NEW YORK, NY.- Miles McEnery Gallery is presenting new works by Erin Lawlor in her third solo exhibition with the gallery. On view 8 January through 14 February 2026 at 525 West 22nd Street, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Emily Steer.
Erin Lawlor’s bold new body of work continues her long-standing exploration of abstraction as a site where art-historical, cultural, and mythological narratives intertwine. These new paintings surge with swirling, sumptuous strokes—brushwork that channels the chromatic depth of Old Master landscapes while pushing into a realm entirely her own. Hints of rarefied pinks and blues emerge from rich, autumnal grounds, as though the palette of a 17th-century portrait had been lifted, loosened, and reconstituted through a contemporary hand. Lawlor’s embrace of increased scale, velocity, and exuberance marks a shift toward a more assertive yet still playful visual language. Her work draws inspiration from painterly traditions that span from Titian and Peter Paul Rubens to modern figures such as Frank Auerbach and David Hockney, abstracting and dramatizing the romantic and decadent qualities embedded in the history of painting.
Leaning, reaching, and circling the surfaces like a choreographer mapping a stage, Lawlor paints rapidly in wet oil over horizontal canvases, steadily building each composition through sweeping gestures. The paintings carry this urgency: marks that are both bound by the reach of the body and propelled by its momentum, creating an open, immediate field of expression that underscores the directness of her engagement with paint.
What emerges is a series of works that feel palpably alive. As Emily Steer writes in the accompanying publication, Lawlor “paints from the inside out,” allowing the image to unfold intuitively rather than imposing a fixed structure. Her brushstrokes oscillate between measured control and explosive release, while her color palette—romantic, lyrical, and eerily familiar—reveals the depth and drama possible within a tightly held set of hues. Steer notes that Lawlor’s paintings “unfurl the history of the medium’s roots, revel in its emotional capacity, and build vast universes into which her viewers can freely tumble.” Through their vitality and depth, the works affirm painting as a site of continual reinvention—rooted in history while cajoled by the contemporary conscience.
Erin Lawlor (b. 1969 in Epping, United Kingdom) received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Paris IV – La Sorbonne, Paris, France.
Lawlor is the subject of a major traveling solo exhibition, “divining,” which will visit three exhibition spaces in Ireland over the course of 2025 and 2026, including Highlanes Gallery, Drogheda, Ireland; the Galway International Arts Festival, Galway, Ireland; and The Source Arts Centre, Thurles, Ireland.
Additional solo exhibitions include Espacio Valverde, Madrid, Spain; Fox Jensen, Sydney, Australia; Fox Jensen McCrory Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand; Galerie Pavec, Paris, France; Luca Tommasi Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Vigo Gallery, London, United Kingdom; and Wellington Arch Museum, London, United Kingdom, among others.
Other institutional exhibitions include a survey exhibition, “onomatopoeia” (2017), Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia; “Maleri.Nu/Paint.Now” (2016), Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen; and “British Painting” (2019), Space K Museum, Seoul, South Korea.
Recent group exhibitions have been held at Ahmanson Gallery, Irvine, CA; Andrew Rafacz, Chicago, IL; Fox Jensen Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Gerhard Hofland Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX; Irish Arts Center, New York, NY; JARILAGER Gallery, Cologne, Germany; Kastrupgård Collection, Copenhagen, Denmark; l’Appartement de Jacques Prévert, Paris, France; Luca Tommasi, Milano, Italy; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; The Royal Academy of Art, London, United Kingdom; Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, United Kingdom; and UNION Gallery, London, United Kingdom, amongst others.
Her work may be found in the collections of the Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia, The Women’s Art Collection, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and Space K Museum, Seoul, South Korea.
Lawlor lives and works in London, United Kingdom.
