Curated by artist McArthur Binion and Anna Stothart, Curatorial Director at Lehmann Maupin, Over and Under :: Painting and Weaving will unveil Brett's recent work.

February 15 - March 8, 2020
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 15, from 6 - 8 PM
Parasol Projects, 213 Bowery, New York, NY 10002

Nancy Brett’s first solo show in New York in a decade, Over and Under :: Painting and Weaving, will feature new paintings and weavings and will open at 213 Bowery on February 15, 2020. Curated by McArthur Binion, well-known painter and long-time friend of the artist, and Anna Stothart, Curatorial Director at Lehmann Maupin, the exhibition will explore Brett’s use of the ancient tradition of weaving as both structure and metaphor in her work. The warp and weft of weaving is, in essence, a minimalist grid, which for Brett provides the basis of all of her mark making―woven, drawn, painted―and is the formal language within which she explores variations in line and color. The show will be on view through March 8, 2020. 

Since the 1990s, Brett has moved away from a representational method of painting to one that celebrates the intersection between weaving and drawing. Each painting is comprised of layers of pigment (flashe and/or oil) on vellum, canvas, or wood. Similar to the weavings they are inspired by, her layered grids reveal structure, history, and gesture and appear three dimensional, as though they are caught in the midst of formation. Brett’s woven works incorporate a variety of unconventional and repurposed materials including wire, graph paper, silk, and various traditional and non-traditional pigments. Her materials are often personal or autobiographical, and range from comic books from her childhood to film found in Hollywood movie lots. Referencing language, architecture, and ancient textiles, Brett’s work blurs the boundaries between drawing, handwriting, text, and fiber.

Despite her innovations in the minimalist artistic landscape and rigorous studio practice, Brett’s work has remained largely unseen, both because she is a woman creating abstract paintings dealing with the grid and due to her exploration of materiality using textiles and weaving. Brett has spent her career confronting the biases around craft and weaving by creating a reciprocal interchange between both tenets of her practice, making paintings in ways that reflect the weaving process and incorporating painting in her weavings. This exhibition is a culmination of her practice to date, marking a resurgence of her work publicly. The title, Over and Under :: Painting and Weaving, exemplifies the equitable interchange between Brett’s two primary modes of making. Each work in the exhibition alludes to the significance of weaving for Brett’s creative process, while pushing the boundaries of the minimalist grid, the incorporation of language and drawing, and assumptions about abstract painting. 

Nancy Brett is a visual artist from Detroit, MI, currently living and working in New York city. She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Wayne State University. She is the recipient of many prestigious grants and fellowships, including grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, an Individual Support Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation, and six consecutive residency fellowships from Yaddo, among others. Brett's work is represented in many private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia; Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; and The National Gallery in Washington, D.C., among others.

For sales and other inquiries: 
Anna Stothart, Curator