Sharon Butler
Artist Statement:
My work is characterized by a tendency toward Casualism, a term I coined in an article published in The Brooklyn Rail to describe an approach to painting that values imperfection, incompleteness, and process over traditional color theory, pleasing composition, and polished forms.
In 2025, as the world began to fall apart, I was thinking about how the language of geometric abstraction might convey something about vulnerability. Working with water-based media, starting with small watercolors and eventually layering and soaking raw canvas, I began using printmaking techniques to create irregularly shaped geometries that suggest the body, architecture, and dissolution.
While I was a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University (2000-13), I was drawn to the intersection of art, writing, and emerging digital platforms. I started an online studio project called Two Coats of Paint, which has grown into an award-winning blogazine dedicated to painting.
At its core, my work is driven by a deep curiosity about the mysterious interplay between emotion, intellect, and the act of painting itself.
Artist Biography:
Sharon Butler (b. 1959, New London, Connecticut) moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after earning degrees at Tufts University (BA), Massachusetts College of Art, (BFA), and the University of Connecticut (MFA). She has held solo exhibitions in NYC at Jennifer Baahng Gallery, Theodore Gallery, Pocket Utopia, and Central Fine Arts; in Connecticut at Slater Memorial Museum, Real Art Ways, and Furnace Art on Paper Archive; in Seattle at SEASON; and in the university galleries at University of Alabama, University of Connecticut, and SUNY Westchester. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, artcritical, The New Criterion, and New York Magazine. She has received awards from Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation, Yaddo, Connecticut Commission on the Arts, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.
She lives and works in Long Island City, Queens.
AAA:
Member Since: 2023
