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Sharon Butler
Born1959 (age 64–65)
New London, Connecticut, U.S.
EducationTufts University, Massachusetts College of Art, University of Connecticut
Known forAbstract painting, Art blogging
Notable workTwo Coats of Paint
MovementCasualism
AwardsCreative Capital, Warhol Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Websitewww.sharonlbutler.com

Sharon Butler (born 1959) is an American artist and arts writer. She is known for teasing out ideas about contemporary abstraction in her art and writing, particularly a style she called "new casualism" in a 2011 essay.[1][2][3] Butler uses process as metaphor and has said in artist's talks that she is keenly interested in creating paintings as documentation of her life.[4][5][6] In a 2014 review in the Washington Post, art critic Michael Sullivan wrote that Butler "creates sketchy, thinly painted washes that hover between representation and abstraction.Though boasting such mechanistic titles as 'Tower Vents' and 'Turbine Study,' Butler’s dreamlike renderings, which use tape to only suggest the roughest outlines of architectural forms, feel like bittersweet homages to urban decay."[7] Critic Thomas Micchelli proposed that Butler's work shares "Rauschenberg’s dissolution of the barriers between painting and sculpture," particularly where the canvases are "stapled almost willy-nilly to the front of the stretcher bars, which are visible along the edges of some of the works."[8]

From 2016 -2023, her canvases were based on small daily drawings that she made each day (2016-2020) in a phone app and posted on Instagram.[9][10] In a 2018 conversation about the process of making paintings from these diminutive digital images, she said that the sense of surface and touch are inherent to a painting must be invented in the digital space. The images are never what they seem, especially when viewed on the phone."[5] Critic Laurie Fendrich called Butler's work "beautiful and grittily compelling," suggesting in a 2021 review that her brushwork and color come out of her earlier casualist approach.The paintings "feel slightly off-balance, but not so much that they’re ugly. They’re actually just right: off-balance only enough to avoid cliché."[11]

In a 2023 review in The Brooklyn Rail, Adam Simon wrote that Butler approaches geometric abstraction with an unusual restlessness and an idiosyncratic penchant for disequilibrium, and he declared that her paintings are full of "innuendo and wit."[12]

She has said that at the root of her art practice is an effort to understand the relationship between emotion and intellect. "The tension between exacting, mechanical processes -- often digital and screen-based -- and the humanism inherent in handmade images and objects have always been stand-ins --  a visual metaphor -- in my work."

Painting on four canvases
Sharon Butler, BQE, 2024, oil on canvas, four panels, 50 x 42 inches
Sharon Butler, Leggy (May 29, 2018), 2020, oil on canvas, 52 x 45 inches
Sharon Butler, Gas Grill 2 (Bomb), 2014. pigment and binder on unstretched canvas, 72 x 84 inches

Early life and education

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Butler was born in New London, Connecticut, and moved to New York City in the late 1980s.[13] She has a B.A. in Art History from Tufts University (Medford, MA), a B.F.A. in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art (Boston, MA), and an M.F.A. in Art from the University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT), where she studied with Deborah Dancy, Walter McConnell.[14][15]

Exhibitions

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Butler has shown her work internationally at galleries in Baltimore, Birmingham, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Hartford, Miami, London, Los Angeles, Paris, New York, Seattle, Tuscaloosa,and other cities. In 2014, she was the inaugural resident at Counterproof Press where she published a series of etchings that foreshadowed her interest in geometric drawing.[16]

Jennifer Baahng Gallery (New York, NY),[17] Theodore:Art (Brooklyn, NY),[18][19][20] Pocket Utopia (New York, NY),[8][21] and SEASON (Seattle, WA)[22][23][24] are among the galleries with which Butler has been affiliated. Her work is in collections at the William Benton Museum of Art (Storrs, CT), Eastern Connecticut State University (Willimantic CT), Southern New Hampshire University, and has been published in the Harvard Review.[25]

Arts writing

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Butler is an arts writer. In 2007 she founded Two Coats of Paint, which was among the first of the professional art blogs developed by artists.[26] Two Coats of Paint was named one of the best art blogs in New York by Time Out.[27] It was awarded several grants, including the Creative Capital / Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2013) for art blogs.[28][29] The project has expanded to include a small press, curatorial projects, and an artists' residency program.[30] Her essays have been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Gulf Coast, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, The American Prospect, and other publications.[29] Through her lectures and teaching, she has encouraged artists to contribute to the art community by organizing salons, residency programs, curating exhibitions,[31] writing art criticism, and other activities that provide opportunities to other artists.[32] She was inducted into the AICA-USA organization for art critics in 2023.[33]

Casualism

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Main article: Casualism (art)

In 2011, in an essay called Abstract Painting: The New Casualists, published in The Brooklyn Rail, Butler coined the term "casualism" for a new type of abstraction that featured a self-amused, anti-heroic style with an interest in off-kilter composition and impermanence. She suggested that artists' interest in irresolution reflected wider insights about culture and society.[34] Many younger artists responded positively to the essay, embracing the notion of "casualism,"[35][36][37][38] while others rejected the term, suggesting it "whiffed of 'labelism,' and 'crypto-institutionalism.'"[39] Subsequent interviews and art reviews of Butler's own work made clear that ideas for the original article were rooted in her own painting practice and artist statement. The Casualist tendency continued to inform her work for many years, although she eventually returned to more traditional stretched-canvas formats.[40][41]

Awards and residencies

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Butler has been awarded the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (1991),[42] and the Creative Capital/ Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writing Program Grant for Art Blogs (2013, with follow-up grant in 2016).[29] She has also received residencies from Art21 (PBS affiliate), New York, NY (2009),[43] Counterproof Press (2014),[44] Yaddo (2015, 2018),[45] and the Cultural Space Subsidy Program (2015–2018, 2019–2021, 2022- 2025).[46] She was inducted into American Abstract Artists in 2023.[47]

References

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  1. ^ Panero, James (March 2016). "Gallery Chronicle". The New Criterion.
  2. ^ Relyea, Lane (October 8, 2012). "D.I.Y. Abstraction". WOWHUH. Retrieved May 22, 2020.
  3. ^ Geers, David (March 2015). "Formal Affairs". Frieze. 169.
  4. ^ Vermont Studio Center (May 1, 1999). "Visiting Artist Talk: Sharon Butler". You Tube. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  5. ^ a b Wayne, Leslie (2018-10-01). "Light is Beauty: Sharon Butler talks art, life and blogging". Artcritical. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  6. ^ Schwartz, Julia; Ralón, Laureano (2014-09-19). "A Conversation with Sharon Butler". Figure/Ground. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  7. ^ Sullivan, Michael (January 16, 2014). "Art review: 'Residue' at Ada Rose Gallery". The Washington Post.
  8. ^ a b Micchelli, Thomas (January 12, 2013). "When Paintings Come Apart: Sharon Butler on the Inside Out". Hyperallergic. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  9. ^ D'Agostino, Paul (2018-09-22). "Instagram Cats". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  10. ^ Butler, Sharon (2016–2020). "Good Morning Drawings on Instagram". www.instagram.com. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
  11. ^ Fendrich, Laurie (February 26, 2021). "Accidental on Purpose: Sharon Butler at Theodore:Art". artcritical. Retrieved May 5, 2021.
  12. ^ Simon, Adam (2022-10-04). "Sharon Butler: NEXT MOVES". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  13. ^ Louden, Sharon (2013). Living and Sustaining a Creative Life. United Kingdom: Intellect Books Limited. ISBN 9781783201358.
  14. ^ Butler, Sharon L. (1994). "From the Spark of Opposites. Diss". University of Connecticut (School of Fine Arts), 1994. – via Google Scholar.
  15. ^ Louden, Sharon (2017). Artists As Culture Producer. New York: Intellect Books. ISBN 9781783207282.
  16. ^ Jenne, Ginger (2017-10-24). "Sharon Butler Print Series at Counterproof Press". Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  17. ^ Simon, Adam (2022-10-04). "Sharon Butler: NEXT MOVES". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2023-08-18.
  18. ^ Riley, Benjamin (February 2, 2016). "The Critics Notebook". The New Criterion.
  19. ^ Halle, Howard (January 25, 2016). "Critic's Picks: Sharon Butler". Time Out New York.
  20. ^ Munk, Loren (January 11, 2016). "Kick Off The Lower East Side, Williamsburg, Bushwick". The James Kalm Report. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  21. ^ "Tamara Gonzales and Sharon Butler - An Artist Dialogue Series Event". New York Public Library. May 4, 2013. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  22. ^ Clemens, Gayle (May 25, 2017). "Visual-Arts Picks". Seattle Times.
  23. ^ Pini, Gary (May 10, 2017). "11 Must-see Art Shows This Week". Paper Magazine.
  24. ^ Langer, Erin (May 1, 2017). "Seattle Critics' Picks". Art Ltd Magazine.
  25. ^ Butler, Sharon (2016). "Three paintings and six images". Harvard Review. 49: 214+ – via Gale Academic OneFile.
  26. ^ Finch, Charlie (October 26, 2007). "A Not-so-vast Right Wing Conspiracy". artnet. Retrieved May 17, 2020.
  27. ^ Halle, Howard (January 30, 2018). "The best art websites". Time Out New York. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  28. ^ Fenstermaker, Will (June 28, 2017). "Follow these 8 Artist-run Blogs to Keep up with Art Criticism Today". ArtSpace.
  29. ^ a b c "Sharon Butler - Grantees - Arts Writers Grant Program". Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Art Writers Program. 2013. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  30. ^ Gavriel, Kate (2018-04-17). "DUMBO Open Studios: Sharon Butler". DUMBO Open Studios. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  31. ^ Butler, Sharon (December 2019). "The Daily / Curator's Statement". Ely Center of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
  32. ^ TEDxOrlando (January 1, 2011). "TEDxOrlando: Sharon Butler". You Tube. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  33. ^ "AICA-USA Welcomes New Members". us15.campaign-archive.com. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  34. ^ Butler, Sharon L. (2011-06-03). "ABSTRACT PAINTING: The New Casualists". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  35. ^ Fraser, Pamela; Rothman, Roger (2017). Beyond Critique: Contemporary Art in Theory, Practice, and Instruction. USA: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 117. ISBN 978-1501323461.
  36. ^ Micchelli, Thomas (June 29, 2015). "The New Casualists Strike Again". Hyperallergic. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  37. ^ Westgeest, Helen (2019). "Looking at Painting as Watching Slow Video Art: An Intermedial Experience of Disruption in the Work of Corinne Wasmuht". ASAP/Journal. 4 (3): 556. doi:10.1353/asa.2019.0039. S2CID 213029526.
  38. ^ Bickel, Megan (December 2, 2018). "Keltie Ferris: *O*P*E*N* at the Speed Art Museum: Casualist Painting / Not-cAsual SetTing". Aequi. Retrieved May 23, 2020.
  39. ^ Antonini, Marco; Ho, Christopher (2014). Golden Age: Perspectives on Abstract Painting Today. Brooklyn NY: NURTUREart. p. 7.
  40. ^ Johnson, Elizabeth (December 26, 2013). "Sharon Butler's New Casualist paintings at The Painting Center in New York". Artblog.
  41. ^ Neal, Patrick (February 5, 2016). "Philosophical Paintings that Bare Their Process". Hyperallergic. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
  42. ^ "Sharon Butler | Works | Pollock Krasner Image Collection". pkf-imagecollection.org. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  43. ^ "History". Art21. Retrieved 2020-05-17.
  44. ^ "Counterproof Press 2014-2015". 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  45. ^ "Yaddo Guest Artists". 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  46. ^ "Cultural Space Subsidy Program". 2015. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  47. ^ "American Abstract Artists". Retrieved 2024-06-19.
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