Whitehot Magazine
"The Best Art In The World"
TRANSCENDING TIME, Installation View (detail), Lichtundfire 2025
By MYLES FUCCI January 23, 2025
It was a Friday afternoon when I had just gotten a hot black tea from Black Cat Cafe to warm me up and decided to visit Lichtundfire to view their most recent exhibition, Transcending Time, curated by Priska Juschka. The exhibition featured work from nine different artists: Barbara Bachner, Gretl Bauer, Henry Biber, Leslie Ford, Philip Gerstein, Tammi Meehan, Leah Oates, Joyce Pommer, and Martin Weinstein. Our understanding of time shifts based on how we perceive the world around us. With that being said, when we attempt to understand our reality outside our prescribed timeline, things become illogical, and we are compelled to rely on feeling and emotion to interpret the world around us. Similar to the concept of intuition or having a gut feeling, the works presented in Transcending Time push the boundaries of how we interpret time within our built environments while reinterpreting time as something more illogical and discontinuous.
LESLIE FORD, Water Thyme #3, 2024, Hydrilla on Ortho-Lithofilm (Cyanotype), 60 x 24 in., Lichtundfire 2025
As I navigated through the exhibition, I found myself immediately drawn to Leslie Ford’s Water Thyme #1 & #3. Ford uses Hydrilla (an invasive plant species from Lake Cayuga) on cyanotype (a camera-less technique that uses UV light to create a white & blue image on film) to create these natural abstract pieces that force us to reflect on what uncontrolled and unbridled time is capable of. The scratches exposed on the film deteriorate its surface over time, allowing shapes and ambiguous figures to consume the film, similar to how time consumes us. Ford states that frozen water is similar to time expanding and alludes to there eventually being a “boiling point” when time’s consumption in our lives, or in others, starts to become clear and visible. The Hydrilla plant moved freely across the cyanotype, creating a series of marks and lashings that form various abstract figures and shapes. The figures formed by the scratching of the cyanotype give us an informal timeline that the plant uses to showcase its destruction of the film.
Parallel to the fluid and expressive marks in Ford’s work, Joyce Pommer's art embraces freeform techniques, creating dynamic compositions that evoke a sense of spontaneity and emotional depth. Joyce Pommer’s work evolves from a free-flowing, intuitive process deeply connected to the subconscious mind. It invites us to reconsider our rigid attachments to planning, scheduling, and marking time—those artificial constructs that define our daily existence. By abandoning control within the creative process, Pommer’s art allows us to glimpse how the mind operates when freed from these constraints. For instance, in Pommer’s work A Quiet Space she uses a mixed media approach, including collage, crafting fragmented interpretations of the world as seen through the lens of the subconscious mind. Our subconscious mind and conscious mind exist within the same realm similar to how both form and energy exist simultaneously within one realm. In this light, Pommer’s work suggests that consciously stepping outside of our prescribed timeline using our subconscious opens ourselves up to infinite possibilities, offering a profound experience of transcending time itself. This is particularly evident in her work, A Quiet Space, where the materials Pommer uses on the canvas, coupled with the ample white space, provides viewers a moment of rest as they attempt to interpret the new timeline unfolding before them.
HENRY BIBER, Delectable Enigma, 2024, Pigment print on canvas, 32 x 34 in. (left); JOYCE POMMER, A Quiet Space, 2014, Mixed media on canvas, 32 x 30 in. (right), Lichtundfire 2025
As I moved through the gallery, I was struck by the profound emotional resonance that seemed to connect Henry Biber’s work with Pommer’s. Situated next to one another, their pieces conjured a deep, almost unconscious response, amplifying each other’s impact. Biber, who identifies as a “Jungian analyst,” creates his art through the lens of Jungian principles—exploring the unconscious mind, archetypes, individuation, dream interpretation, and symbolism. Though many may not be familiar with these concepts, their presence is unmistakable once the work is given the attention it deserves. Biber’s art exists in a liminal space, a purgatory of sorts, where it becomes a visual manifestation of the subconscious and unconscious. One piece in particular, Delectable Enigma, a digitally conceived painting on canvas, captivated me the most. It embodies the Jungian archetypes that permeate Biber’s work, evoking a sensation that is both familiar and indecipherable—like a silent dialogue unfolding between the piece and the artist, while we, the audience, remain mere witnesses to this enigmatic conversation. Biber himself alludes to this elusive quality, explaining that his work is intentionally minimalist to prevent a direct grasp of its meaning, and also emphasizing its ties to universal themes like crossing boundaries and sacredness—concepts that resist verbal expression. His work is both cohesive and timeless, not only in its ability to transcend a specific timeline but also in how it reflects the present and exposes the voids within our subconscious. This duality creates a sense of both dread and wonder for the viewer.
As I continued exploring the gallery, one artist who left a profound impact on me was Barbara Bachner. Bachner's work is an intricate balancing act, where chaos is ordered through gestural brushstrokes, expressive marks, and deliberate iterations. Her practice evokes a similar depth to that of Biber but also resonates with Jungian psychoanalysis. Jung’s concept of the “Transcendent Function”—the process by which opposing aspects of the psyche reconcile to form a more integrated whole, fostering individuation and personal growth—seems to be embodied in Bachner’s work. Her use of random markings, symbols, figures, and language, manifests this process beautifully. In her piece, Double Family China #3, a variety of materials converge to create a visual language on a paper scroll that feels like an ancient script, almost indecipherable in our contemporary context. Along Comes…, a mixed media technique with modeling paste on Asian paper on canvas evokes the sensation of having unearthed centuries-old journal entries, now obscured by the passage of time, leaving us to contemplate their meanings.
BARBARA BACHNER, Double Family China #3, 2006, Mixed media on paper scroll, 96 x 34 in. (left); BARBARA BACHNER, Along Comes…, 1998, Mixed media on canvas, 15 x 15 in. (right)
The exhibition felt both cohesive and dissonant, inviting visitors to step into a distinct timeline—one that is beautifully fragmented. By stepping away from our conventional, linear understanding of time, we are offered a new perspective on the world. In this realm, things become disordered, chaotic, and puzzling. While many may fear such a disorienting experience, it is through this break from the prescribed passage of time that we gain profound insights—both about ourselves and our connections with others. While the above artists captured my attention the most, the other five featured in the exhibition also presented phenomenal work: Gretl Bauer, with her meticulous use of thread meant to distill light; Philip Gerstein, whose use of color invokes transformation; Martin Weinstein, with his depictions of Venice; Tammi Meehan and her acrylic work that taps into the collective psyche, and Leah Oates, who juxtaposes nature in Toronto through her use of color. The works in Transcending Time not only explore the notion of transcending time itself but also construct a new timeline, one that encourages the free flow of the subconscious into our present reality. WM
Myles Fucci is currently attending NYU's Visual Art Administration Program and posts regularly about art & art-related events on his page @leauxreview on IG & Substack
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