There are just a few days left to experience Catherine Erb’s exhibition, “Lit,” at the David Lusk Gallery before it closes July 18th. The exhibition rewards lingering attention, revealing how a split second can unfold into a sustained meditation on memory, wonder, and light.
The title arose naturally. “Light plays a big part in everything that I do,” says the Memphis photographer and mixed-media artist. Yet “Lit” soon came to signify more than illumination. It came to embody the awareness and joy that animate the work itself. Several pieces grew out of playful experiments with fireworks that rekindled Erb’s childhood excitement. “My adult met my child,” she reflects. The resulting images are unmistakably contemporary, yet grounded in nostalgia and a renewed sense of awe.
That spirit of discovery is central to the exhibition. Fireworks vanish almost before the eye can register them, but Erb’s camera captures astonishing forms hidden within their brief eruptions. Each successful image felt, she says, “like a gift.” The photographs suggest a broader truth: If we could pause life’s upheavals, we might uncover unexpected beauty and meaning within them.
Erb extends those fleeting instants through a meticulous studio practice. She prints her photographs on watercolor paper, mounts them to birch panels, and enriches them with pigments and translucent layers of encaustic wax. In several works, her own paintings serve as the backdrop for the photographic image, creating luminous objects that hover between photography and painting, memory and presence. The labor-intensive process slows time, allowing a millisecond-long event to become an experience of contemplation.
A native Memphian, Erb credits the city’s “authentic and generous” creative spirit with sustaining her artistic voice. She hopes visitors will bring their own stories and recollections to the gallery rather than seek a prescribed interpretation. “I always want my work to draw someone in,” she says, so that each image becomes a vessel for personal reflection and wonder.
There is still enough time to accept that invitation. Before “Lit” closes this Saturady, step into the gallery, slow your pace, and discover the radiance hidden within moments that might otherwise pass unseen.
“LIT,” DAVID LUSK GALLERY, 97 TILLMAN ST., THROUGH SATURDAY, JULY 18, 10 A.M.-5 P.M.
