NEW YORK, NY.- Claire Oliver Gallery presents Super/Natural, an exhibition by Philadelphia-based artist Judith Schaechter, on view March 20 - May 23, 2026. Anchoring the exhibition is the monumental work of the same name, Super/Natural. Nearly two years in the making, the eight-foot-tall stained glass dome is designed for a single viewer to sit inside and experience the transcendental work in a 360 degree immersion. The work depicts a three-tiered cosmos that explores biophilia, the innate human tendency to seek connection with the natural world. The exhibition also debuts three new lightboxes, expanding Schaechter’s distinctive stained glass practice.
“The vernacular of stained glass is one of worship and mythology,” states Schaechter. “Super/Natural turns this a bit on its head, creating a secular sanctuary for contemplating beauty, nature and our relationship to it.”
Schaechter produced Super/Natural as the artist-in-residence at the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics. The artist attended lab meetings with a pioneering team of researchers and scientists who study the neural and biological basis of aesthetic experiences, which greatly influenced her thinking on the great importance of speaking to the influence of art in our daily lives. The scientists' research and Schaechter’s recent work explore relationships between art, beauty, morality, and the brain.
Super/Natural is composed of 65 panels that are filled with a riot of imagined insects, flora, plants, and birds, encouraging visitors to imagine themselves subsumed in the natural world, with all its beauty, violence, decay, and growth. The central stained glass structure, reminiscent of a vaulted apse of a cathedral, creates a sublime sanctuary space for the secular.
Alongside the monumental installation, the artist will debut three new lightbox works. Among them is Reynardine, a stained-glass lightbox diptych developed through an experimental process of layered glass. The artwork’s title, which alludes to Fairport’s Convention song “Reynardine” and the English folk ballad on which it is based, emerged late in the artist's process rather than as a point of departure. The floral arch framing the figure gradually took on the form of a scythe, introducing a visual and symbolic register associated with aging, mortality, and endurance. By reimagining the ballad’s narrative, allowing the female protagonist to survive into old age, Reynardine shifts from an initial meditation on isolation during the pandemic, to a broader feminist inquiry into sexuality, survival, and death, themes that are central to Schaechter’s practice.
Schaechter’s work can be found in many prestigious museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the Victoria and Albert Museum of Art in London, and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, to name but a few. Among many other honors, Schaechter was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, the USA Artists, Rockefeller Fellowship in Crafts, and was the recipient of the Smithsonian Visionary Award in 2024.
