As in a Mirror, Dimly
Jenny Fine
Curated by Lauren Whearty
March 22nd to April 27th,  2025
Opening Reception Saturday March 22nd, 5-8 pm

Ortega y Gasset Projects proudly presents, As in a Mirror, Dimly, Jenny Fine’s inaugural New York solo exhibition in our main space, curated by Co-Director Lauren Whearty. 

Jenny Fine is an Alabama-based artist whose work explores personal and cultural memory, identity, and our ever-shifting relationship to the photograph. 

This body of work is shaped by the sudden and tragic loss of Fine’s sister, Beth. Her death was a result of the failure of our broken healthcare system. In the wake of her sister’s passing, Fine explores the unknowns surrounding her loss, the systems that failed her sister, the indifference of officials in power, and a family left without answers or peace. Her work looks inward as a meditation on care, grief, and the unseen forces that shape life and death. 

Photography, both artistically and spiritually, is a medium in this body of work. It is a sacred means of reaching toward what is gone. Images that once showed proof of one’s existence now also define their absence. As in a Mirror, Dimly draws inspiration from the psychomanteum which is a mirror used as a device for spirit communication, from the ectoplasm photography of mediums generations ago and Victorian-era spiritualism. The works in this series merge photography with ritual and memory with material in a search for connection beyond the veil.

Fine gives form and life to shapeshifting memories through her sculpture, installations, photography, and performance works. Family stories flicker on the theater screen of her mind. She uses what materials are at hand to map the unknown to take her sister on an epic journey through the afterlife, while she also attempts to solidify and preserve the ephemeral quality of her memories. The result immerses us in an intimate spiritual world that merges life and death.

Objects and imagery found throughout the exhibit, like wishbones, evil eyes, and horseshoes, symbolize luck, ritual, and protection, as if to form an armor for navigating grief. This symbolism, and the rituals often attached to them in seances, religious ceremonies, and witchcraft, Fine looks at the many ways we try to undo death, bring power to the powerless, and attempt the impossible. These devotional practices fashion a tether line into the hereafter and grasp with determination for presence in the face of absence.

Artist Bio
Jenny Fine (b. 1981, Enterprise, AL) is a visual artist, caregiver and art teacher living and working in Alabama. Fine received a BFA from the University of Alabama in 2006 and an MFA from The Ohio State University in 2010. Fine was awarded a National Windgate Fellowship from the Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design (2006); a Fergus Memorial Scholarship from The Ohio State University (2009); Greater Columbus Arts Council, Columbus, Ohio - artist exchange, Dresden, Germany (2012); an Individual Artist Fellowship from Alabama State Council on the Arts, Montgomery, Ala. (2017/2024); and Southern Prize Alabama State Fellow from SouthArts, Atlanta, Ga. (2022). 

Fine has shown her work in solo exhibitions at Geh8, Dresden, Germany (2012); Dublin Arts Council, Dublin, Ohio (2014); The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, Ohio (2015); Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, New York (2015); Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, Alabama (2015/2018/2020); Artfields, Lake City, S.C. (2019/2023); and Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (2021); Alabama School of Fine Art, Birmingham, Ala. (2022). She has exhibited her work in group shows throughout the United States including the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio (2012); the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (2015); Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (2015); and Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL (2017/2018); the Bo Barlett Center, Columbus State University, Columbus, Ga. (2022); Gately Gallery, Francis Marion University, Florence, S.C. (2022); and 701 Center for Contemporary Art, Columbia, S.C. (2023).

Curator Bio

Lauren Whearty is an artist, educator, and curator living and working in Philadelphia, PA. 

She received her MFA from The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), and her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University (Philadelphia, PA). Whearty has been a Co-Director at Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective and non-profit in Brooklyn, NY since 2017, and currently teaches at Tyler School of Art & Architecture.

She has attended residencies such as Yale’s Summer School of Art through the Ellen Battel Stoeckel Fellowship, The Vermont Studio Center, Soaring Gardens Artist Retreat through the Ora Lerman Trust, and the Golden Foundation Artist Residency. She has recently received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and Joseph Roberts Foundation. She is currently one of Mercer County Community College’s inaugural artists in residence and will soon be attending her first international fellowship at Ballinglen in Ireland.

Some places where her work has been exhibited include The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), The State Museum of Pennsylvania (Harrisburg, Pa), The Woodmere Museum (Philadelphia, PA), Gross McCleaf Gallery (Philadelphia, Pa), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Bridgette Mayer Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Center for Emerging Visual Artists (Philadelphia, PA), Eckert Gallery (Millersville, PA), Satellite Contemporary (Las Vegas, NV), Monaco (St Louis, MO), The Painting Center (New York, NY), Ortega y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), 11 Newel (Brooklyn, NY), Underdonk (Brooklyn, NY), Sam and Adele Golden Gallery (New Berlin, NY), and Deanna Evans Projects (Brooklyn, NY).