Art Spiel

Laurie Nye at Uffner & Liu

The liminal space between abstraction and figuration—between the defined and the loose, the restrained and the free—is the terrain of Laurie Nye’s first solo exhibition at Uffner & Liu in New York. In her new paintings, which range from intimate, jewel-like compositions to modestly monumental canvases, Nye proposes that everything we see can be two things at once: a flower and a portal, a tree and a cosmic axis, a landscape and a state of mind.

Upon entering the exhibition, the word “nature” immediately comes to mind—not nature as the depiction of a particular landscape, but as the animating force that makes plants grow, rivers flow, clouds drift, and nocturnal creatures take flight. Working in oil on linen and a vivid palette of pinks, greens, ochres, and lavenders, Nye builds environments that feel simultaneously observed and imagined. Her brushstrokes are decisive yet fluid, directing the eye through looping paths that recall a winding river or the movement of air through a tree. Stars, spiderwebs, flowers, insects, and owls emerge throughout, but they rarely become isolated protagonists. Instead, they blend into larger ecosystems in which every element appears connected to—and dependent upon—the others.

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