DC Moore Gallery is pleased to present Amy Cutler: Limbo, the artist’s debut exhibition at the gallery, featuring new paintings on paper and drawings. Amy Cutler is represented by DC Moore Gallery in cooperation with Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects.
Known for her intricate, narrative paintings and drawings of women and hybrid beings absorbed in enigmatic tasks, Cutler’s latest works evoke points of transition. Her reoccurring, symbolic imagery gives form to latent thoughts and feelings, building a layered world of visual metaphors. Images of horses, turtles, boats, and travelers’ bags reoccur, invoking themes of time, movement, and progress––often impeded. These surreal narratives make sharp observations about individual and collective struggles, obsessions, and dilemmas. The burdens carried and labor performed by the women in Cutler’s paintings are suspended in action, leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
Cutler often eliminates the context of setting, placing her figures in a totally white ground or sparse landscape. In her latest paintings, orange clouds and gradient skies evoke atmospheres of transition. Elongated trees emerge from the background, taking on figurative elements, and in Abettors (2024), are fully anthropomorphized into action.
In these highly detailed works, Cutler also uses textiles and patterns to create additional resonances. Through her diverse array of visual and art historical references, from Japanese Sashiko stitching and Anni Albers textiles, to American quilts and early 20th century photography, Cutler uses material culture to draw lines from the past to the present.
The staging of bodies in Cutler’s work shares a sensibility with contemporary dance, particularly the choreography of Pina Bausch. Elements of sound and movement are central to her compositions. Cutler comments, “I often create situations that might be the result of something breaking or collapsing. I think about what noises the objects would make and draw the aftermath. Sometimes I include things that have the capability to make loud destructive noise, such as unlit fireworks. I want to create an atmosphere that has hidden pieces of unrest.”
This exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with an interview of the artist by Klaus Ottmann.
Amy Cutler’s work has been exhibited worldwide, with solo exhibitions at institutions such as the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, IA, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain. Recent solo exhibitions of her work include Amy Cutler: Past, Present, Progress at Ruby City/The Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, TX (2023), Amy Cutler: A Narrative Thread at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI (2021), Amy Cutler at the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE (2020), and Amy Cutler: Colloquies at The Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, Ireland (2019).
Her work is represented in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; The Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; New Museum, New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY.
This exhibition is running concurrently with Alexi Worth: Thinking in Threes.
For press inquiries, please contact Caroline Magavern at cmagavern@dcmooregallery.com.
