Micheline Klagsbrun, Beverly Ress, Andy Yoder
April 22 – May 15, 2023
Cast in Shadow is a group exhibition featuring new works by Micheline Klagsbrun, Beverly Ress, and Andy Yoder. It is a part of the DO THE LOOP initiative—co-organized by Dumbarton Oaks Museum, the Katzen Museum at AU, the Kreeger Museum, and by Addison-Ripley Fine Arts and Klagsbrun Studios on Book Hill. Curated by Vesela Sretenović the exhibit will be on view at the KLAGSBRUN STUDIOS from April 22 to May 15, 2023, from Friday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm.
In physics, a shadow is an absence of light, a dark area where light from a light source is blocked by an opaque object. Given that shadows can easily obscure vision, they have historically symbolized darkness, suspense, deception, and uncertainty. In analytical psychology, Carl Jung defined shadow as a part of ourselves that we hide and avoid; in other words, shadow refers to one’s unconscious and emotional blind spot. In philosophy, light and shadow have often symbolized truth and falsity, reality and representation, or in Plato’s terms idealism and materialism. And in visual art, shadow has revealed an object’s extension in space, hence heightening the illusion of depth. In sum and metaphorically speaking, shadow implies something covert, undetermined, ambiguous, and unknown. The Cast in Shadow exhibition features artists who engage these manifold implications of shadow, both aesthetically and conceptually.
In her one-room installation, Night Boats, Klagsbrun suspends some of her boats at different heights and angles; others she turns upside down to evoke the sense of dislocation and disorientation that people often experience on a journey into the unknown. These boats sprout roots and are entangled with branches and plant veins that she finds in nature. For her, the roots are connectors to personal history and memory; they are the maps
Klagsbrun is a visual artist whose painting and multi-media work focuses on transformation. She was
born and raised in London, and graduated from the University of Cambridge, and The Tavistock Institute where she received a clinical doctorate in psychology (D.C.P.) She studied in Paris with Alfredo Echeverria and at the Corcoran with Gene Davis and Bill Newman. She has exhibited widely, including at the Katzen Museum at American University, Arena Stage, Studio Gallery, Goldman Gallery, the Embassies of Finland and Venezuela, Smith Center for the Healing Arts, Covington and Burling, Adah Rose Gallery, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art; elsewhere, Macy Gallery (New York City), William Ris Gallery (Cape May NJ), MiXX Projects and Gallery 81435 (Telluride CO), Aswan, Egypt and Delhi, India.
Her work is in private collections nationally as well as in Europe and the Middle East; it is represented by William Ris Gallery (Jamesport NY) and MiXX Atelier (Telluride CO).
www.michelineklagsbrun.com @mklagsbrun
In Beverly Ress’s drawings on vellum, shadows are a means to delve into slippery territory of dreams and memories. These drawings are often photo- based, playing with scale, trompe l’oeil and light to create illusions of objects and space. They carry a sense of quietude, secrecy, and the infinite. Ress calls them No Things drawings, referring to her ongoing meditation on transience of life.
www.beverlyress.com @bevress
Ress’ work has been included in national drawing shows at the Weatherspoon Art Museum, and the Arkansas Arts Center; and in solo exhibitions at The Katzen Museum, the Simons Center at Stony Brook University, and the Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn, among others. She’s exhibited her work in group shows in Brooklyn, Belgium, Germany, New York, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Ress has received five Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, and a United States Artists project grant. Her work is included in the collections of The American University, The Arkansas Arts Center, Davidson College, The DC Commission on the Arts, Georgetown University, The Library of Congress, and The Weatherspoon Museum. She received her AB from Earlham College, and an MFA from the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA.
Andy Yoder’s installation, Pileup, uses salvaged auto parts to create a pile of leaves that nicely rests in an outdoor space and naturally casts shadows from the surrounding trees and bushes. Although initially created for the Kreeger’s Interlude exhibition, Yoder reconstructs his piece to respond directly to the architectural site. Balancing the ephemeral (leaves and moving light) and durable (discarded steel), the organic and the fabricated, Pileup brings poetry and humor into the everyday.
Yoder was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Dartmouth College and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, before receiving a B.F.A. from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1982. Yoder’s work is in numerous public and private collections, and his exhibitions were held at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Queens Museum of Art, Winkleman Gallery in New York, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His numerous commissions include works for ESPN, Continental Airlines, Progressive Insurance, David and Susan Rockefeller, and the Saatchi Collection. He currently maintains a studio at STABLE Arts in Washington, DC, and was recently awarded a grant from the Corcoran Women’s Committee.
www.andyyoder.com @andyyoderart