INCANTATIONS by Nataša Prosenc Stearns
Reception for the artist – September 17th, 6-9pm: On view from Sept. 11th
Nataša Prosenc Stearns
INCANTATIONS
Gallery MC, 549 West 52nd Street, Ground Floor and 8th Floor
On view from September 11th: Mo-Fr 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm
Reception for the artist – September 17th, 6-9pm
Incantations, a new multimedia exhibition by Nataša Prosenc Stearns, presents moving-image and photo-collage works created over the past several years.
Following its initial presentation in the artist’s native Slovenia and the publication of an accompanying artist’s book of the same title, the New York exhibition has been conceived specifically for the spaces of Gallery MC and is part of her current art residency at RU-Residency Unlimited.
Unfolding across two floors of contrasting dark and luminous spaces, Incantations brings together immersive video and sound projections with still images. In these works, the feminine form emerges and vanishes, taking on an organic, elusive, and at times unsettling presence: an ancient, attentive, sentient force that ignites what is yet to emerge. The movements evoke rituals and chants, inviting a state of attention that slows down time and resists the speed of today’s image consumption.
Nataša Prosenc Stearns is a visual artist and filmmaker working in the field of expanded moving image, dissolving the boundaries between film, video, print, sculpture, and installation. Her formative years unfolded amid the social and political upheavals of Eastern Europe—wars, dislocations, and cultural transformations that eventually led her to relocate to the United States. These experiences continue to shape her work, which explores psychological landscapes of displacement, memory, identity, and the alienation of contemporary life. Drawn to the mysterious and the unknown, she often works with dreams, myths from her native Slovenia, and phenomena that resist explanation or language. Visually, her practice is marked by an interest in the materiality of the body, the elemental force of water, and immersive multi-channel installations, often created for unconventional and non-gallery spaces.
Having earned her BA at the Academy of Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Nataša moved to Los Angeles on a Fulbright Grant for her MFA at California Institute of the Arts, where she studied under the renowned artist Nancy Buchanan and filmmaker Thom Andersen. She has exhibited internationally in galleries and festivals across Europe, the US, and Asia, including the representation of Slovenia at the Venice Biennale.
