What makes a work of art compelling, its narrative resonant? These artists occupy spaces where stories percolate from diffuse thoughts, observations, and feelings into something cohesive. Personal experience and collective perception interweaves, melting into the other until an idea springs forth. Like Rorschach blots, these new and never-before-seen works can tell us about ourselves. Fill in the blanks, the vision beckons, dares, challenges.
Elizabeth Glaessner
Drawing from art history, mythology, and personal memory, Elizabeth Glaessner’s work reads as nostalgic, earthbound, and like a fantastical but ominous dream. The rivers, streams, and swampy terrain of southeast Texas—landscapes that once framed Glaessner’s childhood spent playing in bayous and floodwaters—emerge as spectral presences within many of her compositions. In these scenes, figures and water flow into one another, underscoring the inseparability of human life from the natural world. With varying degrees of specificity, the work suggests that as environmental conditions deteriorate, so too does the illusion of the body as a closed, autonomous form, revealing instead its porous and vulnerable nature.