FLEISCHMANNS - The 1053 Gallery will open its fall season Saturday, Sept. 13, with Terraphilia, a joint exhibition of new work by painters Lisa Lebofsky and Christie Scheele. On view through Oct. 19, the show gathers two distinct but complementary visions of the landscape, each rooted in a profound love for the earth.
Curated by Lindsay Comstock and Monte Wilson, Terraphilia takes its title from the Greek for “love of land.” The works extend from the Catskills to Scotland and the Labrador Sea, charting terrain both real and remembered.
Lebofsky, a nomadic plein air painter who often incorporates natural materials into her practice, brings the immediacy of direct experience to her canvases. Working on metal panels, she infuses her scenes with reflected light that can cause them to flicker or dissolve depending on the viewer’s vantage. Many of her paintings hold an undercurrent of unease — a controlled burn slipping beyond control, the wreckage left in the wake of a hurricane — that mirrors the instability of the natural world itself.
Scheele, who has long made her home in the Catskills, transforms familiar vistas into meditative compositions that border on abstraction. Her recent collages, created on vintage blackboards during a residency in Scotland, invite viewers to look beneath the surface of the landscape and consider its hidden interconnections. Influenced by the color field painters, her work seeks to hold a moment in nature while also weaving it into a unified visual experience.
Both artists use landscape as a point of entry into larger questions — of memory, fragility, resilience, and the tenuous bond between humans and the earth.
The exhibition will open with a public reception at 1053 Gallery on Saturday, Sept. 13, from 4 to 7 p.m. The gallery, founded in 2021 by Mark and Maritza Birman, is directed by Monte Wilson and open Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment.
