Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present Sean Cairns' solo exhibition "The Myth We Call Space and Time" from January 14 through February 18, 2023.

Sean Cairns paints emotionally charged minimalist landscapes yielding paintings as tender as they are philosophical. Influenced by Folk Art’s matter of fact subjects and Modernism’s color field compositions, his mixed-media paintings incorporate chance operations and found materials, often worked and reworked on the floor. “I think the paintings reveal themselves once they’re on the wall but while painting on the floor I’m immersed in the terrain I’m building,” says Cairns. In these paintings you often will find a figure, a narrative, and a landscape all veiled in the illusion of abstraction while maintaining the painting’s harmony in switching between traditional perspective and flat fields of glowing color.

Born in 1988, Sean Cairns was raised in rural Sparta, Illinois, coming from multiple generations of folk artists. Following an undergraduate degree in Sculpture at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2011, and an MFA in Visual Studies in 2014 from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Cairns turned his attention to painting. Sean Cairns has lived in Dallas since 2014. This is his second solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

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Image: Sean Cairns, "Geode," 2022, oil and sand on canvas, 54 x 76 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present David A. Dreyer's solo exhibition "Cold Mountain Jam" from November 12, 2022 through January 7, 2023.

"I live, and we all live, to breathe our own special note into this world." —Ken Kesey

The paintings in this exhibition are inspired by music, nature, and the Cold Mountain poems of Chinese poet Han-shan. About this exhibition, David A. Dreyer states:

"Cold Mountain Jam is a tribute to that journey of authentic expression shaped by the textures of life, the liberation of light, and the sensual perception of music’s cosmic landscape."

Observations of vast landscapes and the cosmos inform Dreyer’s personal language of pictorial elements. Small graphite drawings are the catalyst for Dreyer’s oil paintings, which are built over time in layers of color and line and develop through intuitive responses. This process of painting is uncertain, fueled by curiosity and listening. Phrases written on the edge of the canvas at critical stages of the paintings’ development become titles in poetic verse revealing Dreyer’s path within the abstract.

David A. Dreyer was born in Dallas in 1958 and earned his BFA and MFA from Southern Methodist University. "Cold Mountain Jam" is David A. Dreyer’s ninth solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

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Image: David A. Dreyer, "Calliope’s Cosmic Landscape, Aquarian Sky, Cold Mountain Jam," 2021, oil, charcoal, and graphite on canvas, 34 x 48 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present Ying Li's solo exhibition "Quintessence" from October 1 through November 5, 2022. This marks Ying Li's first solo exhibition in Texas.

Born in Beijing, China, Ying Li studied painting at Anhui Teachers University (1974-77) where she taught (1977-83) before immigrating to the USA in 1983. She received an MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, in 1987. Li has taught at Haverford College since 1997 and holds an endowed chair as The Phlyssa Koshland Professor of Fine Arts.

About the paintings in this exhibition, Ying Li states:

"The rhythm of my painting is a dance of brushwork based on training in Chinese calligraphy. I strive to reveal resonances where abstraction and representation merge, reflecting the heart and spirit. Things that exist in alternate dimensions come to life with oil and canvas. The unseen becomes visible while the visible unlocks perception at the core of essence."

This exhibition includes 18 plein air landscape and still life paintings along with a selection of Jazz drawings and watercolors. About the Jazz works, Ying Li says:

"Since arriving in the United States I have been fascinated with Jazz music and musicians. The culture of Jazz is the expansion of freedom and this really resonated with me coming from the era of repression during the Cultural Revolution in China. Freedom allows the expansion of consciousness and this is exactly what I want to capture in my drawing. The sound becomes visible, and the energy, motion, and improvisation are captured in the moment with ink and paper."

Ying Li maintains studios in New York City and Haverford, Pennsylvania. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, and Art in America, among others. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Maine, Florida, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Georgia, New Hampshire, Ohio, New Jersey, Switzerland, Italy, and Ireland.

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Image: Ying Li, "Autumn Blast," 2021, oil on linen, 48 x 36 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present Otis Huband's solo exhibition "Recent Paintings and Collages" from August 20 through September 24, 2022.

Born in 1933, Otis Huband declared his intention to be an artist at age 6. He earned his BFA and MFA at Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William & Mary, now Virginia Commonwealth University. Subsequently, he traveled to Italy with his wife Anne to study painting and sculpture at L'Accademia di Belle Arti in Perugia. They returned in 1965 and made their home in Houston. After many years of providing art instruction, including at the Houston Museum School of Fine Arts and Art League Houston, Otis retired from teaching in 1982. Since then, he has devoted all of his time to the studio.

Otis Huband's daily studio practice begins by making collages to transition from cognitive thinking to perceptual impulses. Then, he moves into painting, independent of the collages. Otis says, "I never make preparatory drawings for the paintings because I want the delight and surprise of discovery. I feed on my subconscious reservoir to create a new and personal reality that is revealed in the act of painting."

The Opening Reception is Saturday, August 20, 6:00pm-8:00pm, preceded by Artist Remarks at 5:30pm.

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Image: Otis Huband, "Cobalt Interiors," 2021, oil on canvas, 53 x 65 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present our tenth solo exhibition of paintings by Henry Finkelstein.

Henry Finkelstein is a colorist and a landscape painter, with a working dynamic highly influenced by the Abstract Expressionists. Finkelstein paints from life, discovering meaning as he works. He attests, “nature gives me a grounding,” and elaborates “color is the most important thing. For me, color is emotion. It’s a sensibility inspired by the light and air in which I paint. These feelings are hard to name because this is the nature of emotion. And if I could name them what would there be left to look at?”

Finkelstein reacts to the landscape in a loose, lyrical painting manner, as he focuses on discovering in nature new color relationships, spatial concerns, and rhythms. It is a process, as he says, of “listening to color.”

Henry Finkelstein earned his MFA at Yale University School of Art in 1983, followed by a Fulbright Grant to study in Italy. In 1994, he was elected a National Academician. Finkelstein has taught painting and drawing in New York City since 1996.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, May 21, 6:00pm-8:00pm.

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Image: Henry Finkelstein, "Pear Tree," 2021, oil on linen, 44 x 56 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present "Pages from a Glass Book," our sixth solo exhibition of work by Dallas artist Gail Norfleet. About this body of work, Gail Norfleet says:

"It was by accident that I found the folding glass frames that suggested the idea for Pages from a Glass Book. The diptych format and the transparency of the glass were not new to my work. The ability to paint on the front and back and to see from one layer through to the next was compelling. For two years I have pursued images from the world around me. Intimate interiors, landscapes, masked models, flowers, lonely dogs, and even political statements have been worthy subjects evocative of these iconic times. The narrative is far from over and this series of art is still evolving."

Glass and plexiglass continue to be foundational elements in her work. The inherent transparency of these materials allows light to illuminate multiple layers and enables the development of spatial relationships and collaged narratives.

Gail Norfleet earned her BFA at The University of Texas at Austin, and her MFA at Southern Methodist University. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of the Southwest in Midland, and The Grace Museum in Abilene.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, February 26, 5:00pm-7:30pm.

Gail Norfleet will give an Artist Talk on Saturday, March 12, 11:00am.

Listen to Gail Norfleet's Artist Talk from her 2019 exhibition "Made in Layers"

Watch a discussion with Gail Norfleet, Jim Woodson, and Sedrick Huckaby on The Art of Painting: A Conversation with President Bush's Art Instructors at The George W. Bush Presidential Center

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Image: Gail Norfleet, "Pages from a Glass Book: Double Portrait," 2020, acrylic on glass, 17 1/2 x 27 1/4 inches

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present Bob Stuth-Wade's solo exhibition "The Comfort of Trees" from January 15 through February 19, 2022.

"The Comfort of Trees" includes paintings, watercolors, and mixed media works from the past three years. In addition to Trees, the exhibition includes landscapes of Big Bend, Central Texas, the California coast, and still lifes in the studio.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, January 15, 5:00pm-8:00pm.

Bob Stuth-Wade will give an Artist Talk on Saturday, January 29, at 11:00am.

About this body of work, Bob Stuth-Wade writes:

"Almost every day during quarantine Bhakti and I went to Proctor Lake. She sniffed. I painted. For years I saw nothing beautiful there until I began to see that seeing itself is beauty. Proctor then became a place of practice, like the cushion I sit on to meditate each morning and night. The trees there have become companions and objects of devotion. Standing, rooted down, reaching up, stable and engaged with air and earth, they are my teachers. Standing, seeing, rooted in this moment, I am present because the intensity of painting outside demands it. The voice that says, "You can't," surrenders to the doing. Experience inevitably, unpredictably, completes itself. Passing through insecurity to completion in fragile confidence is the joy of painting. This silent verity is my ever-present work."

Bob Stuth-Wade's work has been written about by Eleanor Jones Harvey of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Frederick Turner in American Arts Quarterly, Judy Deaton for The Grace Museum, and Rebecca Lawton for his recent Valley House catalogue. Museum exhibitions include Jesuit Dallas Museum, The Grace Museum, and San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.

Bob Stuth-Wade's self-directed art education began under his mentor, Dallas artist Perry Nichols, when he was a student at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas. His first solo exhibition was at Fairmount Gallery in Dallas in 1972 at age 18. This is Bob Stuth-Wade's 11th solo exhibition since 1991 at Valley House Gallery.

Preview the entire exhibition on the Valley House Gallery website at https://www.valleyhouse.com/thumbnails.asp?mode=page&idx=260

View the exhibition on Artsy at https://www.artsy.net/show/valley-house-gallery-and-sculpture-garden-bob-stuth-wade-the-comfort-of-trees

In 2019, Jesuit Dallas Museum presented the exhibition "Bob Stuth-Wade: 'Whatever you do, that which makes you feel most alive, that is where God is' (Saint Ignatius of Loyola)" for which Bob Stuth-Wade gave an Artist Talk which can be viewed at https://youtu.be/VmTyUZJUnNw?t=264

Image: Bob Stuth-Wade, "Dublin Cemetery," 2021, watercolor on paper, 34 1/4 x 24 7/8 inches paper size

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present Allison Gildersleeve's solo exhibition "Swiftly Flow the Days" from May 1 through June 5, 2021.

Allison Gildersleeve received her BA from the College of William and Mary and her MFA from Bard College. She has exhibited across the United States and abroad, including New York City, Denver, Charleston, Oakland, and Stockholm. Gildersleeve has received numerous fellowships and residencies, most notably the New York Foundation for the Arts in Painting, The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Liquitex International Research Residency in London. Valley House Gallery has represented Allison Gildersleeve's work since 2014, and this is her third solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

About the paintings in this exhibition, Allison Gildersleeve states:

"Like the stagehands who dress the set between acts in a play, I employ layered, saturated colors, flattened textures, and chaotic brushwork in service of painted worlds that set the stage for action. These scenes of disjointed interiors and chaotic landscapes are devoid of actors, but the detritus left in the wake of their presence compresses generations of interstitial moments from past and present, all cast in the shadow of the town my family has inhabited since the early 1900s. When the pandemic exploded in New York City, my husband, children, and I returned to this town. In these months of quiet, as I’ve walked the cobweb of streets through neighborhoods I’ve memorized since childhood, I’ve felt the parallel presence of the daily lives, dramatic or mundane, that existed here before my time. While my paintings were once confined to my own personal timeline, now the imagined histories of other lives that date back centuries have seeped into my work."

View the exhibition on the Valley House Gallery website at https://www.valleyhouse.com/

View the exhibition on Artsy at https://www.artsy.net/show/valley-house-gallery-and-sculpture-garden-allison-gildersleeve-swiftly-flow-the-days

Watch videos of Allison Gildersleeve speaking with curator Cheryl Vogel about her work at:

https://youtu.be/RbTe_362IcE

https://youtu.be/UE4KhqrvgzY

https://youtu.be/LEqejlwo1so

"Allison Gildersleeve: Swiftly Flow the Days" will be on view at Valley House Gallery from May 1 through June 5, Monday through Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Masks required.

Image: Allison Gildersleeve, "Swiftly Flow the Days," 2020, acrylic, spray paint, and oil on canvas, 48 x 50 inches

"In the Shade of a Tall Tree is a body of work that speaks to my internal reality in a year of grief, rest, and reflection. We have been wading in the uncertainty of life, the certainty of death, and the necessity of each other. It feels like sitting in the shade of a tall tree on a sweltering day or surrendering to the wild twists and turns of an improvisational painting process. The title is a metaphorical connection to my late grandmother, as trees were the main subjects of Jerelyn Fitzgerald Richard's paintings. Growing up, we would paint together in the swamplands and from her kitchen window. When the trees outside the window were being cleared for apartments, she invited the guys over for coffee so they could see them from her point of view. The demo crew left her favorite trees standing. In the space of her table, she made room for many opinions and palettes and showed me that creating is a way of witnessing my life and those in it. This is what I seek to make visual." —Emily LaCour

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present our first solo exhibition for Emily LaCour who resides in Dallas, but spent her youth in Louisiana. In 2011, she received a BFA and a minor in Art History from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge where she later taught painting and drawing from 2014 to 2017. She earned an MFA from Southern Methodist University in 2014.

Watch a video of Emily LaCour speaking about her work

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The exhibition will be on view at Valley House Gallery from March 6 through April 17, Monday through Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Image: Emily LaCour, "Parting Favor," 2020, oil on wood, 48 x 40 inches

"I want my paintings to be a celebration of pure nature and moment—homage to the sacred spaces of memory. I begin with small automatic drawings, a practice of intuitive organization used as a catalyst for paintings. Drawings originate in the realm between the hand and eye, a sensuous experience with seemingly endless possibilities. It is more difficult to explain what I paint than why—which is to create a unique image that discloses personal recognition of things never seen and space that imparts a sense of self. My process is organic, evolving through moments of insightful meditation that fuel curiosity and reveal discoveries with uncertain predictability. I take from the familiar as dreams take from the real. In mining an area of the unfamiliar, a place where dream and invention exist, I refine that which can only be imagined—till things never seen seem familiar." —David A. Dreyer

Valley House Gallery is honored to present Dallas artist David A. Dreyer's exhibition "Cold Mountain Observatory." The paintings are inspired by the Cold Mountain poems of Han-shan, Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), as translated by Gary Snyder. Dreyer earned his BFA in 1990 and his MFA in 1992, both from Southern Methodist University. A catalogue will be available. This is his eighth solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

Watch a video of David A. Dreyer speaking about his work

View the exhibition at valleyhouse.com

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The exhibition will be on view at Valley House Gallery from March 6 through April 17, Monday through Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Image: David A. Dreyer, "Klänge— Crosstown Traffic, Soundplane’s Forgotten Space, Into Morning Dew," 2020, oil, charcoal, graphite, and chalk on canvas, 48 x 54 inches

"Mark Messersmith's paintings read like epic novels, full of richly conceived characters and vividly described vignettes that unite into grand and sweeping narratives. His subjects are invariably focused on the interplay between fragile nature and careless humankind, played out in the sizzling scrublands and swampy backwaters of the Florida Panhandle, just beyond civilization's reach. Messersmith's mastery of painting is underscored in these works, which are laden with high-keyed color, dizzying perspectives, careening imagery, and virtuoso light effects. They are also clearly tied to the history of painting, with references that range from Late Medievalism to nineteenth century Romanticism to contemporary Outsider art. Part P.T. Barnum and part Walt Whitman—and just as quintessentially American—Messersmith offers the engaged viewer a cornucopia of visual delights and a veritable banquet of savory food for thought." —Peter Baldaia, Huntsville Museum of Art

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present our fourth solo exhibition for Mark Messersmith, including ten paintings that were featured in the exhibition "Precipice" at the Amarillo Museum of Art. Messersmith earned an MFA from Indiana University in 1980, and was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in Painting in 2006. Among the museums that have collected his works are the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art, Musée du Haut-de-Cagnes, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Tyler Museum of Art. His work was recently included in the exhibition "A Telling Instinct: John James Audubon & Contemporary Art" at the Asheville Art Museum in North Carolina. He recently retired from Florida State University in Tallahassee where he was a Professor of Art for 35 years. A comprehensive catalogue will be available.

Preview the exhibition online at https://www.valleyhouse.com/

The exhibition will be on view at Valley House Gallery from January 23 through February 27, Monday through Saturday, 10:00am to 5:00pm. Masks required.

Image: Mark Messersmith, "The Weight of Everything," 2019, oil on canvas, carved wooden pediment, and mixed media predella, 87 x 62 inches

"Although photography plays an important role in my work, I’ve always thought the ultimate goal is not realism, but believability. The photos provide a starting point—sketches in effect—to be manipulated, exaggerated, added to or subtracted from, or blended with subject matter from other sources—or simply invented—to create an image that (hopefully) speaks to the viewer, but exists only in my imagination." —Brian Cobble

Valley House Gallery is honored to present our seventh exhibition of Brian Cobble’s luminous urban and rural landscapes. Cobble’s perception, dedication, and technical facility make him one of the finest artists working in pastel today. Cobble earned his MFA from Southern Methodist University where he studied with Roger Winter and Dan Wingren. His works are in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, El Paso Museum of Art, New Mexico Museum of Art, and The Columbus Museum, Georgia.

Image: Brian Cobble, Gonzales Street, 2018, pastel, 17 1/4 x 32 inches

These last months have reminded us of the importance of our basic humanity and the inherent value of others. After isolating, we felt a need to be surrounded by people—hence this invitational exhibition about people seen through the artist’s eye. In addition to Valley House artists, we have invited figurative artists whom we admire to participate:

Deborah Ballard, Vera Barnett, Lu Ann Barrow, Peter Bonner, Curt Brill, Lloyd Brown, Sean Cairns, Jeanne Campbell, Lindy Chambers, John Cobb, Brian Cobble, Robert D. Cocke, Carol A. Cook, Laurie Hickman Cox, Lee Baxter Davis, Laurence Edwards, David Everett, Barnaby Fitzgerald, Scott Gentling, Miles Cleveland Goodwin, Ira Greenberg, Otis Huband, Sedrick Huckaby, Anita Huffington, Kathryn Keller, Sirena LaBurn, Emily LaCour, Rudolf Sotelo Lailson, Jungeun Lee, Laurie Lipton, Jun-Cheng Liu, William B. Montgomery, Philip Morsberger, Fred Nagler, Trish Nickell, Gail Norfleet, Michael O’Keefe, Luke Sides, Hadar Sobol, Ellen Soderquist, Bob Stuth-Wade, James Surls, Chaco Terada, Valton Tyler, Mary Vernon, Donald S. Vogel, Amy Werntz, Jim Woodson, and Miguel Zapata.

Valley House is pleased to welcome back Lindy Chambers for her third solo exhibition. Born in Tennessee, Lindy, an identical twin, spent her youth drawing and riding horses before moving to Texas in 1972. Her early focus on sculpture shifted when the foundry she built to cast her own bronzes burned to the ground. She turned to painting, inspired by rural trailer life around her Bellville, Texas, home. The trailers, where dogs and goats once ruled, are now peopled with human activity: drive-in movies, family reunions, bike riding, playing games, mowing the yard, watching flying saucers, gardening, etc.

About her recent paintings, Lindy Chambers says:

"Most of my inspiration comes from rural Texas. My focus begins when I leave the highway pavement and drive on dirt and gravel roads in the country. I am oddly drawn to the obscure habitats and curious color combinations that I find off-road. Before every painting, I make a series of black-and-white thumbnail sketches. When I start to paint, the color is intuitive, and the process is spontaneous. I try to listen to the canvas and react to it. If I overthink the painting, it is likely to end up in Danny’s burn pile."

Solo exhibitions will be held in the coming year at the Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence, Kansas; Women & Their Work, Austin, Texas; and the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth, Texas.

Valley House Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Luke Sides' bronze and iron sculpture.

About his recent work, Luke Sides says:

"My work has dealt with Pigs, Puppies, Pastries, Peppers, and Portraits, but most importantly PUNS. I feel my work is greatly influenced by the Funk movement with a little Pop component. Pigs have been an interest of mine from a very early age after reading Animal Farm and raising pigs as a child for FFA. I have always seen my sculptures of pigs as self-portraits. The gluttonous nature of pigs resonates deeply with me. In the past, I ate myself into a state of obesity and high cholesterol. The combination of these things and a deep family history of heart disease were not enough to curb my appetite. On the other hand, pigs are extremely smart. Pigs are survivors to the point that feral pigs and wild boars have become a real problem for rural communities across the US. Although King Pig is cast in bronze, many of my pig sculptures are cast in pig iron. All these aspects make the pig my spirit animal. I have embraced my shortcomings and work daily to rectify them, but I also embrace the tenacity of the pig and see that as my strongest trait."

Valley House has represented Luke Sides’ sculpture since 2011. Luke was born in Dallas in 1975 and earned his BFA (1998) and his MFA (2001) from the University of North Texas, Denton. He has been a Professor of Art at Collin College – Plano Campus since 2002.

Valley House Gallery is honored to present a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Henry Finkelstein. About this body of work, he says:

"Color, light and air, space and volume have always been at the core of my paintings. But increasingly I find that the character of the place itself is just as important to me. I’m drawn to old places, where people have lived a long time, where the land is considered, but not overly manicured, with ancient trees that frame some sort of gardening or farming. When I was in art school in the 1970s, I would not have admitted these things. Most of the discussion was limited to the abstract or formal elements of painting. So much has changed since then that such taboos have become irrelevant. This is liberating for me. My love for the subject doesn’t lessen my passion for the formal. It is always a synthesis of the two."

A residency at Rochefort-en-Terre in Brittany, France, in 1992, and again in 2000, introduced Henry Finkelstein to this region where he returns each summer to paint from direct observation. Finkelstein earned his MFA in painting from Yale University School of Art in 1983, followed by a Fulbright Grant to study in Italy. In 1994, he was elected a National Academician. Finkelstein has taught painting and drawing in New York City since 1996. This is Henry Finkelstein's ninth solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery since 2002.

Image: Henry Finkelstein, Cottage by the Road, 2019, oil on linen, 47 1/2 x 56 inches

Valley House Gallery is honored to present our 10th solo exhibition of paintings by Lilian Garcia-Roig. About this body of work, she states:

"This series of on-site paintings was made during the summer of 2019 on the banks of the Skykomish River in the foothills of the Cascades mountains in Washington State. As in my other plein-air works painted in forests, these paintings document a real-time process: the accumulation of fleeting moments experienced on site. Working with oil on canvas, the paintings are produced in a wet-on-wet, cumulative painting manner that was influenced by the watercolor and gouache works I made there in 2016. This summer was only the second time I have been able to spend an extended period working in oil on this singular, complex subject—the COLORS in water."

Lilian Garcia-Roig was born in Havana, Cuba, reared in Houston, and lives in Tallahassee, where she is a Professor at Florida State University. She earned degrees at Southern Methodist University (BFA) and the University of Pennsylvania (MFA), and has been awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, a Mid-America Arts Alliance/NEA Fellowship Award in Painting, a Skowhegan Residency, two Fellowships at The MacDowell Colony, a Kimbrough Award from the Dallas Museum of Art, and a State of Florida Individual Artist Fellowship.