About the Exhibition

For our fall 2024 exhibition, Themes+Projects gallery is pleased to announce the return of Charlotte Schmid-Maybach for her second solo exhibition, Water, Woods and Sky. 

Building upon her previous work, this collection continues her exploration of constructing images inspired by fleeting moments, abstract forms, and the natural world. Charlotte creates her photographs on kozo paper and adds depth through her use of thread and found mixed media. A new and notable element in this body of work is her innovative use of a secondary printed image on silk gauze. This additional layer introduces a dynamic visual interplay of the artwork and adds an ethereal effect as the viewer shifts their perspective. The pieces in this exhibition range in size from 14.25 x 19.5 inches to 61 x 51 inches.

Artist Bio

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach is an interdisciplinary artist working with photography, textile and assemblage. Originally from San Francisco, she earned her BA from UC Berkeley in South Asian civilization and MA in Photojournalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia. Her background as an archaeological photographer in Pakistan and fifteen years as a newspaper photojournalist have informed her artwork. Charlotte started studying with artist Tom Wudl in 2016 and made the transition to a full-time studio practice. She received the Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50 photography award in 2021 and was an exhibitor in Klompching Gallery’s FRESH 2023. Charlotte is based in Los Angeles, and her work has been widely shown in galleries and museums. She is represented by Themes+Projects gallery, San Francisco.

Artist Statement

In Altered Landscapes, this body of work deepens my investigation into altered landscapes, both natural and urban. I combine photography with thread, found objects, maps, iridescent paint, buttons, lace. I sew over and into my photographs until the threads integrate with the photographic images to create  a new object: phototapestries.

I begin by making archival pigment prints on kozo paper. Then I use free motion embroidery to draw/sew with a wide color palette of metallic and mixed thread. I started sewing on my photographs in 2018 with one line of hand stitching, and since then, the work has grown into a detailed process involving layers of thread, assemblage and collage.

I sew along the lines of the forest photographs and seek out the in between spaces of urban landscapes with thread. Train tracks echo city streets resemble branching paths in the woods. For the larger pieces I use a grid format to stitch together different views of the landscape. The grid helps me organize and create a more nuanced experience of environments that are meaningful to me.


Sewing allows me to get my hands into the photograph, and thread changes the photographs into something more dimensional and textural. Thread is a transformational element in my work, and the finished pieces feel like fabric. The threads also blur the line between what’s real in the photograph and what’s beyond the picture or imagined. The metallic threads in the forest pieces evoke fairy tales and the history of the forest with no humans present. In the city, a car disappears in the fog, a figure walks alone on a street and the viewer gets the feeling that something is about to happen.