Music for Our Eyes

Visit Sandy Spring Friends Meeting’s Lyceum Gallery our latest exhibit, “Music for Our Eyes: Scenes from the Opera,” featuring the paintings of Jennifer Rutherford, on display now to March 31, 2026. An artist reception is scheduled for Sunday, February 15 at 1:00 pm in the Sandy Spring Lyceum (17801 Meeting House Road).

Artist Statement:

For as long as I can remember I have sung and I have acted. It was my chosen vocation over many years. Opera was my medium, an artistic vehicle capable of transporting an audience to another place and era through classical sound and visual effect.

Now as a painter I am intrigued to give insight into both the opera character and the actor’s underlying humanity, surreptitiously peering behind the mask. I take photographs of my subjects posed in evocative lighting, seeking to capture a single, fleeting moment of commonality, as the actor blends into and assumes character in period costume. What emotion can be glimpsed through the analysis of a characterful expression? What enigmatic puzzle lives side-by-side in the sitter’s reality and the character’s story? What is more real, the person or the persona? What I seek to impart is a subtle, emotional undertone common to both the fictional narrative and the actor. Through the juxtaposition of humanity, role, and paint on canvas, I celebrate these two subjects’ intertwined existence.