The Painting Center is pleased to present Intersections curated by Dylan Williams. This exhibition brings together the work of eight artists from the United States and Mexico who in recent years have been developing a new way of engaging with the landscape. Without completely abandoning figurative painting with its necessity of depicting forms in light and space, these artists are taking a more abstract and minimalist approach. Each artist is having a stylistic metamorphosis and exploring the frontier of abstraction. They each bring distinct moods, messages, and ideas to their paintings, as well as a rich diversity of historic references, given their varied geographic and cultural backgrounds.

The works in this exhibition are transitional and they show the viewer why a landscape painter might choose to move away from figurative painting toward a more experimental abstraction. These works give the viewer a more personal and responsive style of work that transcends the descriptive. The exhibition includes works chosen specifically to reveal more of the individual artist’s process.

The exhibition poses the questions: Is abstraction a natural progression in style from figurative painting for these artists? Is it a conscious decision on the part of the artist to simplify all that which is visible, to subtract and edit the landscape in order to bring a sharper focus on geometry or texture? Is it an urge to clarify, simplify, and look at nature in terms of shape? Does this movement towards abstraction evolve out of an artist’s desire to experiment, to be less traditional, to works towards an integration of modernism and nature?

Artists include: Mariella Bisson, Tara Keairnes, Stephen Lightner, Jackie Lima, Myrna Quinones, Frank Webster, Dylan Williams and Laurie Winthers.