Elizabeth Schwaiger

In "From the Dark Sea," Elizabeth Schwaiger's first solo exhibition with Jane Lombard Gallery, a shifting dualism occupies the canvas: the moments in which decadence and disaster converge.

Set in places that range from political summits to vacant studios and museums, Schwaiger's gestural paintings depict a gamut of spaces, each scene reverberating differently. For instance, Palimpsest (2020) [pictured] is a dynamic symphony of dripping rust, sienna, russet, amber, bronze watercolor, ink, and acrylic. Almost a dozen feet wide, the monumental work combines two photographic references of historical significance. Both events took place at the Hague, each with different global consequences: the 1899 Hague Convention that the rules of war; and the 1915 International Women's Peace Conference, which called for an end to World War II. At once a history painting and a psychoanalytic meditation on the events, Palimpsest calls to mind that which has been eroded to make room for something new.