Pennsylvania sculptor vanessa german's new exhibit focuses on healing

Driving the news: The exhibit, "Breathe from the Diaphragm," opened this week at Rowan University Art Gallery and Museum and runs through Nov. 1.

• The installation features more than a dozen statues, which are modeled after African power figures, constructed of everyday materials (think: wood, plaster, cobalt blue bottles) and assembled in a transcendent sum greater than their parts.

Zoom in: Healing and survival are central to german's work.

• The self-taught artist, who styles her name in lowercase, has fought through many of her own battles — from depression following her mother's death, to enduring racism and homelessness — to become one of the country's foremost sculptors.

What they're saying: german tells Axios her exhibit explores the idea that "our eyes are in our lungs."

• "It's an invitation ... about stillness," german says. "When you breathe with your eyes and your lungs, you're breathing through the eyes of universal consciousness, and it implicates that oneness with everything."

If you go: 301 High Street West in Glassboro, New Jersey. Hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturday, 11am-5pm.