we can hardly believe the last exhibitions of 2022 are up and opening this week. solo exhibitions for three extraordinary female artists jean frater alexander, mary nelson sinclair and brigid watson. all painters who push the boundaries of painting to a place where they have found their unique visual voice. they are creating strong, emotional work meant to challenge the viewer to enter their world.
jean alexander frater experiments with the materials inherent to painting and then integrates other histories, traditions and language into this form. alexander frater was a 2017-2018 chicago artists bolt resident, received an mfa. from school of art the institute of chicago, and a ba in philosophy, from the university of dayton, ohio. her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as the wexner center for arts, columbus; el museo cultural de santa fe; images festival, toronto; possible project space, brooklyn; ben-gurion. airport, tel aviv; kulturhuset, stockholm, aspect/ratio, chicago and guest spot @ the reinstitute, baltimore.
frater works with painting as an object rather than a picture. she converses with the materiality of each piece in an effort to allow it to retain its voice. treating the surface of the canvas like fabric, frater folds to disrupt the forms she has painted on: the gestures of making are integral interests for frater, seeing the ways that these different gestures create different meanings. the ripples that result are a refreshing approach to grids, stripes, gradients, often used in abstraction. the large woven paintings are intensely physical, and the smallest ones are experimental in form and color.
mary nelson sinclair grew up in dallas and received her bachelor of fine arts in painting and printmaking from the pratt institute in 2008. her abstract paintings have a strong visual language accentuated by her color palette and materials used to make her gestural markings. she lives and works in millbrook, ny.
“my process in making work is purely meditative. i do not really plan what is going to happen on the canvas. it comes as i go.”
brigid watson is a boston based painter. she holds a masters degree from new york university and undergraduate degrees from the school of the museum of fine arts, boston and tufts university. her lush abstract paintings are known for their textured surfaces and are inspired by people, places, experiences, and travels. impasto is a technique used in painting where paint is laid on an area of the canvas thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting knife strokes are visible. in 2021 brigid received the coveted pollock-krasner award.
