Sara VanDerBeek’s art at the Baltimore Museum of Art sits diagonally from work by fellow Baltimore artist Anne Truitt, who inspired her during her formative years, and a few steps from Matisse paintings that she used to sketch.
It’s a homecoming for the now New York-based artist, who explores that theme in her newest exhibit, on display until Sept. 20. This work contains a mixture of photographs and sculpture.
“This exhibition connects to aspects of the museum and its collection, but its also very much about memory and my experience of returning to a city I grew up in,” VanDerBeek said during a recent tour.
Marble, which VanDerBeek intends to be a stand-in for time, is a uniting motif. Walking into the Front Room gallery, a long strip of marble treads, placed end to end, dominates view.
VanDerBeek worked with a local stone company to produce the sculpture, reminiscent of steps in neighborhoods like Mt. Vernon, but she also wanted to explore the combination of domestic and civic space.
In some of her prints, VanDerBeek overlays images of salvaged marble, digitally tinted a calming blue that connects to the marble’s veins. Here, she explores line, shape, and reflection.
The one piece that features the human form again explores reflection. Two images of dancers’ legs, one set male and the other female, are positioned diagonally in a frame.
VanDerBeek photographed dancers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where her father taught art and film. She’s also compiled an animated presentation of her studies of dancers, found here.
At this moment, the overlapping prints strike a balance as they are captured in time. Just like the marble, VanDerBeek has repurposed these images to evoke something deeper than what they seem.