Jo Ellen Van Ouwerkerk’s Curious Sanctuary is currently on view through March 19 at New York’s Woodward Gallery. Van Ouwerkerk’s women, intriguing and complicated, channel her aesthetic of the 19^th century. Her characters show their personal state of being and engage in ritualistic scenes carried out in special places. She acceptable boundaries of a time long ago—or perhaps even today— with each, tempting her viewers to be voyeurs.

Van Ouwerkerk’s current works offer a view into the women’s private day-to-day existence, she says. “My paintings are not intended to be fantasies; everything is actually as you see it.” One woman thinks she hears women whispering above her in a cavernous room. The women are real as far as the subject is concerned.

The very essence of privacy, sanctuaries are secure places not meant to be seen by the public. If you could see in, like an invisible voyeur, everything would appear surprising, not easily understood. Very formal and exactly what you would expect on the outside—a woman poses in her nightgown and new hat, yet behind closed doors her nightgown is slightly open and you catch a glimpse of her body made of moths.

Unexpected at first glance, the images have you viewing someone’s room or looking at a moment in her life without the backstory. By not analyzing what she is thinking, everything is accepted as real. The painting of women gathering at piles of wood while one gets ready to be set on fire, isn’t necessarily terrifying as no one seems to be frightened. There is calm resignation on the face of the woman in the foreground in that very moment the character looks outward.

Jo Ellen Van Ouwerkerk’s characters are seen for the one frame of their story. Her vision broadens our accepted reference for normal. Follow marvelously, entranced in their personal and curious situations.

Curious Sanctuary is on view through March 19. For more information about Woodward Gallery, visit http://www.woodwardgallery.net/index.html

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