THE EXPANDING PLANE

April 03, 2025 - April 25, 2025

Deb Covell, Jo McGonigal , Howard Schwartzberg, Alex Stolyarov, Tad Wiley

The Expanding Plane" brings together five contemporary artists who challenge traditional notions of painting by pushing the material to its physical boundaries—exploring its sculptural potential and redefining our understanding of pictorial space. Each artist approaches this inquiry through distinct methods, working with surfaces such as burlap, wood, metal, folded acrylic skins, and dry pigments. Here, paint transcends its conventional role, becoming an active, transformative force in the creation of form. These works reject the constraints of traditional painting, engaging directly with space and expanding the limits of pictorial expression. The artists seek to bring form into being through the raw materiality of paint itself, inviting the viewer to contemplate the tension between the ephemeral and the eternal, and the shifting relationship between form, surface, and perception.

DEB COVELL

Deb Covell (b.1966, Stockton on Tees) lives and works in Teesside and is represented by Gray Contemporary, USA. She received her BA Fine Art from Liverpool Polytechnic and her MA Fine Art from UEL. She was a finalist in the 2014 Aesthetica Art Prize, and her works are held in private and public collections, including the MIMA Collection, Middlesbrough.

Selected exhibitions include, Altered States, Kirkleatham Museum 2020, Legacy, The Auxiliary, Middlesbrough, 2019, Ing Discering Eye Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London 2018, Shaping, Kathryn Markel Gallery, New York, 2018, After an Act, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2018, Eccentric Geometric, Arthouse 1, London, 2017, Bauhaus Babies, Odetta Gallery, New York, 2017, 0/1 KNO, National Art Museum, Ukraine, 2017, Real Lines, Gray Contemporary, USA, 2016, The Fold, Blyth Gallery, London, 2016, Fall of the Rebel Angels, 55th Venice Biennale, 2015, Real Painting, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, 2015, From Nowt to Summat, MIMA, Middlesbrough

Jo McGonigal

Jo McGonigal is a UK artist and Fine Art Lecturer in the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds.

Her practice has gained significant recognition within the last few years, with a number of important mid-career group shows, several solo shows and attention from leading writers and art historians. The concerns that drive this work are new materialities/-isms and paintings intersection with architecture. McGonigal recently had her first major UK solo exhibition BLANCO, staged at Patricia Fleming Gallery, Glasgow. In September last year she presented new work in a two-person show with Frank Bowling (OBE) for the 40th year anniversary of Castlefield Gallery, Manchester with new writing by Griselda Pollock (Laureate of the Holberg Prize, 2020). She has participated in numerous other exhibitions including: Pale Ground, Studio2, 2023 with new writing by Tim Ingold (CBE FBA FRSE); Working Space, The Minories, Colchester, 2024; Hard Paper, Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, 2024; Blinder, Patricia Fleming Projects Glasgow, 2019; Contemporary British Painting 2019; Hard Painting, Phoenix Gallery Brighton 2020; Come and Go. Halt Extreme Left, Winchester Art Gallery, UK, 2019. McGonigal was also co-curator of Real Painting, Castlefield Gallery, 2015; Eccentric Geometric, Arthouse1, 2018. McGonigal is also part of the London based art collective: Outside Architecture and UK research collective: Working Space.

TAD WILEY

The work of New York-based artist Tad Wiley exemplifies high abstraction and geometric complexity. Combining elements found in architecture and the natural world, Wiley explores the formation of painting into a “very personal ad specific, active object.” Often painted on large wood or synthetic panels, his works exude a melding of color and form, illustrating Wiley’s experimental and spontaneous working process.

After moving to New York City in 1978, Tad Wiley’s first exhibition was at The Drawing Center 1982, followed by a solo exhibition in 1984 at the Leslie Cecil Gallery on 72nd St. Since then Wiley has exhibited his paintings and works on paper in galleries and museums in New York and other major cities throughout the United States including George Lawson Gallery, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ, Lang & O’Hara Gallery, New York, NY, and the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY. Wiley is the recipient of several awards including The Pollock Krasner Foundation grant and The Edward Albee Foundation fellowship. His work is represented in public and private collections worldwide.

Alex Stolyarov

Alex Stolyarov is a Ukrainian-American artist whose paintings explore universal human experiences through abstraction and emotional resonance. Born in the former Soviet Union and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 23 and earned his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1992. He now lives and works in Queens, NY.

For Stolyarov, painting is an act of necessity—giving form to invisible inner states that define the human condition. His work examines themes of love, memory, resilience, and loss, deeply influenced by personal history and the broader forces of time and conflict. While his practice is rooted in timeless human experiences, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the devastation of his hometown, Kharkiv, have profoundly shaped his recent work.

Stolyarov has exhibited extensively, with solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Harris Gallery, New York, including on where I am from and small paintings about love (2024), Meditations (2022), Passions (2019), and earlier shows dating back to 1998.

HOWARD SCHWARTZBERG

Howard Schwartzberg is a Brooklyn-born artist whose work reflects a deep connection to both the urban environment and the natural world. Growing up in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and spending summers at a bungalow colony in Woodbourne, NY, Schwartzberg developed a lasting bond with nature that continues to influence his artistic practice today.

Schwartzberg began exhibiting in New York City in the early 1990s, with early exhibitions at The Drawing Center and Stux Gallery. His career progressed with a one-person exhibition at Silverstein Gallery in Chelsea in 1998 and an environmental earthwork at Socrates Sculpture Park in 1999. Over the years, Schwartzberg also taught art in the New York City public school system, where he integrated concepts of relational aesthetics into educational programs for students, staff, and the community.

Since his retirement, Schwartzberg has refocused on painting, working between his studios in NYC and the Catskills. His recent solo exhibitions include "The Weight of Painting" at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, NY, and he has an upcoming solo show at the University of Albany Museum. His current work continues to explore the intersection of materiality and emotional depth, inviting viewers to engage with the weight and substance of paint.