EXHIBITIONS

Cerbera Gallery presents: “When the Sun Saw the Sky” with works by Annieo Klaas

In When The Sun Saw The Sky, Annieo Klaas presents a series of oil paintings inspired by sunlight filtering through window blinds, casting golden rays across her studio. As these rays fall onto her painted skies, a subtle visual loop emerges—light illuminating the sky, while the sky seems to look back at itself.

Capturing these fleeting moments, Klaas creates atmospheric compositions that blur the line between interior and exterior, offering a quiet meditation on light, reflection, and perception.

Exhibition Date: May – June 2026

Location: Cerbera Gallery

2011 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO 64108

Opening Reception: THU, April 30, 5-8 PM

First Friday Reception: FRI, May 1, 5-9 PM

Phone: +1-844-202-9303

E-Mail: [email protected]

In When The Sun Saw The Sky, Annieo Klaas presents a new series of oil paintings that explore the poetic interplay of light, perception, and interior space. Inspired by the simple yet transformative moment when sunlight filters through window blinds, casting rhythmic bands of gold across her studio, Klaas captures a fleeting visual phenomenon—one in which light and subject begin to echo one another. As these rays fall onto her painted skies, a subtle loop emerges, as if the sky were looking back at itself.

Klaas’s work operates within the quiet pulse of magical realism, where the familiar becomes quietly enchanted. Her recurring motif of a sunlit window, often softened by gauzy curtains, anchors the viewer in a domestic setting, yet the scenes shimmer with an otherworldly presence. Radiant hues bleed gently across surfaces, while layers of light, shadow, and foliage create a sense of depth that feels both intimate and elusive. Rather than departing from reality, Klaas heightens it—revealing a world that vibrates just beyond the logical.

Her treatment of light is not merely optical, but emotional. It is rendered with a dreamlike clarity that feels at once tender and uncanny, inviting a slower, more contemplative way of seeing. These compositions function as quiet thresholds—spaces where interior and exterior, presence and imagination, begin to blur. In capturing these ephemeral moments, Klaas offers viewers an opportunity to pause within that liminal space, where light becomes both subject and sensation, and the ordinary reveals its latent wonder.

Know more

About Annieo Klaas

“Annieo Klaas grew up in Dakar, Senegal and is based in Birmingham, Alabama. She holds a PharmD from Auburn University, a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, and works as a Nuclear Pharmacist for Siemens Healthineers.

Klaas’s work has been exhibited at the Mobile Museum of Art (AL), the LaGrange Art Museum (GA), the Alabama Contemporary Art Center (AL), Field Projects Gallery (NY), Warnes Contemporary (NY), Sophiella Gallery (AL), K Space Contemporary (TX), and the Intersect Arts Center (St Louis, MO). Her work has been featured in several publications, including New American Paintings (South Issue 178) and Booooooom’s Tomorrow’s Talent.

“I’ve always been drawn to painting moments that are easily overlooked—things that are beautiful but often pass by unnoticed. The sky is one of those subjects. When I look up, especially when I feel overwhelmed, I’m struck by its vastness and the sense of infinity it holds. There’s something disorienting about it—it never ends, and I can’t fully comprehend it. Painting the sky is my way of engaging with that feeling, of trying to hold onto something that is, by nature, impossible to contain.

I think of paintings as windows into another reality. In this series, I became interested in what happens when one “window” interacts with another—when sunlight from a real space falls across a painted sky. In my studio, rays of light would move across the surface of these paintings throughout the day, creating shifting patterns that felt alive and responsive. It created a kind of loop, where the sky seemed to reflect back onto itself, or where one layer of reality reached into another.

These works also carry a sense of time. As the paintings moved from wall to wall, the sunlight traced different paths across them, almost like a record of where they had been. When a painting enters a new space, it brings those previous traces with it, while new patterns begin to form. I like the idea that each piece continues to evolve in subtle ways depending on its environment, long after it leaves the studio.

For me, painting is about translating something internal—an image, a sensation, or a fleeting moment—into something tangible. There’s a kind of quiet magic in that process, in making something that only existed in my mind become real and shareable. It’s a way of creating connection in that space between what we can explain and what we simply feel.”

Solo Exhibitions:
2024 “When the Sky Looks In” (Curated by Lucy Gafford), Mobile Arts Council, Mobile, AL
2016   “Vignettes Weekender” (Curated by Sierra Stinson and Serrah Russel), Vignettes Gallery, Seattle, WA
2015   “What You Scoop Up Of Me” (Curated by Weston Jandacka), Glass Box Gallery, Seattle, WA
2014   “Conversations” (Curated by Makena Gadient), Cornish College of the Arts, Closet Gallery, Seattle, WA

Group Exhibitions:
2026 “Yes, Absurd”, (Curated by Jennifer Marshall) Ground Floor Contemporary, Birmingham, AL
“ACCORDION”, (Curated by Jennifer Marshall) Ground Floor Contemporary, Birmingham, AL
2025 “Resonance”, (Curated by Victoria J Fry), Werner Contemporary, Brooklyn, NY
“Dolce Far Niente” (Curated by Vittoria Beltrame), MyMA, New York, NY
“Just the House of a Body” (Curated by Jacob Rhodes), Field Projects Gallery, New York, NY
“Third Coast Biennial” (Curated by Leandra Urrutia), K Space Contemporary, Corpus Christi, TX
“Government Plaza Gallery: A CELEBRATION, Juried Exhibition” by the Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
2024 “NEU DAWN 7” (curated by Courtney Matthews), Knucklebones Elixir Co, Mobile, AL
“Made in Alabama” Alabama Visual Artists Network Invitational Exhibition, Samford University Art Gallery, Birmingham, AL
“Fifth Lagrange Southeast Regional” (Juried by Hannah Israel), LaGrange Art Museum, LaGrange, GA
2023 “NEU DAWN 6” (Curated by Courtney Matthews), Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL
2022 “Atmospheric Perspective” (Curated by Sarah Bernhardt), Intersect Arts Center, St Louis, MO
2018   “Behaving Differently: (Curated by Joshua Thompson and Elizabeth Arzani), Plank Gallery, Seattle, WA
2017 “Utopia Neighborhood Club” Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle, WA
“Folding Reverberation :: Unfolded Resonance” (Curated by Chelsea Rodino), Generations, Seattle, WA
2015 “2015 Hutch Exhibition” (Curated by Bonnie Biggs), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA
“Painted Full of Tongues” (Performance directed by Kendra Lee), Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA
“Sound@Sunset” (Curated by Greg Miller), Seattle, WA
“Delicate Knives” (Curated by Rob Kellum), Evolve Apartments, Seattle, WA
“K-Ham Open Studios” (Curated by Jade Highleyman), Seattle, WA
2014   “This is for ___ (you)” Fremont Sunday Market, 400N 34th St and Cornish College of the Arts, Notions Building
“Art Department 2014 Merit Awards Exhibition” (Juried Exhibition), Cornish College of the Arts, Main Gallery, Seattle, WA
2013   “Art Department 2013 Merit Awards Exhibition” (Juried Exhibition), Cornish College of the Arts, Main Gallery, Seattle, WA
“Open CallI” Curated by Samantha Whalen, Cornish College of the Arts, Main Gallery, 1000 Lenora St, Seattle, WA

Residencies
2027 “IN RESIDENCE with Vianaar”, Goa, India
2026 “Mudhouse Residency”, Agios Ioannis, Crete, Greece
2016 “Two Dot Alumni Residency”, Two Dot Schoolhouse Montana, with Ruth Marie Tomlinson

Education:
PharmD Candidate 2025, Auburn University, Harrison College of Pharmacy
BFA in Fine Art, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA. 2015. Summa Cum Laude.

Scholarships/Awards:
Arts to Hearts Emerging Woman Artist Award Shortlist
Richard Gilman Painting Scholarship 2014
Richard Gilman Painting Scholarship 2013

Collections:
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Cornish Collection, Seattle, Washington, USA

Related Work Experience

2018 Assistant Curator for Art Walk Exhibitions, Card Designer, Frame Designer, and Framer. March 2016-July 2018. Annie’s Art and Frame,
Seattle WA, USA

2015 Photographer. September 2015- October 2015. Filmateria Digital. Seattle WA, USA
Mural Artist. May 2015- August 2015. InCity Properties. Seattle, WA, USA.

2013   Gallery and Installation Assistant. September 2011- December 2013. Cornish College of the Arts, Main Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA.
   Painting Studio Technician. January 2013- October 2013. Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA, USA.
      Artist’s Assistant. June 2013 – July 2013. Assistant to Mandy Greer. Seattle, WA, USA.

2012 Mural Artist. June 2012- July 2012. Dakar Academy, Dakar, Senegal.

2011 Installation Assistant. May 2008- May 2011. Dakar Academy, Dakar, Senegal.

Gallery

Open to the Public