Video Feature: https://vimeo.com/409538984

This painting from McElheny’s "Observation" series is an abstracted depiction of the deep night sky, comprised of a dense accumulation of glass elements seamlessly inserted into a wood-panel surface. At the work’s center is a cluster of micro-mosaic glass inspired by what the artist calls “early, strange abstract drawings,” renderings of the nebulae in the night sky that date from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Conjuring seemingly-impossible visual effects, this work presents a circular observation window into another world—like something glimpsed from light years away through a telescope lens—composed of hundreds of thousands of glass points fused together. The hidden physical construction behind the surface of the painting draws upon Lucio Fontana’s earliest explorations of image behind and beyond the picture plane, as well as McElheny’s own 2018 "Galaxy Paintings."