Valley House Gallery & Sculpture Garden

Valley House Gallery in Dallas, Texas, is honored to present the solo exhibition "Ying Li: Hothouse" from September 13 through October 18, 2025.

"Painting cannot equal nature for the marvels of mountains and water, but nature cannot equal painting for the marvels of brush and ink." —Dong Qichang, Chinese calligrapher and painter, Late Ming dynasty

"The vitality in nature, the magical shapes, patterns, colors, and the fragility, vigor, luster of plants and flowers have been the biggest inspirations for my art. They are associated with the happy moments in the dark times in my life. As a young teenager in China I was fascinated by a reproduction of a flower painting by Matisse in a Soviet Union magazine my father owned. It was burned along with all my father’s books under an order from the Communist Party during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. They were considered Bourgeois and poison to the spirit of revolution at that time. I remember bundles of flowers my friend Wendy sent to the memorial service for my late husband Michael Gasster at Haverford College where I teach. I remember the bouquets my friends brought to my hospital room when I had a back injury. I remember daffodils, peonies, roses, lilies, all kinds of shrubs blooming with unstoppable force on a closed campus at Haverford College during Covid-19 Pandemic. I painted them at different locations throughout the campus, and with all my energy and concentration I got through it all."

"Painting nature, and painting in nature, has given me purpose and joy during those difficult times, and it has continued ever since. The mystery is not in inventing a work of art but in discovering nature's secrets, appropriating them, distilling their essence, and capturing the resonating energy of the natural world on canvas."

—Ying Li, 2025

Born in Beijing, China, Ying Li studied painting at Anhui Teachers University (1974-77) where she taught (1977-83) before immigrating to the United States in 1983. She earned 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.

Ying Li's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions internationally, in Switzerland, Italy, Ireland, France, China, and in New York City at the National Academy Museum and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, and Art in America, among others. Ying Li maintains studios in New York City and Haverford, Pennsylvania. A catalogue with an essay by John Goodrich will accompany the exhibition.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, September 13, 5:00pm-7:00pm, at Valley House Gallery.

View the exhibition on Artsy

Learn more about Ying Li

Image:
Ying Li
Roanoke Valley #4, 2024
oil on linen
30 x 40 inches

Valley House Gallery in Dallas, Texas, is pleased to present the solo exhibition "Allison Gildersleeve: Off Script" from June 15 through August 3, 2024.

About the paintings in this exhibition, Allison Gildersleeve says:

"Painting is a form of navigation for me. My mark making creates landmarks in the painting and I rely on these trail markers to guide me through the process. Starting a painting is like entering a maze where the options are many and the end is not in sight. Sometimes I begin with imagery from a room where I once lived, sometimes I start with the contents of my studio table, or sometimes the painting originates from a recent walk in the woods. In the middle of the process I might begin to feel the sense of a certain narrative propelling me forward, but I inevitably end off script. The final painting is not the spot where I started and it's not an endpoint, it is a frame by frame record of the journey existing in a singular space."

Born in North Stonington, Connecticut, Allison Gildersleeve earned her BA from the College of William and Mary in 1992, and her MFA from Bard College in 2004. She has exhibited widely across the United States and abroad, including galleries and art spaces in New York, East Hampton, Charleston, Denver, Oakland, Stockholm, and Seoul.

Allison Gildersleeve has received numerous fellowships and residencies, most notably the New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fellowship, The Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Liquitex International Research Residency in London, and most recently the Pouch Cove Foundation Artist Residency Program in Canada. Gildersleeve lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Valley House Gallery is pleased to present our fourth solo exhibition of her paintings.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, June 15, 6:00pm-8:00pm, preceded by an Artist Talk at 5:30pm.

View the exhibition on Artsy

Learn more about Allison Gildersleeve

Image:
Allison Gildersleeve
Still, 2024
oil and acrylic on canvas
52 x 50 inches

Valley House Gallery in Dallas, Texas, is pleased to present the solo exhibition "Jim Woodson: Mediated Time" from January 13 through February 10, 2024.

The High Desert in Abiquiu has inspired Texas artist Jim Woodson since exploring the region via motorcycle in the late 1980’s. His paintings are a unity of the intuitive process of painting, personal ideology, and the desert landscape. Woodson embraces the concepts of time, space, and knowledge in his work and uses these three elements to title his paintings.

Jim Woodson’s “Short Statements on Painting (in no particular order)”:

Remember less, Explore More
Learn then forget, then look and discover
Move Thought into Thinking
A verb is more active than a noun
Try not to Know
A bit of knowledge spoils what can be discovered
Filter knowing at the end of the brush
Ideas Die if not Transformed

In 2013, Woodson was honored by the Texas State Legislature and the Texas Commission on the Arts as the Texas State Artist of the Year in 2D. This designation is the state’s highest recognition for excellence in the arts. He earned a BFA from Texas Christian University in 1965, and an MFA from The University of Texas at Austin in 1967. In 2014, Woodson was distinguished as Professor Emeritus at TCU, where he had been on the faculty since 1974. This is Jim Woodson’s fifth solo exhibition at Valley House Gallery.

The Opening Reception is Saturday, January 13, 6:00pm-8:00pm.

A Conversation with Jim Woodson and Dr. Mark Thistlethwaite will be held on Saturday, January 20, at 11:00am.

View the exhibition on Artsy

Learn more about Jim Woodson

Image:
Jim Woodson
Compulsory Transitional Emanations, 2023
oil on canvas
48 x 72 inches