Myth and Memory

Winter All Members Show

Wednesday, November 23rd through Saturday, December 17th, 2022

We form memories continuously throughout our lives, consolidating them over time into broad understandings of the world around us. Collectively they become our sacred stories, parts of us, indeed what defines us. The combined memories of a group or culture – often mixtures of fact and fantasy – become the lessons and the wisdom of that group, sometimes in the form of legends or myths.

Myths can be suffused by the supernatural, the unreal. But they are real to us in important ways. They establish and perpetuate cherished traditions, traditions that will nourish us throughout life and on into the next generation.

Kauffman, a visual artist based in Washington, DC is best known for her abstract yet allusory large-scale paintings of crowds engaged in communal activities. 

Metamorphosis reflects hope after the tragic and, at times, terrifying year of 2020. Painting butterflies brings her joy - they symbolize renewal and courage. Metamorphosis is part of her “Jeopardy” series in which she lends her voice to endangered species as their natural habitats and migration patterns are being disrupted and protections stripped away.

“Patched together from very watery ink marks, these drawings riff off of advertising portrait photographs, allowing the wet materials to cement the archetypes they exploit, while imbuing them as they swirl and feather with new, more personal, narratives.”

-Irene Pantelis

My photo collage of Westsider Rare & Used Books, is of an independent book and record store located on the Upper West Side in New York City.  It's a fabulous small space that has survived for over the years despite being bought and sold many times.  This photograph was taken before it was announced that the store would remain open.  I wanted to memorialize it just in case it had to close for the last time.

-Pam Frederick

Memories of a Bride shows the cap to the veil my mother wore when she married my father many years ago.  The roses symbolize love that has endured over time; faded, perhaps from its youthful ardor, but still strong and beautiful.

Souvenir from a Ball represents an earlier era, from my grandmother or great-grandmother's time, when graceful women carried fans to formal balls - perhaps receiving flowers from hopeful beaux.

-Jo Levine

Kimberley Bursic is a painter and printmaker working in Washington DC. Her works reference memories, places and weather. This work morphs found landscape imagery into a story about water.

This work is part of a series of “stuffed paintings” of rats and other critters taking on human characteristics in a surrealistic landscape. The stuffed part is sewn right onto the canvas, the whole thing is gessoed and then painted in oil.

-Victoria Hanks

What is self-identity? Here I experiment with alternate views of myself.

-Gary Anthes

Drawings from Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon, these sublime landscapes are filled with personal memories having been there, as well as with history, legends, and undoubtedly myths about how they were created over eons, who lived there, who visited, when, why, and what these majestic panoramas mean to us today.

In my piece “Markings: What Remains”, careful observation of markings on found wood and paper the piece is made from shows what amounts to the memories of the object.

-Joan Mayfield

How does a home hold memories, and how do those memories remain in the space even after the families have left and the houses burned down? There is a bittersweet sacredness that I associate with lost memories and history freshly buried. It’s as though the universe is reclaiming itself, blowing away dust for it to resettle in a new pattern. These sister paintings were inspired by a home I saw that burned to the ground, with only its monolithic hearth still standing amongst the ash. This destroyed lot where there was once a house made me question how spaces continue to hold energy long after its residents have passed on, silently honoring the rich lives of those we will never know. The immensity of humanity is awe-inspiring, and I love to touch on this in my work by examining what is in my environment.

-Halley Sun Stubis

These photographs address power dynamics, conflict, loss, and deteriorating memories. Through referencing the natural processes of dissolution, this work reflects aspects of existence on the edge of potential demise. I am attempting to reflect the often hidden or ignored ephemeral beauty in our shared environment, which has in its genesis a component of transience of a fleeting object or expression in time. I tried to capture a passing, momentary art that tells a story, highlight a certain moment in time, describes people, politics, culture, art, places and a society that together form the myth of life.

-Lynda Andrews-Barry

The Myth of Cadmus and Harmonia (from Ovid: Metamorphoses):

Ovid tells the story of Cadmus, who, with his beloved wife Harmonia comes to the evening of his life, weighed down with misfortunes. Cadmus regrets once killing a giant snake that may have been sacred - “If it was, then the certain wrath of the gods punishes me, and I pray to become a snake myself”.... And as he speaks he feels scales growing on his skin...then his form starts to change...." Harmonia, now also a snake, slides into his embrace.

In Skin Flux I portray Cadmus’ change as a process of explosive fragmentation and coalescence. He is neither human nor snake, and yet both.

-Micheline Klagsbrun

When it’s climatically threatening, politically challenging, and economically discouraging, we cling to our memories of spring.  The softest of times beckons when we’re scraping ice off windshields, dodging slush pools, and bracing against unpitying winds.  But our memories may deceive us.  Are springtime humidities, drenching showers, and swarming insects always benign?  Maybe there are black holes lurking beneath the pastel hues of Spring.  We toss them off as worth it.  And what choice do we have?

-Lois Kampinsky