At first glance, Vera Kaplan and Suzi K. Edwards seem to inhabit entirely different artistic worlds. Kaplan looks to the natural landscape, finding inspiration in trees as symbols of patience, resilience, and quiet transformation. Edwards turns to the built environment and the limitless possibilities of digital media, creating playful, richly layered compositions where photography, drawing, collage, and imagination converge. Yet together, their work invites us to consider a common question: Where do we find ourselves within the world around us?
Kaplan’s paintings emerge through an intuitive process of layering color and texture, often using unconventional tools to create the evolving forms of imagined tree trunks. Her forests are less about depicting specific places than about capturing a feeling—one of stillness, acceptance, and possibility. The paintings encourage viewers to slow down, notice subtle details, and experience each work as an act of discovery.
Edwards approaches image-making as both a builder and a storyteller. Drawing from decades of creating public mosaics, she constructs digital works from photographs, hand drawings, and collage, carefully weaving diverse visual elements into cohesive compositions. Animals wander through museums, cities become dreamscapes, and familiar places are transformed through humor, fantasy, and meticulous craftsmanship. Whether working in mosaic or digital media, she celebrates the power of individual pieces coming together to create something entirely new.
Although their visual languages differ, both artists embrace a process of assembling, layering, and transformation. One draws inspiration from the rhythms of nature; the other from the abundance of contemporary visual culture. Together, their work reminds us that meaning is often found not in certainty, but in curiosity—in paying attention to where we stand, what surrounds us, and how we choose to see.
Where We Stand is on view in the Ram Dass Library Second Floor Gallery through September 1, 2026.
Kathleen Laucius
Senior Director of Creative and Art Curator at Omega
