W&L’s Staniar Gallery Presents Emma Steinkraus’ ‘Pas de Deux’ The solo exhibition will open Feb. 16, with an artist’s talk on March 5.

Office of Communications and Public Affairs
February 3, 2026

Washington and Lee University’s Staniar Gallery is pleased to present “Pas de Deux,” a solo exhibition by artist Emma Steinkraus, assistant professor of art at W&L. The exhibit will be on view from Feb. 16 through March 13. Steinkraus will also give an artist’s talk at 5:30 p.m. on March 5 in Wilson Concert Hall in the Lenfest Center for the Arts.

The exhibition and reception events are free and open to the public.

Steinkraus creates colorful, figurative paintings and installations that blend surface precision with playful, strange and exuberant imagery. Her process is anchored in visual research, weaving together wide-ranging art historical references with a contemporary sensibility. In “Pas de Deux,” Steinkraus reinterprets scenes from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” to explore themes of gender, transformation, the history of the nude and the porous boundary between humans and other species. The paintings are accompanied by immersive installation elements that include the art historical images that inspired the work, turning the gallery into a duet — or a pas de deux — between past and present.

Steinkraus’ work is represented by 1969 Gallery in New York City and has recently been exhibited at Carl Freedman Gallery (Margate, United Kingdom), EDJI Gallery (Brussels), WOAW Gallery (Hong Kong), the StadtPalais – Museum for Stuttgart (Stuttgart, Germany) and Hashimoto Contemporary (Los Angeles). Steinkraus has attended artist residencies at the Studios at MASS MoCA, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ox-Bow, the Wassaic Project and the Blue Mountain Center, among many others. Recent awards include an Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in 2020 and a Helen Frankenthaler Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center in 2022. Her work has been on the cover of New American Paintings and featured in Burnaway, ArtMaze Magazine and Juxtapoz.

For more information about the 2025-26 exhibition and programming schedule, visit Staniar Gallery’s website.

Staniar Gallery is located on the second floor of Wilson Hall, in Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts. When the campus is open to the public, gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please call 540-458-8861.