Heskin Contemporary is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Sherry Kerlin. The opening reception will be held on May 9, 6-9pm.

Sherry Kerlin’s paintings and drawings are dedicated to her unending search for the narratives that lie beneath what appears to be the immutable concrete surface of reality. She says, “I passed a poster in a window that in effect read that behind every truth there is another larger and greater truth. I have experienced that every circumstance has many layers to it. I am trying to achieve the seemingly impossible and contradictory task of painting that which cannot be seen. I have given up trying to know the one exact truth and discovered the pleasure of the mystery.”

Sherry Kerlin’s work is built around the many facets of the human condition. She examines both the physical and the metaphysical perspectives. Her work includes narratives from the past and the present day, which can be playful and humorous or dark and mysterious. You feel as if you are viewing the images through a mist of memory.

She paints in a diffused, soft lyrical style that is meant to mimic the transitory nature of an object or a figure. Many of the paintings are done in black and white in an attempt to bend reality to another perceptual level. Each painting is usually confined to a focus on one or two objects in order to more fully explore their unique worlds. The scale of the work is small to create a sense of intimacy. These formal elements are there to support her strong sense of narrative—the soul of her work.

Sherry Kerlin received her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Kansas City Art Institute. She has shown her work in many important galleries in New York City and throughout the United States. This is her second solo show at Heskin Contemporary.

Sherry Kerlin is from Kansas City, and now lives and works in New York City. She attended the Chicago Art Institute and completed her BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute, in Kansas City in 1966. Kerlin has been exhibiting her work since 1981 in New York and California. She received a Grant in 1995 from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and in 1992 she received a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.