the paintings were created within the context of coursework or with input from her professors. And it’s not just about toys either: There are a collection of prints in the show that were created from reference photos she took while traveling up and down California.
While these pieces aren’t referencing her childhood experience specifically, they certainly critique traditional gender models, with several depicting hair salons and one, called “Douche,” looking in on a women’s restroom.Together, they form a cohesive storyline of sorts, and stand in contrast only by medium, not by message, and certainly not by color (the prints, while not as explosively colorful as the paintings, are by no means dully hued).
There is, however, a secondary plot, if you will, that underlies the entirety of the show: Joanna Paige Silver is a Jewish woman showing at a Jewish space in a time when antisemitism is on the rise. And while the work, she said, doesn’t specifically speak to the Jewish experience, she also feels that she can’t simply ignore the persecution that people of her faith are once again experiencing.“Especially in times right now, being a Jewish woman, having my first solo show in a Jewish building, it’s just nice to me,” she noted. “I feel honored, but you also have to be cautious in these times, which is sad and scary.”Silver went on to note that on her invitations she made sure to call the space the Montag Gallery without referencing its position within the Jewish Community Center. Her reason? She was afraid people would dismiss it out of hand simply because it’s in a Jewish space.Hopefully, Savannahians won’t disappoint this art writer by even considering such a judgment and will, instead, come to the JEA to view a visually appealing, conceptually powerful, and, dare I say, fun exhibition by a truly talented painter and printmaker.
“I think it’s nice to be here, and whoever I can bring here to show what a nice place it is, I think that would be cool too,” she said.
If You Go >>
What: Joanna Paige Silver’s “Candy Coated Memories”
When: Opening reception, 5 to 7 p.m., July 11; Exhibition runs through July 31
Where: Jewish Educational Alliance’s Montag Gallery, 5111 Abercorn St., Savannah
Cost: Free
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: New exhibition at Jewish Educational Alliance's Montag Gallery depicts message in childhood toys
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