Exhibition Introduction
by Jori Cheville, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the MoA+L
July, 2025

'Afterimage" is a multidisciplinary body of work by artist Rae Stern that explores the layered relationship between landscape, memory, and belonging. Rooted in personal history and shaped by archival fragments, the project investigates how places hold far more than meets the eye, and how they are experienced differently by those who know them through daily intimacy, those who carry their descriptions into the distance, and those who encounter them from afar. 

The starting point for this investigation was an invitation to explore the Truman Library archives, where Stern discovered the dossier of Charles F. Knox, an American diplomat whose brief tenure in Israel coincided with the state's founding years. Stern was drawn to the gap between Knox's formal role as a diplomat acting as an outsider observer, and the more candid, vulnerable voice that emerged in his private correspondence. This tension between proximity and distance, between seeing and comprehending, became central to the work.

Returning to the landscapes referenced in the photo album and letters included in the dossier, Stern revisited these sites not as an outsider, but as someone shaped by belonging, absence, and change. By shifting her gaze and selecting specific vantage points, she tells a nuanced story of the landscape, often overlooked by outsiders. Her works range from translucent handmade paper to sculptural glass, video, and photography. They carry complex histories, yet evoke the fleeting, fragmented, and fragile nature of memory. Some images reveal themselves only when illuminated from behind; others fade, shift, or resist resolution.