Alex Yelderman is a Chicago-based painter. Her early work focused on capturing the emotional dimension of photographic subjects in mid-century ophthalmology textbooks. Medical illustrations often guard their subjects’ privacy by covering the eyes with a black bar. But of course that’s impossible when the eye is what’s being studied. In ophthalmology textbooks, the specimen gazes back.

In Fleeting Panorama, Yelderman transforms the medical specimen into an artistic subject. These transformations can be violent, even grotesque, but others are sweet and many are quiet. The final five pieces in the series involve no modification at all; in those cases, making art was simply a matter of deleting clinical text.

Yelderman’s other work explores a range of subjects, from portraits to seascapes, but the focus remains on the transformative - and bidirectional - gaze. Her subjects seem to stare right back, defiantly turning the lens back on the observer. The effect is discomfiting, thrilling, and above all, human.