Cristin Tierney Gallery is pleased to participate in the Dallas Art Fair. Visit us in booth D2 to see works by Diane Burko, Joe Fig, Malia Jensen, Debbi Kenote, Ryan McGinness, Maureen O'Leary, David Opdyke, Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos), and John Wood and Paul Harrison. The fair opens with a preview day on Thursday, April 10th, and continues through Sunday, April 13th.
Color and shape, texture and composition, and representation and appropriation dominate the paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media works in our presentation in Dallas. Highlights include Sara Siestreem’s (Hanis Coos) painting foxes on the moon (2024). This artwork fuses hard-edge geometric patterns with collage elements and gestural paint handling, featuring a dynamic palette of black, white, yellow, mint, natural wood, and red. Importantly, the piece incorporates collaged lithographs and Xeroxed photo transfers of extinct Indigenous oyster shells, which recently surfaced from eroding middens adjacent to traditional village sites in the Coos Bay estuary. These ancient oyster beds and communities were irrevocably altered due to colonization that intensified in the 1800s. Siestreem’s thoughtful arrangement of the shells serves as both a memorial for cultural and ecological loss and a poignant commentary on the persistent colonial violence inflicted upon the land and its original inhabitants.
Building upon this notion of environmental fragility are Diane Burko’s paintings. They celebrate the beauty of our planet while critiquing the consequences of human activity. Driven by endless curiosity and an unwavering commitment to environmental preservation, Burko has spent five decades creating work about the realities of climate change. Her work offers a visual record of these investigations, drawing on visits to extreme environments worldwide—from the Arctic to the Amazon, coral reefs to deserts. Similarly, David Opdyke’s hand-modified vintage postcards delve into issues of environmental degradation and globalization by overlaying idyllic scenes with stark and often humorous depictions of pollution, consumption, and their consequences. His work invites viewers to reflect critically on the complex relationship between humanity and nature by juxtaposing nostalgic imagery with environmental and social concerns, prompting a re-evaluation of progress and its impact.
Malia Jensen’s bronze and ceramic sculptures offer an alternative perspective on nature, delving into themes of beauty, pleasure, connection, and vulnerability through animal symbolism. The first edition of Malia Jensen’s Rainbow Cats was created in 2003 as an invocation of complete joy; two wondrous elements combined in loving embrace. The seemingly lighthearted nine slip-cast colorful ceramic cats in Rainbow Cats embody Jensen’s signature combination of humor, beauty, and fine craft underpinned by a palpable sense of longing.
Meticulous craftsmanship continues with works by Joe Fig and Ryan McGinness, who both interrogate concepts of appropriation and figuration. Fig’s Contemplation series documents exhibitions he has attended, presenting near-verisimilitudes of the artworks and their viewers. His paintings are intricately detailed, not only in the featured art but also in the reflections on the floor and spectators’ introspective postures. McGinness's Warhol Flower Icons offer a homage to Andy Warhol’s pop aesthetic. Inspired by the artistic tradition of reinterpreting past masters, McGinness deconstructed Warhol's Flowers series and reconstructed it with his own rules and color palettes. Through extensive experimentation—including drawings and fifty test paintings—he developed a system for creating infinite variations while maintaining the original scale and number of flowers. His "flowers after flowers" approach offers a fresh take on Warhol's genius.
The gallery’s curated presentation brings environmental and emotional sensitivity to the fore. Comprising nine artists and collaborators from our program, these works invite viewers to reflect on our connections to the earth and each other.
Diane Burko’s (b. 1945, New York, NY) work in painting, photography, and time-based media considers the marks that human conversations make on the landscape. A Professor Emerita of the Community College of Philadelphia with additional teaching experience at Princeton University, Burko has received multiple grants from the NEA, the Pennsylvania Arts Council, the Leeway Foundation, and the Independence Foundation. She has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art. She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, including shows at London’s Royal Academy of Art, Minneapolis Art Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Phillips Collection, RISD Museum, Tang Museum, and Wesleyan University Center for the Arts. Burko has been awarded residencies in Giverny, Bellagio, the Arctic Circle, and the Amazon Rainforest. In 2021, her solo exhibition Seeing Climate Change at the American University Museum was cited in the New York Times as one of the best shows of 2021. Her work is held in 40 public collections nationwide, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Denver Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Phillips Collection, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Burko’s studio is located in Philadelphia, PA.
Joe Fig (b. 1968, Seaford, NY) has produced a diverse body of work encompassing painting, sculpture, photography, and drawing, in which he examines the role of the artist, the creative process, and the self-made universe of the artist's studio. His work has been exhibited at the Dayton Art Institute, Sarasota Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art, Chazen Museum of Art, Fleming Museum, Bass Museum of Art, Parrish Art Museum, Tampa Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Norton Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, and New Britain Museum of American Art. Numerous institutions hold his work in their collections, including the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Chazen Museum of Art, Parrish Art Museum, Toledo Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Hood Museum of Art, Library of Congress, New Britain Museum of American Art, and New York Public Library. Fig is the author of two critically acclaimed books, Inside the Artist's Studio (2015) and Inside the Painter's Studio (2009). He is the Department Chair of both Fine Arts and Visual Studies at Ringling College of Art + Design. His studio is located in Florida.
Malia Jensen (b. 1966, Honolulu, HI) is known for her work in sculpture and video. The artist draws inspiration from the natural world and the complex relationships we negotiate within it. Her technically accomplished work marries the tactile authority of the hand-made with complex psychological narratives and a genuine quest for harmony and understanding. She has exhibited at The Schneider Museum of Art, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Holter Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, and Mesa Arts Center. Her work can be found in many public and private collections nationally and throughout the Northwest, including the Portland Art Museum, Schneider Museum of Art, 21C Museum & Hotels, JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, and Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Headland Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Yucca Valley Materials Lab, and the Portland Garment Factory. Jensen has been a visiting artist at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Whitman College, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design and has mentored students at Oregon College of Arts and Crafts and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Jensen’s studio is located in Portland, OR.
Debbi Kenote (b. 1991, Anacortes, WA) is an abstract painter who works in shapes and takes inspiration from puzzles, the history of quilting, and the Bauhaus movement. The artist has exhibited at galleries internationally, including shows at Cristin Tierney Gallery, My Pet Ram, Kate Werble, and Marvin Gardens in New York; Duran|Mashaal Gallery in Montreal; Cob Gallery in London; and Fir Gallery in Beijing. She received her BFA in Painting from Western Washington University and her MFA in Sculpture from Brooklyn College. Kenote has been published through Liquitex, Maake Magazine, Elle Magazine, Innovate Grant, Suboart, The Hopper Prize, Art of Choice, and Hyperallergic. Her work has been placed in several collections, including the OZ Art Collection and the Capital One Corporate Collection. She has been an artist in residence at the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Saltonstall Foundation, PLOP, Nes Artist Residency, and the Mineral School. In 2022, she was a finalist for the Innovate Grant, and in 2021, she was shortlisted for the Hopper Prize. Kenote has a studio in Brooklyn, NY.
Ryan McGinness (b. 1972, Virginia Beach, VA) is an artist known for his meditative paintings, installations, and screenprints that explore how contemporary iconography can communicate personal meaning. His work incorporates the graphic elements of public signage, corporate logos, and images from art history, creating fantastical networks of imagery. McGinness's work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Cranbrook Art Museum, the New York Public Library, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland, and the Charles Saatchi Collection, among other institutions. The artist has a studio in New York, NY.
Maureen O'Leary's (b. 1965, Washington, DC) paintings hover between figuration and abstraction. Her mundane scenes become substrates for experimentation with the application of paint and the evolving notion of what is real. O'Leary's work has been exhibited at the Custom House in Westport, Ireland, Fondation des États-Unis, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, Art Lab Tokyo, Midwest Center for Photography, Artspace, Power Plant Gallery at Duke University, Valdosta State University Fine Arts Gallery, Staten Island Museum, Meadows Gallery - University of Texas at Tyler, and more. She is the recipient of the Brooklyn Arts Council - Brooklyn Arts Fund Grant and the Harriet Hale Woolley Fellowship from the Fondation des États-Unis. O'Leary has published four books: By The Same Sea, Homes of The Irish Diaspora (2023), Record (2021), Belle Mort (2013, Paper Chase Press), and Look/Listen (2010, Look/Listen Press). Her work is held in the collections of the Fondation des États-Unis and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. She has studios in Long Island, NY, and Puerto Rico.
David Opdyke's (b. 1969, Schenectady, NY) work explores globalization, consumerism, and civilization’s abusive relationship with the environment. In 2022, he collaborated with the Climate Museum in its first pop-up exhibition in Soho. In 2020, Phaidon published a book based on his large-scale postcard project, This Land,including essays by Lawrence Weschler and Maya Wiley. Opdyke’s work has been exhibited at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Wright Museum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, Krannert Art Museum, and North Dakota Museum of Art, among others. His work is held in public collections internationally, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Deutsche Bank Collection, Louisiana State University Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Wake Forest University Art Museum, Washington Convention Center Authority, Pardon Collection, and more. The artist lives and works in Queens, NY.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos, b. 1976, Springfield, OR) is a multidisciplinary artist from the Umpqua River Valley on the South Coast of Oregon, working in painting, photography, printmaking, weaving, and large-scale installation. Coming from a family of professional artists and educators, Siestreem began her training at home. She graduated Phi Kappa Phi with a BS from Portland State University in 2005 and earned an MFA with distinction from Pratt Art Institute in 2007. Siestreem created a self-sustaining weaving program for the Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw people. She was awarded the University of Oregon’s 2022-23 CFAR Fellowship and the 2022 Forge Project Fellowship, which recognized her as one of six Indigenous individuals representing a broad diversity of cultural practices, participatory research, organizing models, and geographic contexts that honor Indigenous pasts and build Native futures. Her work, which has been exhibited internationally, is in many collections, including the Gochman Family Foundation, Forge Project, Missoula Art Museum, Museum of Fine Art, and the Portland Art Museum. Siestreem’s work was recently included in the landmark 2023 book An Indigenous Present, conceived and edited by Jeffrey Gibson (Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee). She lives and works in Portland, OR.
John Wood (b. 1969, Hong Kong) and Paul Harrison (b. 1966, Wolverhampton) make single-channel videos, multi-screen video installations, paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures that elegantly fuse advanced aesthetic research with existential comedy. They met in 1989 at the Bath College of Higher Education and have worked together since 1993. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, the Kunstmuseum Thun, Mori Art Museum, the Ludwig Museum, the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, the Kunstmuseum Luzern, the Marc Fassiaty Video Foundation, the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, the Ulster Museum, and the Carnegie Museum, among others. Numerous institutions hold their work in their collections, including The Tate, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the UK Arts Council Collection, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the UK Government Art Collection, the Kadist Foundation in Paris, the Mudam Museum of Modern Art, the Tel Aviv Museum, the Ludwig Collection, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, the Musée d’Art Contemporain in Languedoc-Roussillon, and the Museo de Antioquia, Medellín, among others. The artists’ studio is located in Bristol, UK.
Founded in 2010, Cristin Tierney Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located on The Bowery with a deep commitment to the presentation, development, and support of a roster of both established and emerging artists. Its program emphasizes artists engaged with critical theory and art history, with an emphasis on conceptual, video, and performance art. Education and audience engagement is central to our mission. Cristin Tierney Gallery is a member of the ADAA (Art Dealers Association of America).