Syllogism
Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to present Syllogism, New York-based artist Lisa Corinne Davis’ second solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition is on view 4 September through 25 October 2025 at our 525 West 22nd Street gallery. Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated catalogue featuring an essay by Connie H. Choi.
The title of Davis’ newest exhibition, Syllogism, hints at her ongoing fascination with how systems of reasoning are woven, as well as how they unravel. In response to this decades-long, epistemic investigation, she has built a distinct visual language of geometric abstraction, which bears resemblance to maps or blueprints. While her compositions carry the visual and historical weight of these codes, she manages to transform them into something altogether new. Her paintings avoid absolutism, and offer multiple paths (both literal and interpretive) for the viewer to follow. Her snaking brushstrokes are fluid in both movement and meaning. In some works, tightly rendered grids hover over sinewy shapes, like scaffolding erected on something wild and living. In others, tectonic plates seem to dislocate beneath the surface, fracturing orderly lines into jagged trajectories, seismically shifting before our eyes. Though, her paintings may seem to sprawl across space in twisting geometries, they are never lost; her hand is steady, and her brushwork exacting, a technical feat for the traditional slippery medium of oil paint.
By disrupting the visual field, Davis challenges authoritative notions of didactic interpretation, reminding us that even trusted frameworks of thought are inherently fallible. As Connie H. Choi notes, “Davis remains true to a core set of principles that drive her painting practice. She follows a ‘both/and’ philosophy, which rejects a binary way of thinking and assumes that multiple elements can be correct at the same time. Her works are several things at once, reflecting the realities of lived experiences where truth is often found lodged among many divisive voices. Davis works through these competing forms, grappling with their presence until her compositions arrive at a resolution that honors them all.”
Lisa Corinne Davis (b. 1958 in Baltimore, MD) received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY and her Master of Fine Arts from Hunter College, New York, NY.
Since 1993, Davis has held teaching positions at some of the top art schools in the United States; she is currently Professor of Art at Hunter College. Davis is a member of the National Academy of Design, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow in the Fine Arts, and a 2024 fellowship recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts/New York State Council on the Arts. Additionally in 2024, Davis was commissioned by the MTA Arts & Design Program to create several permanent mosaic murals for the 68th Street-Hunter College subway station, which is a site of particular resonance for Davis, having taught at Hunter College for over two decades.
She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Esther Massry Gallery, The College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY; Farmer Family Gallery, The Ohio State University at Lima, Lima, OH; Galerie Gris, Hudson, NY; June Kelly Gallery, New York, NY; Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY; Longwood Gallery, Bronx Council on the Arts, Bronx, NY; Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; Pamela Salisbury Gallery, Hudson, NY; and Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, IL, among others. Davis’ work has been included in institutional group exhibitions at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Dieu Donné Papermill, New York, NY; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI; Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, NY; Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, New York, NY; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY; New York Studio School, New York, NY; Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York, NY; and the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE, among others.
Her work may be found in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA; Beinecke Collection, Yale University, New Haven, CT; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; New York Public Library, New York, NY; Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia, PA; U.S. Embassy, Lomé, Togo; U.S. Embassy, Yaoundé, Cameroon; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom, and elsewhere.
The artist lives and works in Brooklyn and Hudson, NY.
