Bruno Marina Galley is delighted to present The Silver Show, an exhibition of recent work by Anne Peabody. The installation will feature works on silvered glass, created using a method that stems from églomisé, a French glass-gilding technique that was popularized in the 18th century. The ephemeral result emphasizes the delicacy of the subject matter, which is based for the most part in the realm of the subconscious. The new pieces relate specifically to the artist’s dreams, and collectively attempt to evoke the atmosphere of a bedroom, which includes a full-scale replica of a bed.

Peabody recognizes the impermanent nature of even conscious life, an aspect of the everyday that is well articulated in her earlier work. Given the nature of her chosen medium, light is a vital participant in the elusive compositions. She comments, “The play of light and reflection suggests the passage of time from day to night, and affords the viewer the choice to participate or refrain.” Previous works, with titles like “What I Remember” and “Nana’s Dentures,” refract moments from her Kentucky childhood into sketches and silhouettes, whose quiet presence amounts to that of an intricate shadow.

For her 2004 thesis at the School of Visual Arts in New York, the artist transposed a stretch of the sidewalk outside her Brooklyn apartment onto silvered glass. The sidewalk, a faint impression of its former self, was reintroduced not as a sacred object, but as it once appeared, on the ground. Through this subtle installation choice, Peabody transformed the gallery space into a magical reinterpretation of the familiar. Though gesturing to a very tangible reality, her focus was still on the ethereal notions of memory and subjective consciousness. She notes, “the sidewalk is a remembrance, a time capsule used to record and reflect on the things which I see, yet often disregard.” Anticipating the moment when her own work will enter into the imagination of the viewer, she promises, “no two people will have the same recollection of the image.”

Peabody received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2004, and was awarded with an Alumni Thesis Award. Bruno Marina Gallery is privileged to present her first solo show. The artist continues to reside in Brooklyn.

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