Opening Reception Friday, September 25th, 6–9 p.m.
On view from September 25 – February 1st
Mount Vernon Place Church, 10 E. Mt. Vernon Place
“Chora” (or khôra) primarily refers to a Greek term for a space, region, or “receptacle” that gives
place to being.
Mount Vernon Place Church proudly presents Chora,
a solo exhibition of new paintings by Baltimore-based
painter Emma Childs, curated by Teri Henderson.
For Chora, Childs debuts a new body of work, the
largest presentation of the 30-year-old’s extensive
oeuvre thus far. Diligently and with flourish, she paints
portals that are simultaneously self-contained and
activated by the viewer. Each work becomes a conduit
for communication between this plane and the
numinous. In this offering, each curated encounter
allows the boundaries between sight and sound to
evaporate and in the sanctuary Childs’ paintings sing.
A church is inherently a chora: a consecrated void
built to hold the invisible, the spiritual, and the
transcendent. Placing Childs’ work inside this
19th-century Norman Gothic sanctuary performs an
act of spatial nesting.
In partnership with The Ivy Bookshop, Chora is
accompanied by a curatorial and artist reading list that
includes a selection of books that informed research
and inspiration for the exhibition.