Writer, photographer and former CalArts Critical Studies faculty  Janet Sternburg will present her first solo U.S. museum show, titled ‘LIMBUS,’ at USC’s Fisher Museum of Art from Sept. 18 to Dec. 1.

“Limbus” will feature a selection of older and newer works demonstrating the artist’s poetic approach to photography and process of layering images to capture both an inner and outer experience.

In her artist’s statement, Sternburg writes, “‘Limbus’ was defined by the Renaissance physician Paracelsus to describe a hem in the universe between body and spirit. In current usage, it is the name of the rim of the cornea where the pupil meets the white of the eye. It is the home of infinitely generative stem cells that cross the limbus to maintain and replenish the cornea.”

Further expounding upon the show’s title, Sternberg created a limbus for each piece in the show, tracing within each image to cross the limbus border. Using single-use and iPhone cameras, Sternburg’s photographs don’t seek to recreate the real world, but rather inspire an ambiguous and complex way of seeing.

A visual artist, as well as an author of essays, memoir and poetry, Sternburg is the wife of former CalArts president Steven D. Lavine. Her work is currently on view at the Contrasto Galleria in Milan and will soon be shown at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, India.

“Limbus” will be on display Sept. 18 through Dec. 1 at the USC Fisher Museum of Art,
823 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles 90089.

— By Katie Dunham