Agnes Barley

Agnes Barley’s second solo exhibition at Sears-Peyton Gallery in New York debuts a new body of work that gently invites the viewer into a triad of painter, painting and viewer.  They say, quietly, You see me; here I am. I see you.  The organic forms on Barley’s new canvases are a departure from the straight architectural lines of her previous works on paper, but they speak the same language. They are all about space and proximity: the space between shapes; the mysterious space between pigment and ground from which luminosity miraculously emanates; the proximity between artist and viewer, brought together momentarily through this encounter.    

“The works reflect a direct physical relationship and the moment of their making,” Barley writes, “they chart consciousness.” Barley’s forms evanescently appear, whole and luminous in the moment of their becoming, edged everywhere by an airy space in which they might just as quickly disappear. 

Agnes Barley (b. 1970) lives and works in New York. Recent exhibitions include “Straight on Til Morning” at Jeff Marfa (2021), “On Edge” at Sears-Peyton (2022), and “Summer in Love” at OV Projects in Ixelles, Belgium (2020). She completed a residency at Bovina Residency Worth Art Advisory in 2018, and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts with Joan Snyder, at New Smyrna Beach, Florida in 2017. Her work is in many private and corporate collections.