Arts Council of Princeton

Jersey Art Meetup (JAM)
2026-04-29 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-05-06 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-05-13 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-05-20 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-05-27 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-06-03 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-06-10 19:00 - 21:00, 2026-06-17 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) and 5 more dates | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ
Divergent FormsBy Artists: Jennifer Martin, George Taylor & Ben PrangerOn view: Jan 10 – Feb 7Opening: Sat, Jan 10 | 3-5pmExhibition statement:Divergent Forms brings together the work of Jennifer Martin, George Taylor, and Ben Pranger—three artists who approach material, structure, and identity from distinctly different directions. Their practices diverge, yet each reveals a careful attention to how form can hold memory, presence, and the traces of thought. Jennifer Martin’s ceramic vessels are rooted in the physicality of the body and the histories it carries. She works within the traditions of pottery while allowing herself to move beyond their constraints, shaping forms that echo human asymmetry and the subtle marks of lived experience. Lines and impressions accumulate on the surface like records of touch, suggesting layers of memory, identity, and personal history. Through groupings, pairings, and human-scaled arrangements, Martin shifts the vessel away from function and into a space of reflection. Her use of traditional glazes and exposed clay emphasizes the connection between surface and skin, reinforcing the idea that the stories we carry are inseparable from the bodies we inhabit. George Taylor works with slab-built ceramic bottles and panels that serve as supports for images of the figure. His practice has evolved from direct self-portraiture toward more universal representations, often showing the body from the back or side. These figures are rendered through line and color, interacting with the flat geometry of his rectangular bottle forms. Taylor’s work reflects both a personal search for belonging and a response to feeling marginalized within the larger art world. Each piece becomes an assertion of visibility and presence, transforming clay into a site of representation and resilience. Ben Pranger constructs wall-based works from carefully assembled wooden elements. His forms grow gradually, piece by piece, according to simple structural rules that allow for complex results. Some works stretch outward as airy, linear pathways; others condense into stepped configurations that suggest small architectural systems. These constructions map a kind of evolving mental or spatial process—recursive, layered, and continually shifting. With the addition of color and pattern in recent years, Pranger’s works operate at the intersection of sculpture and painting, using repetition and rhythm to guide the viewer’s movement across the surface. Together, the works in Divergent Forms demonstrate how three distinct approaches—vessel, figure, and constructed structure—can expand the possibilities of form. The exhibition highlights the ways material can record experience, assert identity, or generate new spatial ideas, offering viewers multiple points of entry into the artists’ investigations of shape, meaning, and presence. Artist statement: Jennifer MartinOur bodies remember for us. Scars, small flaws, and softened edges become quiet archivists, holding the moments that have shaped who we are. My work begins in that place—where memory meets the physical world—and invites both the tenderness and the ache of lived experience to surface.I move within ceramic tradition but do not allow its lineage to bind me. Clay, in its sensual responsiveness, becomes a partner in dialogue. Using the tools of a traditional potter, I lean away from symmetry and toward forms that echo the body’s own asymmetry—its gestures, its vulnerabilities, its truths. Each mark left on the surface records the rhythm of my hand, yet these traces also stand in for the histories we each carry, ring by ring, layer by layer, like a tree quietly growing its story. Through repeated lines and patterns, I build a language that speaks of memory, gender, identity, and the winding paths of personal journey.Scale and arrangement deepen this exploration. I seek to lift the vessel beyond function, offering it instead as a site for contemplation—of relationships, of lineage, of the narratives that shape us. Whether in paired forms that echo one another, grids of cups that reveal both unity and distinction, or large works shaped from the measurements of the human body, each composition becomes a constellation of possibilities. Viewers are invited to find themselves within these forms, to trace their own stories through the spaces between them.As a final gesture of devotion to the human form, I turn to traditional glazes or exposed clay, allowing them to stand in as the skin of the piece—an echo of flesh, a quiet reminder that our bodies and our histories are inseparable.WebsiteInstagram George TaylorI have focused on my own image intently for some time now, most recently in the form of portraits, either on slabs of clay or slab built bottles. More recently I have pulled away from the image of my face and am instead incorporating the entire figure. These images feel more universal to me, especially ones viewed from the back and side.As my practice has evolved, so too has my awareness of politics and representation. My portraits reflect both personal presence and a sense of exclusion—images that feel unwelcome within an art world where I often find myself marginalized. Making this work is both an act of acceptance and a battle: to claim space, to challenge erasure, and to transform clay into a record of persistence.Website Ben PrangerMy wall based constructions slowly grow into emergent forms. Small pieces of wood are stacked and glued, drifting off course to traverse the space in front of the wall. The work follows simple rules that unfold organically to create entangled, rhizomatic structures. Many of the constructions suggest futuristic cities rising out of the rubble of their own destruction. Fragments from previous work coalesce into stairways, passages, apertures, enclosures and pyramids, leading the viewer through labyrinthine architectures. These indwellings map a recursive mental space that morphs into evolving worlds.Website

Tales from the Disenchanted Forest
2026-05-02 - 2026-05-30 | Taplin Gallery – Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Sounds of Color
2026-05-02 - 2026-05-30 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Color as Composition
2026-05-02 - 2026-05-30 | Lower Level Gallery

Princeton Art Bazaar 2026
2026-05-02 11:00 - 16:00 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Pop-Up Choir Princeton
2026-05-05 18:30 - 19:30, 2026-05-20 18:30 - 19:30 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Poetry Reading: Keith O’Shaughnessy
2026-05-09 13:00 - 14:30 | Solley Theater – Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Gallery Opening: Tales from the Disenchanted Forest
2026-05-09 15:00 - 17:00 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Gallery Opening: Sounds of Color
2026-05-09 15:00 - 17:00 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Gallery Opening: Color as Composition
2026-05-09 15:00 - 17:00 | Lower Level Gallery

ART OF Mixology with 3BR Distillery
2026-05-14 18:00 - 19:30 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Story & Verse: A Storytelling and Poetic Open Mic
2026-05-21 19:00 - 21:00 | Solley Theater – Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Café Improv
2026-05-23 19:00 - 22:00, 2026-06-27 19:00 - 22:00 | Solley Theater – Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

Craft Corner
2026-05-27 18:30 - 20:00 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

ART OF Living Lightly
2026-06-03 17:30 - 18:30 | Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, NJ

ART OF The Revolution
2026-06-14 15:00 - 17:00 | Clarke House, 500 Mercer Road, Princeton, 08540, United States
