Nora Sturges: Ghost Towns at Brigitte Mulholland Gallery

Brigitte Mulholland Gallery presents Nora Sturges: Ghost Towns, on view from June 12 through July 25, 2026. In this body of work, Sturges looks to medieval painting as a kind of visionary instrument—an entry point into abstraction—drawn in particular to late medieval Italian frescoes and the human warmth found in their imperfections.

Sturges is fascinated by the experience of looking: the instant when certain details feel startlingly clear—a gesture, a fragment of armour—while the surrounding space remains enigmatic. As the viewer lingers, the scene begins to resolve, but it’s that first charged moment of simultaneous clarity and mystery that she aims to extend and reimagine in paint. For Sturges, these works also collapse time, bringing together the sacred and the everyday, the medieval and the contemporary, and the descriptive with the abstract. Weathered by centuries, the worn surfaces of these frescoes open into new possibilities—thrilling, to her eye, as unexpected forms of abstraction.

Her own process often begins with transcribing elements from a source image onto the panel, pulling forward whatever feels uncanny or luminous. From there, each painting moves through an extended period of experimentation, adjustment, and careful resolution as she follows an emerging vision and works through formal challenges. As the piece develops, recollections from other encounters—both artistic and lived—enter the frame, and the painting gradually drifts from its medieval origins. Ultimately, Sturges seeks to arrive somewhere unfamiliar: to build an image, or even a world, that she has never seen before.