Washington Art Association is pleased to present The Living Surface, a group exhibition featuring the work of Eric Aho, Ira Barkoff, Pat Brentano, Alyssa Fanning, Margaret Grimes, Jessica Elzea Kogel, Stanley Lewis, Ruth Miller, Ron Milewicz, and Kelly Normand. Bringing together paintings, drawings, collage, and ceramic sculpture, the exhibition will be on view August 15 through September 12, 2026.

Landscape is one of the most enduring subjects in the history of art, yet it has rarely been intended as simply a record of the visible world. No landscape survives the act of being seen unchanged. Like every work of art, it carries the marks of the person who made it: their attention, memory, experience, and the countless decisions made between looking and making.

Across painting, drawing, collage, and ceramic sculpture, The Living Surface considers landscape not as scenery or backdrop, but as a living surface shaped by weather, time, growth, erosion, and light; as well as by perception, memory, and imagination. The works suggest that observation and imagination are intertwined ways of understanding the world. The simple act of looking with intention is itself a deeply personal and creative undertaking.

The Living Surface invites viewers to consider the many ways artists transform what they see into something uniquely their own. Together, these works remind us that looking is never passive. It is an ongoing conversation between the world before us and the world within us.