“Instruments of Magic: Water and Light” (Jul 12 – Aug 10, 2024), curated by Jessie Devereaux, bringing together two series of works by artists Marta Abbott and Elizabeth Schmuhl. Through a shared fascination with the visible and invisible workings of nature, the exhibition explored water and light as primal forces — instruments of transformation that reveal the presence of magic in the natural world.
Both artists approached their materials with reverence and experimentation, using natural inks whose mutable properties — intensity, transparency, and hue — respond to shifts in environment and time. By engaging with these unstable elements, Abbott and Schmuhl exposed the subtle choreography between chaos and control, where the hand of the artist meets the will of nature.
Each work emerged as a moment suspended in flux, capturing transformation as both process and philosophy. The artists’ practices are rooted in observation and repetition, creating a visual language that honors cycles of decay, renewal, and becoming. Their pieces suggest that magic is not illusion, but rather the tangible manifestation of change — a visible trace of invisible energies at work.
Although separated by geography — Schmuhl based in Detroit and Abbott in Rome — both artists drew from the living character of their cities. Detroit’s endurance and Rome’s layered history offered parallel narratives of decay and rebirth, shaping their explorations of fragility and resilience. Exhibited together, their works formed an immersive meditation on impermanence, wonder, and the interdependence between human and natural worlds.
Magic is the evidence of transformation — a record of the moment something becomes something else.” — Marta Abbott & Elizabeth Schmuhl
In its quiet, luminous presence, Instruments of Magic: Water and Light invited viewers to slow down and observe the subtle transformations unfolding before them. The exhibition became a space for stillness and contemplation, where pigments breathed, water shimmered, and light revealed its own materiality — reminding us that magic persists in the everyday gestures of nature and creation.
Featured the Artists
Elizabeth Schmuhl is a multidisciplinary artist whose work investigates nature, movement, and memory. Through painting and performance, she explores cycles of growth and entropy, translating sensory experience into visual form. Schmuhl lives in Hamtramck, Michigan, and has taught at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Oxbow School of Art.
Marta Alexandra Abbott is a Czech-American artist based in Rome, Italy. Using botanical and organic materials, she examines humanity’s relationship with the natural world, balancing intuition and precision in her process. Her work seeks to capture beauty, awe, and the unseen forces that bind earth and sky.
