"The Long Veil" opening reception - Sasha Bitzer

The Long Veil

The Long Veil is a series of artworks by Sasha Bitzer that build visual and metaphorical
connections inspired by her time with glaciers. Drawing from her experiences living in
northern climates, the works reflect on how long seasons of darkness and cold shape
both landscapes and human behavior. Through printmaking, mixed media, and
material relationships, Bitzer explores cycles of preservation and loss, and the fragile
balance between safety and freedom. In these works, glaciers act as a language for
understanding human tendencies, values, and lessons from nature. They serve as
reservoirs of wisdom, acceptance, and balance, carrying the stillness of solitude and
the warmth of transformation that follows.
The veil threads together the deep, dark winter and the quiet protections we build
around ourselves. These layers keep us safe, yet they also blur and soften what we see,
changing how we move through the world. The veil holds both mystery and the ache of
nearness, where what we desire is so close it can be felt but not chosen for the cost it
carries. In this space between concealment and vulnerability, The Long Veil reflects on
what we protect, what we reveal, and how darkness itself can become a site of
transformation.

Sasha Bitzer is an artist and educator based in Fairbanks, Alaska. She works across
many mediums and is attentive to the voice of materials and the ways they shape
meaning. Bitzer often turns to place and the natural environment as metaphor, drawing
inspiration from her surroundings, research, and lived experience to bring new
perspectives to how we interact with the world. Her work is frequently exhibited locally
as well as nationally and internationally. She is Assistant Professor of Printmaking and
Painting at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Artist Statement

My work emerges from an inquiry into how our relationships with place, space, and
land shape identity and behavior. Living in Fairbanks, Alaska, I am deeply influenced by
the long winters, the cycles of darkness and cold, and the glacial landscapes that
surround this place. Glaciers serve as a language through which I explore human
tendencies, values, and ways of living in environments that demand both endurance
and adaptation. Through this project subtleties have made themselves known, like the
quiet patience and nurturing of oneself through long seasons of rest and solitude.
The body of work you see here was partially developed as part of an URSA Mentorship
Project called Cognitive Cryogenics. Over the course of a year, a UAF Bachelor of Fine
Arts candidate, Ayona Reily Dixon, and I spent time with glaciers as we worked on the
collaborative project. As we invested time gathering, drawing, and learning from them,
we developed a visual language from those landscapes, analyzing connections
between their characteristics and the behaviors of the people who share their climate.
This subject has remained deeply important to me, and the works presented here
expand on that theme through my personal narratives and a deeper exploration of my
values and growth as an individual. I use printmaking, painting, and material
relationships to explore cycles of preservation and loss, alongside the delicate balance
between freedom and safety. Like glaciers, which hold sediment, air, and ancient life in
obscurity until release, I see the human experience as layered with joy, memory, grief,
and resilience. Works such as Meander and Ablation explore pressure, retreat, and
renewal, while pieces like Archaea and Small Cold Song reflect persistence and joy
carried quietly through solitude. In Keeper and Good Mourning, I explore the dualities
of concealment and revelation, strength and vulnerability, and the holding of grief as
we change.

I think of glaciers as beings that both conceal and transform, reservoirs that carry
wisdom, endurance, and acceptance. They mirror the cycles we move through as
humans: accumulation, stillness, diminishment, and renewal. In them, I find a language
to reflect on complex dualities in life such as safety and freedom, loss and growth, the
power and strength of softness, and the difficult but necessary seasons of solitude and
obscurity that make outpouring possible.