Moments in Place: Joellyn Duesberry

January 17 – May 3, 2025

Moments in Place features 23 works by noted landscape painter, Joellyn T. Duesberry (1944-2016). The exhibition features works that were inspired by distinct locations in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and New York. Duesberry’s images were often initially realized en plein air and then finished in the studio. These selected works are part of a recent gift to the Zillman Art Museum and are on display for the first time in this exhibition. 

Duesberry created a stunning assortment of monotypes, which often informed compositional and palette choices in her larger oil on canvas works. The monotypes embody an unlabored approach characterized by spirited gestural brushstrokes and vivid color combinations. In contrast to the more detailed landscapes, they exude a freshness while the imagery at times borders on abstraction.  

Amongst Duesberry’s assortment of picturesque landscapes is an intentional outlier, First Pairing of Elephant Graveyard and Memory Time-Lapse, 2002. This deeply personal and emotionally charged split composition depicts an elephant graveyard on the left side that the artist encountered in Kenya, while on the right side she captures the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 tragic attack on the World Trade Center. For six months prior to 9/11, Duesberry painted on the 91^st floor of the North Tower of World Trade Center in conjunction with an artist grant program. Duesberry stated that she juxtaposed these two very different graveyards, “simultaneously and side-by-side, in a studio, haunted until the horror was expressed outside my nightmare-cursed self.” 

Duesberry’s works are represented in numerous collections including the Denver Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smith College Museum, Phoenix Art Museum, and Yale University.