Sharon Butler

Theodore:Art is pleased to present an exhibition of recent work by New York-based painter Sharon Butler. This will be Butler's first New York solo show since 2013.

Moving from sublet to studio share to Yaddo and other residencies over several years, Butler has incorporated the migrational spatial experience of a contemporary painter into shifting imagery, material, and process, reflecting the transient and often tenuous existence of artists in New York.

Now settled into a permanent studio overlooking the Manhattan Bridge, Butler has moved her practice to a more fixed ground on which to build firm structures that investigate painting and its discontents more thoroughly. Accordingly, Butler has dispensed with earlier casual installation strategies, which transitional circumstances necessitated. Working on stretched canvas with oil paint, Butler has time to prime, to wonder, to revise. Time to watch paint dry.

Through her blog Two Coats of Paint, Butler has been connecting the dots of the larger conversation about contemporary painting, from temporary workspaces to the institutional canon. Butler teaches in the MFA programs at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the University of Connecticut. She has lectured as a visiting critic at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Brown University, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Maryland Institute College of Art, and others.