SOUTH HOLLAND, IL–The Art & Design Department of South Suburban College is pleased to present an exhibition entitled “What Just Happened?” by figurative artist Rine Boyer. The exhibition will be on display in the Dorothea Thiel Gallery from October 21 – November 7, 2021.

During what felt like the depths of the pandemic – when everything in Chicago was dark, cold, and snowy – Boyer decided to try and capture it mostly for her own sanity. Her life, like many others, had become monotonous. Each day she did the same things, saw the same group of people, and inhabited the same spaces, for months on end. Everyone aside from a few family members and friends seemed to evaporate into an idea of a person only to be seen digitally or in my mind’s eye. Captured on plexiglass, a material found in any space essential enough to stay open, figures based on protesters vanish and reappear into each other as if they are figments of the imagination. Sometimes a shadowy outline of a nearby figure is reflected and other times it disappears into incomprehensible lines. Behind these standing figures are portraits of close friends and family and animated scenes of life in isolation.

Rine Boyer is a Chicago-based painter and artist-in-residence of Zhou B Art Center. She has exhibited her work widely and has been the subject of many international articles. Boyer’s work is rich with nuance and layers of symbolism; the vivid colors she utilizes point towards things that lay beyond the physical while the repetition of subtle shapes pay homage to the individual and collective.

The Dorothea Thiel Gallery is located on the fourth floor and is open Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. The galleries are closed on Fridays, weekends and holidays. The galleries are supported in part by the SSC Foundation. SSC is located at 15800 South State Street, South Holland, Illinois. For more information, please email jtassin@ssc.edu or call (708) 596-2000, ext. 2316.