The latest exhibition at the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) stays close to home when it comes to both artist and subject matter.
The Reston museum is launching “We Dwell in Between,” a solo show by Northern Virginia-based artist Marie B. Gauthiez, today (Thursday) at its satellite gallery in the Signature apartments (11850 Freedom Drive). An opening reception and talk by Gauthiez will be held tonight at 6-8 p.m.
On display through June 29, the exhibit features “mixed media drawings, grid paintings, brick-sized wall fragments, and an immersive plaster wall installation,” according to Tephra.
The works were curated by Tephra ICA’s 2024 ArtTable curatorial fellow, Chenoa Baker, and express Gauthiez’s interest in themes of identity, reconstruction and preservation through images that evoke a house.
“In this exhibition, she uses the house as a metaphor for the subconscious,” Tephra said in a press release. “The surfaces of her relief paintings are inspired by walls that show evolution, wear, and tear. Each wall is a chapter of a story with surfaces marking distinctive moments in time.”
On her website, Gauthiez says she meshes DIY home carpentry materials with more traditional supplies like acrylic paint and charcoal “to fabricate walls that encapsulate past memories.”
More on the artist from Tephra:
Marie received her MFA in Studio Art from American University in 2024. She is a faculty member at the Washington Studio School in Washington, DC. Recently, Marie co-curated the MFA invitational exhibition Holding Hands, Holding Space at the Katzen Center (Washington, DC). Marie participated in Art Night “Homegrown” at the National Gallery of Art in 2023. She was awarded the Interlude Residency Support Grant, the Van Swearingen Merit Award, the Catharina Baart Biddle Award, and the Carol Bird Ravenal Art Travel Award. Marie will head to Illinois in December 2025 for a residency at Ragdale.
Marie has exhibited in group shows at Stable Arts (Washington, DC), Soft Times Gallery (San Francisco, CA), Studio Gallery (Washington, DC), Brentwood Arts Exchange (Brentwoord, MD), the Anacostia Arts Center (Washington, DC), the Katzen Museum (Washington, DC), Blue Mountain Gallery (New York, NY), Pyramid Atlantic (Hyattsville, MD), First Street Gallery (New York, NY), and River Arts (SD). She exhibited at the Umbrella Art Fair (Washington, DC) last November as part of the Kinetic program of Hamiltonian Artists. Marie holds a BA in applied languages from the Université de Paris 10-Nanterre and an MA in Fashion Business from ESMOD Paris. She lives with her husband and two children in Northern Virginia.
Located inside the apartment building, Tephra ICA at Signature hosts year-round exhibitions featuring work by local and regional artist.
The nonprofit organization’s main gallery at Reston Town Center (12001 Market Street, Suite 103) has free admission and operates from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday through Friday and from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
Now run by Jonell Logan, who took over as executive director last year, Tephra launched a capital campaign for its 50th anniversary in 2023 to support a potential new space in Reston Town Center that could better serve its needs, including the ability to have multiple exhibitions at the same time and a research center.
