Before the Light Changes: Katherine Curci

What might otherwise disappear in a fraction of a second becomes the subject of sustained attention.

Time has always been embedded in the natural world. Water appears still while remaining in constant motion; light shifts almost imperceptibly until an entire landscape has changed; reflections exist only temporarily, impossible to fully possess or preserve. Even the environments that seem most permanent – the lake, the mountain, the horizon – are continually transforming.

Curci’s drawings resist this acceleration.

Raised with summers spent lakeside and shaped by travels through Canada’s expansive landscapes, the artist returns repeatedly to nature as a place of reflection, restoration, and psychological quiet. These are not simply depictions of beautiful places. They emerge from a desire to remain within a moment long enough to truly experience it; to resist passing through the world without noticing it.

That impulse takes on particular urgency within a culture increasingly organized around immediacy. Our attention is continually divided between notifications, images, information, communication, and the expectation of constant response. We capture thousands of moments and move immediately on to the next. The contemporary photograph has become almost synonymous with speed: an image made, stored, shared, and often forgotten within seconds.

Curci reverses that equation.

The photograph is only the beginning of the work. Through the slow, intensely focused process of drawing, the instantaneous image is transformed into hours of observation. The artist revisits the same moment repeatedly, reconstructing its surfaces, reflections, atmosphere, and subtle shifts of light by hand. In doing so, drawing becomes a form of meditation—a way of slowing time sufficiently to encounter something that modern life encourages us to overlook.

The resulting works occupy an intriguing space between memory and preservation. They hold moments that no longer exist exactly as they once did. The light has changed. The water has moved. The landscape has continued its transformation, yet the drawing remains.

This desire to preserve a particular experience also extends beyond the personal. The Canadian landscapes that recur throughout Curci’s work may appear timeless, but permanence is an illusion. Natural environments are fragile, vulnerable, and increasingly subject to profound change. To look closely at the world, to devote hours to reconstructing its beauty, can itself become an act of recognition and care.

Water, in particular, becomes a powerful metaphor throughout the exhibition. Its surface can appear calm while concealing perpetual movement beneath it. It reflects the world while simultaneously distorting it. A reflection seems visible and tangible, yet disappears the moment the conditions that created it begin to shift.

Before the Light Changes asks us to inhabit that brief interval before everything moves again.

The exhibition is ultimately an invitation to pause: to look longer, to notice more, and to consider what is lost when we move too quickly through the world. Curci’s drawings preserve not only landscapes, but the experience of giving oneself over to a moment of sustained attention.

Before the light changes. Before the water moves. Before the moment disappears.

Cover Image: Katherine Curci, Before the Light Changes (triptych), 2026, charcoal and conté on paper, 60″ x 40″ paper (each)/ 60″ x 120″ approx.

Installation photo: Stephen D’Nallo

Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10am-5pm or by appointment.