Dean Dass 'Passenger' on View at LYDM Gallery This Spring
After Asa Jackson's sold-out solo run closes May 24, this intricate mixed-media work anchors the Charlottesville gallery's continuing season
A Quietly Powerful Work Holds the Room at LYDM
After the closing buzz of Asa Jackson's solo exhibition Paradise Found: Where Heaven and Earth Meet — which drew visitors through May 24 — Les Yeux du Monde (LYDM) in Charlottesville turns its focus to another work of quiet intensity: Dean Dass's 2024 piece, Passenger.
The work is currently on view and available for purchase at the gallery. Inquiries can be directed via DM or at info@lydmgallery.com.
About the Work
Passenger is rendered in pencil and inks on paper prepared with gouache and acrylic — a layered, technically demanding approach that gives the piece a luminous, fragile quality. The gallery describes the work as inhabiting a "liminal space," with Dass's signature cloud form functioning as both shelter and suspension.
Art historian Victoria Beck Newman, writing about Dass's 2024 exhibition Passenger Manifest, captured the work's emotional core: "The birds, helmets, and clouds of [Dass's] works suggest the poignant and perhaps incompatible juxtaposition of human aspiration and vulnerability with the need for protection from what we and the world can do to each other."
That tension — ambition held lightly against fragility — is exactly what makes Passenger a compelling anchor for the gallery's spring season.
Just Before: Asa Jackson's 'Paradise Found'
Visitors who made it to LYDM before May 24 caught the final days of Asa Jackson's solo show, a deeply personal exhibition composed of worn garments belonging to people who shaped the artist's life. His piece Doorway to the Imagination invited viewers into what Jackson described as "a threshold into the beyond, into the desired reality." Another centerpiece, The End and the Beginning (Reflections on Sunset and Sunrise) (2025) — dyed and deconstructed corduroy backed by denim, 74.5 × 89.5 inches — brought the show to a resonant close.
If you missed that exhibition, Passenger offers a very different register: intimate in scale, meditative in mood, and no less rewarding.
Why This Is Worth the Drive
Les Yeux du Monde is not a typical commercial gallery. Housed in a landmark building designed by architect W.G. Clark, with Blue Ridge views as a backdrop, LYDM has spent decades championing serious contemporary artists working in painting, works on paper, and mixed media. For visitors already making their way through Rappahannock wine country or Shenandoah-area destinations, Charlottesville is a natural extension of a longer weekend itinerary.
The gallery operates on an appointment-or-inquiry basis for purchases, but the space is open to visitors — confirm current hours before making the drive.
Planning Your Visit
- Gallery: Les Yeux du Monde (LYDM)
- Address: 841 Wolf Trap Rd, Charlottesville, VA 22911
- Phone: (434) 882-2622
- Website: lydmgallery.com
- Purchase Inquiries: info@lydmgallery.com or via Instagram DM
- Current Work on View: Dean Dass, Passenger (2024) — pencil and inks on paper prepared with gouache and acrylic
- Note: Call ahead or check the gallery's Instagram to confirm current viewing hours before visiting.
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Photo via Unsplash