Orpheus and Eurydice

Similarly, in Edward Jackson’s work, we’re given a continuation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, not through a direct retelling but through a kind of visual echo. His practice starts with replications of classical images, figures once tied to ritual worship, tribute, or funerary decoration that have since been stripped of the meaning they once held in their original architectural settings. Jackson even describes them as being “robbed of any rationality,” and that really comes through in this show. His sculptures, like End or Shield, use what look like car bumpers as the base with fragments of wax Greek figures attached to them. There’s a tension in how these works feel both ancient and industrial, sacred and mundane. By recasting these forms in materials like plaster, wax, and metal, combining them with repetition, found objects, and references to modern sculpture, Jackson isn’t just recreating the past. He’s re-presenting it. And in that gesture, there’s something deeply Orphic, an attempt to retrieve what’s been lost, to give form to memory. But like Orpheus looking back, the moment slips. What’s returned is transformed, haunted by its own disappearance. If Jackson’s work lingers in the ruins of memory and loss, then Augustus Goertz’s work opens up the landscape where that loss might have occurred.

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In Augustus Goertz’s work, we get a glimpse into the kind of landscape Orpheus might have encountered while traversing the River Styx. Goertz’s practice is largely centered on human consciousness and our position within the vastness of the universe, both in terms of perception and materiality. He uses not only paint but also organic materials like earth and sand, grounding his canvases in the physical world while pointing toward something much larger. These materials connect the tangible with the metaphysical, situating us within the expansive perspective of time and space, where reality is constantly being affirmed, questioned, and reimagined. Although the story of Orpheus and Eurydice is a myth, Goertz’s work, especially pieces like Pascal, offers a grounded vision of the kind of world Orpheus might have tried to navigate with Eurydice in tow. The surfaces of his paintings feel almost myth-like themselves, layered with textures that evoke terrain we’ve never walked but somehow recognize. Goertz has developed a range of techniques that describe something just beyond our reach, worlds unknown yet eerily familiar, through surface, sediment, and suggestion.

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Orpheus and Eurydice at Lichtundfire offered a strong visual narrative for the myth it’s named after. To me, the show felt like a kind of double entendre, reflecting both the abstract nature of the artwork and the layered complexity of Greek mythology itself. When we encounter stories passed down for centuries, many of us naturally imagine what those moments may have looked like when first told or recorded. This exhibition taps into that instinct. In works like Focus by Gerald Wolfe and Companions of Shadow by Henry Biber, we see how abstract interpretations of the material world can create a compelling framework for reimagining the myths we’ve heard and grown up with. If you get the chance, I highly recommend reading the story behind the show. As someone who loves Greek mythology, I found it added depth and clarity to the experience. Hopefully, Lichtundfire and other galleries that explore mythologized narratives will continue to offer these kinds of immersive visual storybooks, allowing us not just to read ancient tales but to see and feel them come alive.