SCOPE Miami Beach
December 2-7, 2025
Booth H13
Reversible: Many Sides of One Story
Stanek Gallery is proud to present Reversible: Many Sides of One Story, an exhibition exploring duality, perception, and the mutable nature of reality through works by Robert Birmelin, Michael Bartmann, and Katherine Stanek. Each artist investigates how shifting orientation, both physical and conceptual, can transform the narrative within a single artwork, inviting viewers to consider multiple perspectives within one unified vision.
For venue information, visit scope-art.com, and for an exclusive online exhibit preview, visit artsy.com. For a full schedule of Stanek Gallery’s programming for Miami Art Week, please visit stanekgallery.com.
Spanning two decades of his practice, Robert Birmelin’s reversible paintings form the conceptual foundation of this exhibition. His first reversible image emerged in the 1960s, though he did not return to the idea until the 1990s, when it became a unifying element in his work through the early 2000s. These paintings embody two or more distinct viewpoints within one harmonious composition, bridging decades of inquiry into how perception shapes experience.
Birmelin’s exploration began after a conversation with his sister revealed that their shared childhood had produced starkly different memories and interpretations. This realization inspired him to adopt a studio practice of rotation, turning his canvases sideways or upside down to reimagine the central image from new vantage points. The resulting works offer “many sides of one story,” a concept particularly resonant today as we navigate multiple versions of truth within shared realities. Executed in oils and acrylics, Birmelin’s paintings merge psychological depth and compositional complexity, compelling the viewer to engage with shifting narratives and layered perception.
Above: Robert Birmelin, Suburb (Reversible), 2002, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 in.
Michael Bartmann’s reversible works emerge from his dual existence between his Philadelphia and Vermont studios, where changing environments continually reshape his visual memory. Working primarily from recollection rather than direct observation, Bartmann constructs architectural interiors that are both familiar and entirely imagined. These industrial spaces seem to exist in a liminal, dreamlike state that is at once nostalgic and forward-looking.
His oil paintings on firm supports can be rotated and reinstalled in multiple orientations without losing their structural integrity or spatial logic. This reversibility reveals the fluidity of perception and memory, encouraging viewers to select their own point of entry into the work. Whether through transitional spaces, or open windows that hint at unseen realms, Bartmann’s compositions blur the boundaries between presence and absence, inviting the viewer to wander through remembered and reimagined spaces alike.
Above: Michael Bartmann, Bardo Room V, 2018-2024, oil on board, 48 x 48 x 2 in.
Katherine Stanek
Katherine Stanek’s sculptural practice embodies the physical and conceptual essence of reversibility. Through the rotation and reorientation of form, her work explores how transformation and perspective shift meaning, creating dialogues between strength and vulnerability, history and reinvention. Each piece is conceived to invite multiple readings, where a change in position or viewpoint reveals an entirely new emotional or symbolic dimension.
Working in concrete, steel, bronze, and other media, Stanek demonstrates a masterful ability to create enigmatic depths that draw viewers into questions of what can be seen and what remains hidden, what is shaped by passage, and what is fated. Her process embraces both construction and destruction, allowing fractures, fragments, and the organic tendencies of her materials to become active participants in the final form. Through this integration of control and chance, her sculptures achieve a balance that feels at once contemporary and timeless.
Above: Katherine Stanek, Refuge Triptych, 2009, concrete on steel, 9 x 9 x 9 in.
