painting techniques

June 15, 2026June 13, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Seeing and Recognition: The Paintings of Lee Sherry

Lee Sherry, Installation view, Seeing and Recognition

Lee Sherry (1947–2012) showed paintings in New York and Boston through the 1970s and 1980s, moved in the circles of the Language poets, and left behind a body of work that almost no one knew existed. Seeing and Recognition, on view at Field of Play Gallery in Brooklyn through June 28th, is the first survey of her paintings — assembled by curator and artist David McDonough, artist Susan Bee, who was a close friend of Sherry’s in the 1970s, and artist and archivist Zak Vreeland, who acquired works directly from her studio after her death. The show brings together paintings that span decades, from early experiments made in dialogue with minimalism to luminous, layered late work that unfolds the longer you look. We spoke with David McDonough, Susan Bee, and Zak Vreeland about how the show came together, what the paintings do, and why Sherry’s work went unseen for so long.

April 6, 2026March 30, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Tobias Pils: Shh at Mumok Vienna

Tobias Pils’s paintings do not give themselves up quickly. It took me two long visits to begin to grasp his extensive solo exhibition at Mumok, curated by Manuela Ammer across two floors and ten years of work. The show traces a practice rooted in personal experience and daily life, charting a shift from floor to easel painting and revealing how drawing and painting remain in constant dialogue throughout. The layout rewards sustained attention and makes the changes over time visible. I viewed the exhibition in reverse, starting with the floor of Pils’s most recent works.

March 18, 2026March 17, 2026, by Etty Yaniv

Kylie Heidenheimer: Attenuated Figuration

Kylie Heidenheimer came to painting through an early interest in art restoration. After high school, she attended Grinnell College in Iowa, where she studied chemistry, art history, and 2-D studio art. Following her freshman year, she spent the summer as an art restoration intern at the Museum für Völkerkunde in then West Berlin. While there, she began drawing and painting with gouache on paper on her own. By the end of that summer, she had decided to pursue art seriously. Not long after, her focus shifted to oil painting.

Her path toward abstraction grew out of a strong foundation in figurative work. After her sophomore year at Grinnell, she returned to St. Louis to attend art school at Washington University. The core program was rigorous and heavily figurative, with intensive anatomy drawing and figure sculpture classes, followed by a return to painting.

May 27, 2024May 6, 2024, by Amy Talluto

Whisperings from the Wormhole with @talluts

**Some Thoughts About Portrait Artist of the Year, a British TV Show**

*Portrait Artist of the Year* 2019 Season 5, Episode 8, Sky Arts; Artist: Rebecca Train, Sitter: Daniel Lismore

One of my guilty pleasures is binge-watching creativity reality shows, especially from the UK. We’ve got the Great Pottery Throw Down, where the judge, a great hulking potter in overalls with a Wallace and Gromit face, bursts into tears every time he sees a beautifully made ceramic. There’s Blown Away, a glass-blowing show with lots of macho folk blowing glass sweatily. And there’s Landscape Artist of the Year. But my all-time favorite is Sky Art’s Portrait Artist of the Year.

May 22, 2023May 19, 2023, by Amanda Millet-Sorsa

Paige Beeber – on Phantom Thread

In conversation

By Amanda Millet-Sorsa

A person sitting in front of a large painting

Description automatically generated with medium confidence — Paige Beeber. Photo credit: Sharon Kendrick

Prior to her exhibition, Phantom Thread at Freight+Volume, Paige Beeber spoke with Amanda Millet-Sorsa at the artist’s studio in Brooklyn. Nestled into a Cube Smart storage space building in Gowanus on the edge of Red Hook, the studio is part of TI Studios. Beeber’s long family roots in Brooklyn date back to the early 1900s, as she continues to live and work in this borough. Her new work evolved from experiences she had at residencies in 2022 (DNA Residency in Provincetown, SARP in Sicily, and recently completed her fellowship at The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation). Her work exists between narration, figuration, and abstraction and largely uses the repurposing of her own past paintings that transform into new patterns, motifs, and imagery in new paintings. Ritual and community play an essential role in the stitching of new narratives.

June 10, 2020June 9, 2020, by Etty Yaniv

Artists on Coping: Ed Grant

During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Ed Grant is a painter, originally from Vermont, living and working in Brooklyn. He received his BA in Studio Art from the University of Vermont and his MFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. He focuses in his paintings on liminality and experience as a continuum, while referencing both the microscopic (cells) and the macroscopic (universe). Ground Floor Gallery is exhibiting Ed’s recent paintings on Artsy.