Afterimage is a multidisciplinary body of work by artist Rae Stern that explores the layered relationship between landscape, memory, and belonging. Rooted in personal history and shaped by archival fragments, the project investigates how places hold far more than meets the eye—and how they are experienced differently by those who know them through daily intimacy and those who encounter them from afar.  

The starting point for this investigation was an invitation to explore the Truman Library archives, where Stern discovered the dossier of Charles F. Knox, an American diplomat, whose brief tenure in Israel coincided with the state’s founding years. Working between archive and imagination, Stern traveled to Israel to revisit the landscapes referenced in these materials and rather than recreating the past, she sought to surface layered meanings embedded in the land.  

The term afterimage refers to a lingering visual impression that remains after the original is gone. For Stern, it becomes a metaphor for the lingering imprint of place—the sensory echo of home, layered with complexity, dissonance, and quiet persistence. Through handmade paper, video, photography, and glass, she engages materials that—like memory—are fragile, translucent, and incomplete. 

Stern does not attempt to present a singular narrative of the land. Instead, she invites reflection on how histories are constructed, how borders—physical and emotional—shape perception, and how meaning persists or dissolves across time and space. By expanding familiar narratives and inviting multiplicity, Afterimage offers space for complexity and alternative perspectives.

Afterimage is organized by the Museum of Art + Light and curated by Jori Louise Cheville, director of curatorial affairs.  This exhibition has been generously supported by Kemper Family Foundations, UMB Bank, n.a., Trustee, the Jewish Art Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City, and complemented by a loaned artwork from Michael and Renana Abrams and Yaniv Stern.