The Staniar Gallery’s new exhibit, “Pas de Deux,” opened on Feb. 16, pulling from art history and mythology to examine themes of gender and the environment.
“Pas de Deux” is a solo exhibition by assistant art professor Emma Steinkraus. Steinkraus has previously exhibited her work “Impossible Garden: Dusk and Dawn” on campus in the Watson Galleries, which used environmental illustrations from female artists and naturalists to create a landscape.
Steinkraus’ “Pas de Deux” is a continuation of her past work, which has had a strong focus on environmental themes and the relationship between people and nature.
The exhibit name, “Pas de Deux,” refers to a type of dance duet and references the conversational nature of Steinkraus’s artistic process, which draws heavily from paintings based on Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and artwork from illuminated manuscripts, Steinkraus said.
“I often annotate my work with references to what it’s in conversation with,” Steinkraus said in her artist talk on March 5. “The title refers to the partnership between the artist and the images that inspire them.”
For Steinkraus, mythology offers a way to explore both historical imagery and contemporary questions about gender and the body.
The exhibit consists of several large paintings depicting brightly colored mythical creatures. The painting’s subject matter draws inspiration from the “Metamorphoses,” an epic poem recounting Greek myths, Steinkraus said.
The painting’s subjects are surrounded by smaller details, as a reference to paintings from the Northern Renaissance. Steinkraus explained that she wanted the details to bring life to her work.
“My goal for the show was for everything to feel alive, including the sky itself,” Steinkraus said.
Steinkraus covered the gallery with 60 bejeweled flower sculptures surrounding the paintings. These flowers act as frames for the artwork Steinkraus referenced in her paintings, emphasizing the “duet” between her work and the art that inspired her.
Adorning the space around her artwork is a common practice for Steinkraus in her exhibits. In her artist talk, Steinkraus stated that she wanted to use the space in the Staniar Gallery to be “a bit more playful and preferably floral.” Steinkraus also wanted these flower patterns to mirror her studio walls, which she fills with the historical paintings she uses as references when she works on her projects.
The flower frames were inspired by specific flower motifs from the illuminated manuscript Liturgia Horarum (Book of Hours), drawn by Simon Bening. Steinkraus used laser cutting in the IQ center to create these motifs.
Steinkraus accompanies her exhibit with a short essay that addresses her concern for the recent incorporation of AI into art. In the artist talk, Steinkraus explained that she was concerned by how similar her artistic process felt to generative AI, as she focuses heavily on combining several references throughout different periods in art history.
She countered this argument by showing her creative process in greater detail. In order to create each painting, Steinkraus creates a detailed preliminary drawing, a sculpture and a photoshop markup before starting her final painting. Steinkraus believed that the intention and labor that go into her paintings show that her work is an inherently human process.
“In a world dominated by tech,” she said, “art is still an expression of human joy and labor.”
“Pas de Deux” will be on display in the Staniar Gallery through March 13.
