The Gleanings
Joetta Maue
RSM GALLERY BENTLEY UNIVERSITY
Exhibit Dates: October 16- November 25
Artist Talk: October 16th 5pm | Reception: 5:30-7pm
Reading Room Event: November 4th 2-3pm
RSM Gallery is pleased to present The Gleanings, a solo exhibition of Photography, installation, and embroidery by Joetta Maue. Joetta Maue’s work is a sustained meditation on the presence of the sublime within the everyday, where the banal and the profound co- exist. Light and dark, sound and silence, and intimacy and solitude weave together and unfurl in the worlds of her work. The artworks on view at the RSM Gallery reflect on artistic practice and the intertwined roles of research identity, place, and the archive.
Maue’s practice is rooted in the overlooked fragments of daily life --- evidence of our presence in this moment, on this earth. It emerges in the residue of process, in the traces of the body across space and time, in the slow migration of sunlight across ordinary landscapes and the shifting quiet of the rooms we inhabit. Through installations and juxtapositions, the artist attends to ephemeral light, brief gestures, and nuanced observations, attempting to hold on to what is temporary. Each work is an invitation: to notice, to be present and seek a heightened awareness within the repetitive, mundane rhythms of life.
The embroideries, Close-reads, reveal the invisible research underpinning Maue’s practice and her devotion to language. In transcribing her notations alongside selected passages, she creates hybrid texts that uncover the poetry and concepts embedded in lived experience. The sampler form is central—evoking its historical role in women’s access to knowledge: at once a tool of literacy and an object of constraint. Each stitch a sign of labor and a testament to the pursuit of knowledge and artistic expression.
Sojourn, a large wall installation, plots the geographies of research within artist residencies and the temporary intimacies that emerge through routine, making, and focused intention. These places, drawn together without explicit narrative, exist in intuitive and formal dialogue, reflecting how visual and psychological experiences merge without clear boundaries as we move through time and process.
Maue’s artistic process is an act of holding on and slowing down—an offering to inhabit the present, for both artist and viewer. The work dwells in a space of vulnerability and vitality, never fixed or finished. Thoughts, images, and moments remain in flux, like the fragile objects that hold them. She is interested in the work as a tangible vessel for time, rather than as a static image bound to historical hierarchy—an active reconsideration of what endures, and how.
Reading Room Event: November 4th 2-3pm
In this participatory experience, the artist invites you into a shared space of stories and passages that have shaped her practice and informed her way of seeing. Visitors are invited to bring a book—or an excerpt, in hand or in mind—to share, creating a space for reflection, conversation, and the exchange of ideas. Together, we explore how literature and text can illuminate both artistic process and personal perception.
The RSM Gallery is located on the main floor of the Bentley University Library , it is Building number 54; its clock tower sets it apart from the other buildings of the upper campus. Park in the La Cava Upper Parking Lot (L5, L6, L7) for best access if driving.
Gallery Hours Sun- Thur 10 am – 8 pm Fri- Sat 10 am -6 pm