Sphere of Influence, 2017, installed in the gallery’s first room, perfectly captured the themes broached by this exhibition. The work is a photographic print of a fertilized egg, taken from a scientific publication, in which the artist has intervened with cotton threads as if the photo were a canvas. The threads surround and outline the image, then, soft and light, cascade outside the frame. If one did not know what the picture was of, the enlarged egg might seem like a distant and mysterious planetary system, made up of celestial bodies growing within one another. Sphere of Influence hints at

“Look Afar,” Chiara Dynys’s most recent series of works, derives from an experience the artist lived through personally, one that has all the characteristics of an extreme ordeal. She spent forty days in Abisko National Park in Swedish Lapland, nearly 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, during the total darkness of the coldest months, December to February, staying in a shelter with nothing but the bare necessities for survival. Her purpose was to photograph the aurora borealis. Approximately eighteen thousand images produced during her stay formed the basis for this exhibition, curated by