Rooted in the study of myth, history, spirituality, and cultural memory, the artists in the exhibition channel the energy of specific sources to arrive at new conceptions. Within their own visual language, each artist is a conduit through which a certain magic flows. Inspired by stories and figures real and imagined, Manuela Caicedo, Felice Caivano, Terra Keck, and Farangiz Yusupova reference, build upon, and reenvision their respective subjects.

Within the exhibition, the sense of where and when is hard to place. The scenes, subjects, and in some cases, materials, are from a different time or place or even planet. Yet the works are utterly contemporary in their methodologies. A doily, a shape borrowed from Matisse, a pitched roof, and a swan are coordinates that orient the viewer.

Each artist’s practice, characterized by sustained investigation and recurrent motifs, is like mapping a dreamscape. Drawn to certain images or ideas, the artists repeat and revisit; the why of it all is often revealed later. Manuela Caicedo’s Theater of death (Segundo acto) series features imagined female characters, which she calls dragonas. They emerge from her subconscious, as well as from specific references, such as the story of “Leda and the Swan.” The dragonas evolve slightly from painting to painting, getting subsequently smaller in a dance-like procession toward death and decay, set against a hazy, dreamlike Colombian landscape. Farangiz Yusupova’s abstract compositions materialize in a similar manner, combining intuition with nods to Modernist painting, Islamic and Soviet architecture, and Central Asian women's crafts. Through her layered approach, which includes stenciling lace and hand-making paper from recycled materials, she processes family mementos and memories in an act of preservation and acknowledgment of loss.

Many questions remain unanswered; the pursuit of uncertainty is central. For Felice Caivano, who works with handicrafts sourced from antique stores and estate sales, it is often impossible to decipher the provenance of an object. It is precisely this anonymity of labor that lends her abstract, formalist sculptures their mystique, while her use of color aims to offer something bright amidst the uncertainty of our current social and political moment. Terra Keck’s work embraces the beauty and spirituality of uncertainty through scenes inspired by cosmic and supernatural events. Her subtractive approach to drawing using powdered graphite and watercolor instills her work with a sense of ambiguity that feels at once eerie and peaceful.