September 12–October 17, 2026
Opening reception: September 12, 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm
We are pleased to announce “Julie Shafer: The Parting of the Ways,” an exhibition of new and recent photo-based artworks by this Los Angeles artist. Shafer’s “The Parting of the Ways” offers a thoughtful, provocative, and richly poetic re-examination of the myths and realities of Western Expansion, this presentation arriving at precisely the moment when some of the most corrosive of these myths are again ascendant. “Julie Shafer: The Parting of the Ways” coincides with “Jennifer Celio: Species in Danger.” Both exhibitions open on Saturday, September 12, with an artists’ reception between 2–5pm and continue through October 17 at as-is.
“The Parting of the Ways” is a series of photographs made in Wyoming that examines the layered histories embedded in the landscapes of the American Plains. Along the Oregon Trail, Shafer encounters rock faces marked by the inscriptions of white settlers alongside and, at times, directly over pre-existing petroglyphs of the Shoshone, Arapaho, and other Indigenous peoples. These surfaces become a kind of palimpsest, where marks accumulate over generations and record encounters between different peoples and divergent understandings of the land. The resulting images hold a tension between what remains visible and what has been obscured: settlers’ names are often immediately legible, while Indigenous markings may be weathered, partially covered, or difficult to recognize.
For Shafer, these inscriptions point beyond individual acts of marking toward the larger systems they represent—the claiming and division of land, the expansion of capitalism, the displacement of Indigenous peoples, and the transformation of land into property, resource, and territory. The title “The Parting of the Ways” speaks to these literal and metaphorical divisions, while the enduring rock faces serve as primary witnesses to the layered histories they contain. Against the vastness of the landscape, the human inscriptions appear almost incidental: small traces of individuals passing through a place that will long outlast them.