ARTIST JEANNE SILVERTHORNE TO SPEAK DECEMBER 2 AS PART OF PRATT INSTITUTE’S 2008-2009 VISITING ARTISTS LECTURE SERIES

BROOKLYN, N.Y. November 24, 2008 — Artist Jeanne Silverthorne will speak at Pratt Institute about her artwork and career as part of the 2008-2009 Visiting Artists Lecture Series, from 12:45 p.m. to 1:45 p.m., Tuesday, December 2, in the Engineering Building, Room 371, on Pratt’s Brooklyn Campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The Pratt Visiting Artists Lecture Series is an annual year-long series organized by the Department of Fine Arts in the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute to welcome nationally and internationally recognized fine artists to share their experiences with the Pratt community.

New York-based Silverthorne will speak about her sculpture and installation work that utilize her preferred material, rubber, which is cast in the shapes of found objects or the modeled forms of machinery and wiring that reference the human body.

Silverthorne’s artworks have been exhibited extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris, New York. Her work is in included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Fondation Nationale d’Art Contemporain, France. She is represented by McKee Gallery, New York.

Silverthorne received a bachelor of fine arts degree and a master of fine arts degree from Temple University in Philadelphia. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Penny McCall Foundation Grant, and a fellowship to Civitella Ranieri Centre in Italy.

Silverthorne is the final artist slated to speak during the fall 2008 Visiting Artist Lecture Series. The series picks up during spring semester with Mika Rottenberg on January 20, Hilary Harkness on February 3, Sharon Louden on February 17, and Josiah McElheny on March 10. The series is coordinated by graduate students Oded Hirsch and Charlotte Meyer under the supervision of Professor Dominique Nahas in the Department of Fine Arts.

Visitors can enter Pratt Institute’s campus on DeKalb Avenue or on Willoughby Avenue between Hall Street and Classon Avenue. The closest subway stop is the Clinton-Washington station on the G line. For directions to campus or parking information, visit www.pratt.edu/directions.

About Pratt Institute:
Founded in 1887, Pratt Institute (www.pratt.edu) is one of the largest independent colleges of art and design in the United States, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the schools of architecture, art and design, information and library science, and liberal arts and sciences. Pratt is located on 25 landscaped acres in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn and has a Manhattan campus in a large, eight-story building on West 14th Street.