Sarah Lutz & Patricia Spergel: A Conversation Afloat

Exhibition Dates: January 3, 2017 - January 28, 2017

Reception: Thursday, January 5, 6 - 8 pm

The Painting Center is pleased to announce Sarah Lutz and Patricia Spergel: A Conversation Afloat opening 1/3/17 and running through 1/28/17. Writing in the catalog essay, art historian Jennifer Samet discusses both the affinities in their work and their distinct voices. “Although Patricia Spergel and Sarah Lutz cite similar inspirations and referents in their abstract painting — water-based imagery, fertility and infertility, building facades in Latin America — their approaches, and the tonality of their work, are divergent. Spergel allows brushed forms to reveal themselves, while Lutz builds compositions using an array of tools. Lutz’s work documents aggregation, scraping down, and rebuilding; while Spergel suggests a more reductive universe, of a few atmospheric forms, gently pressing against each other and touching.

In both painters’ work, there is a narrative of overlapping, crowding, and vying for attention, which is perhaps initiated by their parallel experiences of swimming, walking along the shore, or looking at sea creatures. There is a touch of humor in their work, and the tales they evoke. For instance, in Lutz’s “Sidewalk X” (2016), a messy splotch seems to sit on a perfect, elegant stage. Spergel’s painting “Moon Jelly” (2016), suggests an eccentric story through the play of its title and the mass of red drooping down into the rectangle. These are floating stories told by the painters; hovering just a bit out of reach, but palpable nonetheless.”

Sarah Lutz was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1967 but lived most of her childhood in Vermont and Guatemala. She holds a B.S. in Studio Art from Skidmore College and an M.F.A. from The American University and lives and works in New York City and Truro, Massachusetts. Her paintings and prints have been exhibited widely, her work is in numerous private and public collections including the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, The Tang Museum, and The Art in Embassies Program. She has exhibited annually in Provincetown, MA since 2002 where she is represented by The Schoolhouse Gallery. In 2013 Lutz was interviewed by Jennifer Samet for her Hyperallergic column “Beer with a Painter”. For more information, visit www.sarah-lutz.com.

Patricia Spergel was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1960. She received her BA and BFA from Cornell University and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts and lives and works in Westchester County. She has been included in numerous group shows nationally and internationally. Spergel was included in the Northeast edition of New American Paintings in 2011 and was a highlighted artist in July 2014 on the 365artists365days blog. This past spring she co-curated a large group exhibition at 1285 Avenue of the Americas in NYC titled “Drishti: A Concentrated Gaze” which included works by 36 artists. For more information, visit www.patriciaspergel.com.

View Catalogue: Lutz-Spergel_Catalogue.pdf