drawing through: beth dary, william holton, patricia spergel

Exhibition Dates: maY 24 - June 18, 2022

Reception: Thursday, maY 26, 5pM - 8pm

The Painting Center is pleased to present Drawing Through: Recent works by Beth Dary, William Holton & Patricia Spergel on view from May 24 through June 18, 2022 in the Project Room. The three artists are long-time supportive friends who frequently exchange studio visits and conversations. While at first glance their works seem quite different, they each rely on strong linear elements as the armature to their respective artistic inquiries. Seeing their paintings, monoprints, sculpture and photograms in the same intimate space will challenge the viewer to make these connections and allow their ideas to bounce off of each other.

Beth Dary is a NY based artist whose work explores global themes that reflect upon the natural world in a variety of media, often creating site-specific and public art installations that are responsive to the environment. Dary holds a BFA from Syracuse University and an MFA from Memphis College of Art. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, arts institutions, and museums nationally and internationally. She has received grants from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Manhattan Community Arts Fund, and has been commissioned by The Battery Park City Authority in Manhattan to create a public art installation for the Rockefeller Park’s Lily Pond. Dary has also received numerous fellowships, residencies and awards including Yaddo, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Two Trees Cultural Space Subsidy Program. Her work is included in private, corporate and museum collections in the USA and Europe.

William Holton lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and exhibits nationally. His recent paintings are driven by a fascination with complex systems in nature and how these systems accommodate exponential growth, and how chance and uncertainty produce richly configured, ever-changing structures. The paintings come from a process which embraces the complexity that evolves from a place of simplicity. Holton holds a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the recipient of several awards including a Fellowship Award from Vermont Studio Center, a Merit Award from Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN and a Regional Visual Arts Fellowship, Southern Arts Federation/NEA.

Patricia Spergel is a Westchester, NY based artist whose newest paintings speak to the continuity of themes that have been present in the artist’s work for decades - filtered light, multiple layers of paint, and a vocabulary of interacting shapes repelling and attracting one another, often combined with both distinct and obscured linear elements. Spergel holds a BA/BFA from Cornell University and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. She has also been included in numerous group shows nationally and internationally, including a one person show at Tjaden Gallery at Cornell and several exhibitions as a member of The Painting Center. In addition she is an active curator and was selected, with Elizabeth Heskin and Tracey Ravdin Perlmutter, as the 2022-23 curatoral team for 1GAP Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.