Lisa Yuskavage has opened a major solo exhibition at David Zwirner in Chelsea, unveiling more than two dozen recent works that expand her long-running exploration of figuration, color, and perception. On view through June 26, the exhibition arrives at a key moment during New York Art Week 2026 and highlights a new technical direction within the artist’s practice.
Widely regarded as a pivotal figure in contemporary painting, Yuskavage has spent decades challenging conventions surrounding the female nude, spectatorship, and the relationship between subject and object. Her paintings frequently combine luminous palettes with psychologically charged compositions, while also confronting the history of the gendered gaze in Western art.
The new exhibition continues those investigations. However, it also introduces Yuskavage’s first sustained engagement with collage. Pastel, tempera, and gouache appear layered over Color-aid paper, creating intricate spatial effects and subtle trompe-l’oeil illusions. Consequently, the works expand her dialogue with color-field abstraction while introducing a more fragmented and self-referential pictorial structure.
Painting, Memory, and Spatial Illusion
According to the gallery, the works exist less within traditional studio settings and more within imagined psychological spaces. The exhibition positions paintings within paintings, while recurring motifs move between canvases and physical gallery space.
As a result, the exhibition creates a layered environment where time, memory, and artistic process fold into one another. Monumental compositions hang alongside smaller, intimate works, reinforcing the artist’s interest in fractured perspective and recursive imagery.
The presentation also emphasizes Yuskavage’s evolving treatment of color as both atmosphere and structure. Rather than functioning solely as background, color operates as an active force shaping spatial tension, emotional resonance, and viewer perception.
“There’s a way in which a painting finds grace, a way that everything lands in place,” the artist wrote in a recent essay for Harper’s Bazaar. “When you’re making art, and you do not have a rule book, and you’re flying by the seat of your pants…when they all come together, the word that comes to mind is grace. There’s this feeling of just elegance, of purpose, and that is beautiful.”
Exhibition Details
David Zwirner
- 533 West 19th Street, New York
- On view through June 26, 2026
The exhibition further reinforces Yuskavage’s position within contemporary painting discourse, particularly as conversations around figuration, abstraction, and feminist art histories continue to evolve across the international art world.