Exhibitions
Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to present its next exhibition, HOME: Eleven Artists on Heritage, Belonging, and Place. Bringing together eleven accomplished contemporary artists, the exhibition explores the multifaceted concept of home as a physical sanctuary, an internal landscape, and a constructed environment. The exhibition will run from Saturday, August 8 through Sunday, September 13, 2026.
In this show, the notion of home is examined through works that touch on themes of heritage, family, migration, identity, memory, meaning, and the natural environment. Rather than offering a singular definition, the exhibition invites a variety of perspectives, allowing each artist’s distinct practice to negotiate the boundaries of displacement, inheritance, and connection to place.
The breadth of these inquiries is mirrored in the range of work on display. The exhibition features painting, sculpture, and works on paper that emphasize rich texture and physical presence. Visitors will encounter pieces created with traditional oil, tactile fiber and textile, plaster, clay, and handmade natural oil paint, among other materials. Together, these physical substances ground the concepts of memory and belonging, offering a sensory and contemplative exploration of what we carry with us, what we leave behind, and what we build.
Participating Artists:
Heather Beardsley, Pam Black, Barbara Campbell Thomas, Michelle Gagliano, Meg Hitchcock, Sanda Iliescu, Megan Marlatt, Ana Rendich, Dorothy Robinson, LaRissa Rogers, and Millicent Young.
Ana Rendich- Statement
Nature is a good" adviser " about showing limitations, how fragile we are, and about temporarity, space and time...how we deal with, what we are doing with this temporarity , how we are living...This series is an exploration of all that...
I try to work with the most necessary elements.
My work is based on the everyday living, in the complexity of our own nature and ruptures in memory and perceptions.
My presentation for this exhibition shows rectangles, squares…like fronts of homes, far away from the literal three dimensional optical/illusion effect.
These pieces than can look like "houses "are very spectral, almost like floating in the air, no people around, it doesn’t seem to be any turmoil or discord… almost it looks all is quiet and perfect. That is a perception, and that is what we assumed from…
I have been interested in observing from our relationships with our own inner and external life, how memory and perception can extend to pure or true ideas/concepts or rule without middle ground or exceptions, and no relient on anything else.
Tracing Hope- -Les Yeux du Monde
Les Yeux du Monde is pleased to announce its first show of 2025: Tracing Hope, a two-person exhibition featuring new work by LYDM artists Sanda Iliescu and Ana Rendich. The exhibition opens with a reception on Saturday, February 15th, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, and will be on view through Sunday, March 23rd, 2025.
Sanda Iliescu’s new works on paper, which she calls Summer Songs, are a jubilant celebration of color and movement. Painted during the summer of 2024, these works use watercolor and gouache to capture lyrical rhythms and patterns that convey joy, wonder, and the ephemeral beauty of nature. “Together, white field and brush marks compose a visual song,” Iliescu writes, “a melody that might suggest a lullaby, or mazurka, or sonata.” Her vibrant marks and forms, which sometimes hint at figures like the sun or moon, invite viewers to immerse themselves in a world of bold brushstrokes and quiet contemplation. “My aspiration is that Summer Songs evoke deep joy and Hope, as well as a sense of wonder,” Iliescu writes, “the wonder of looking at a bouquet of wildflowers, or of glimpsing a bright red cardinal fly swiftly across the deep greens of a meadow, or of watching a child draw scribbles on a page as she examines a flower or watches a bird’s flight.”
Born in Romania, Iliescu emigrated to the United States at 17 and went on to earn her BSE in Civil Engineering and M.Arch in Architecture from Princeton University. She is a Professor of Architecture and Art at the University of Virginia, where she has also created public art installations with her students. Her many accolades include The Rome Prize, a McDowell fellowship in painting, and the Distinguished Artist Award of the New Jersey State Council of the Arts. Iliescu has exhibited her work internationally and published extensively on art and aesthetics, including the books The Hand and the Soul: Aesthetics and Ethics in Architecture and Art and Experiencing Art and Architecture: Lessons on Looking.
Ana Rendich brings new 3D works to this exhibition, which reveal her masterful understanding of color, materiality, and spatial relationships. These works are at once aesthetic delights and intimate meditations on space and connection—both physical and spiritual—that speak to our relationships and shared humanity. In Tracing Hope, Rendich also links her colorful 3D pieces to a large work on geometric canvas and works of mixed media, incorporating Kozo and Gampy papers and collaged elements of Japanese storybooks into her pieces to investigate new visual ideas and perspectives. These are a “reminder that there are different views and outcomes, exposing and making visible other views, and of our common humanity,” Rendich writes, “I see Hope as bone marrow for Aliveness, to keep going, having a Sense of Safety and Belonging, healing, looking for safe spaces, creating safe spaces, walking towards the growth of being and offering better possibilities."
Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Rendich studied Scenic Design at Universidad del Salvador and Costume Design at the Instituto Superior de Arte at the Teatro Colón, one of the world’s premier opera houses. Rendich’s work has been shown in solo and juried exhibits, and selective exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally – including the Lincoln Center in New York City, the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, the Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Ohio, and the Siena Art Institute in Italy.
Together, the distinct yet complementary practices and ideas of Sanda Iliescu and Ana Rendich weave a narrative of hope, wonder, resilience, and renewal. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience the transformative power of Hope in their new work.
The opening reception for Tracing Hope will take place on Saturday, February 15th, from 4:00 to 6:00 PM. Les Yeux du Monde is located at 841 Wolf Trap Road and is open Thursday through Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 PM, or by appointment. For more information, visit lydmgallery.com, email info@lydmgallery.com, or call 434-882-2622.
Modern Alchemy -Les Yeux du Monde
I have been exploring the Japanese concept MA, it is a concept embedded on all our aspects in our life. Our relationship with our space, internal and external and how we relate with one to another one. Also, the interpretation of time and space, pauses and silences, the emptiness in a space... I created works that get alone, even if they are different, and can be interchange and set in different compositions, intuitively I pushed for friendly interaction between each other, with space for objective criticism.
How we communicate from our own spaces...in between spaces, the silence in, space inside the space...no space at all... The way that we deal with... historically in the USA and around the world. And how we deal collectively with grief, like in cases of injustice, without turning that rage hurting others and human loss.Also, we really have in us already set, internally, spaces for whom we grief and for whom we don't, "the un-griefable people.. Do we have lost hope so grief can't let us think of other path of healing and possibilities? In these works Hope is not lost here, or is a fantasy…it is still a concrete possibility.
State of Existence- Quirk Gallery
My research has always been connected with the inner world (inner spaces), how we react, and live in
reference to our attitudes, behaviors, worries, bearings…
To have inner consciousness of our own inner spaces for me means to be open to receive other forms of
feelings, presence, ideas, manifestations…When I became a parent my own space extended and I learned to understand my children's own inner world, other dreams, and needs, integrating unknown forms...Also, color is not exempt of tragedy…the state of inner spaciousness is discovering self-awareness, and not only about our own sorrow but the understanding of the grief of others.
When I set the colors in my palette, it is not a premeditated decision to make uplifting art or happy art... each piece is born that way. It is visually how I transform the medium for that specific space, and where the meaning is open to the viewer.
The story behind these colors is born by the interplay between these colors how each color relates with each other. It is not color itself that matters most for me. The whole composition makes the work, creating a state of existence.
