August: Front Gallery

Reclaimed Light, Mended Worlds

Natalya Khorover

In Reclaimed Light, Mended Worlds, Natalya Khorover transforms discarded materials—including single-use plastics, vintage linens, and urban debris—into installations and sculptural objects that reveal beauty within the overlooked.

Drawing upon community-collected waste, Khorover explores themes of healing, repair, and renewal. Her work reflects the poetic light filtering through city structures, weathered surfaces, and grime-streaked windows while celebrating the intuitive act of mending broken fragments into new forms.

The exhibition brings together four interconnected series:

• Inner Work, a meditation on personal and planetary healing.
• Urban Perspective, celebrating the layered, luminous chaos of the city.
• Forever Ephemeral, where bottles filled with shredded plastic waste become glowing relics of contemporary consumption.
• Phantom Blooms, an imagined garden in which discarded plastics are transformed into strange seedlings and shimmering flowers.

Together, these works invite viewers to reconsider what we throw away, what we choose to preserve, and how acts of transformation can turn waste into wonder.

For more than twenty years, Khorover has reclaimed and repurposed discarded materials, inspired by a thrifty upbringing in Leningrad, USSR, and New York City. She has created numerous site-specific installations, including Arcadia Lost (ArtsWestchester), Hothouse, and Speaking of Birds (Tilly Foster Farm Museum).

A graduate of Pratt Institute with a BFA, Khorover transitioned from careers in fashion and film to a full-time studio practice. Her work has been featured in Quilt National, Quilts=Art=Quilts, Surface Design Magazine, Fiber Art Now, and SAQA Journal. She is also an educator, lecturer, and founder of REPURPOSER COLLECTIVE, a community for artists working with sustainable materials, and host of the podcast SALVAGE, which explores repurposed art practices. She is a member of Project Vortex, ecoartspace, and the Silvermine Guild of Artists.

The opening reception is free and open to the public on Friday, July 31, from 6:00–8:00 PM. On view through August 30.