Matthew Gilbert's Darkly Playful World at Jane St. Art

Matthew Gilbert's solo exhibition "Pretend Till It Hurts" at Jane St. Art in Saugerties, NY, through August 1, 2026, presents a sprawling installation that merges sculpture, textile, and theatrical set design. The centerpiece is a five-foot-tall steel construction crane buckling under a rented bouncy castle, titled "Until the Whole City Falls Over," which subverts the innocence of suburban party rentals by evoking the military origins of castles. Gilbert, trained in theater and film, treats medium as incidental to narrative, creating an immersive fictional universe. His works include punch-embroidered textiles like "Flat Parts of Their Buzzcuts," depicting a tornado tearing through a wind farm with a billboard declaring "God Won't Save You," and "Scared of the Rain by God," a black fabric piece with white thread showing a collapsing Victorian house. Other highlights include "Public Toilet #2" as a glowing tabletop throne, "It Started Last Night" with a barn dissolving into dreamlike landscape, and "Second and Grand" where a real candle reappears as a projected illusion. Human figures appear only as ghosts, as in "Borrowed Grief," a translucent self-portrait. Gilbert's recurring motifs include pickup trucks, church steeples impaling vehicles, and farm buildings sagging like exhausted animals. The exhibition is reviewed by Bill Arning, a curator based in Old Chatham, New York.