Amy Lincoln: Fractured Light

New York-based artist Amy Lincoln (b. 1981) paints dreamy, atmospheric landscapes and seascapes recalling her childhood under the overcast skies of the Pacific Northwest. At once tranquil and vibrant, otherworldly and familiar, Lincoln’s imagined scenes of radiant suns, calm seas, and vivid foliage present a stylized version of the natural world in every color of the rainbow. An exploration of the phenomena of light reflection and refraction, Fractured Light is Lincoln’s first solo museum exhibition.

Lincoln begins most paintings with three colors that she mixes with varying amounts of white to establish a color system unique to each work. She meticulously builds up layers of paint, creating surfaces that appear to glow from within. Through gradual tonal transitions, geometric precision, and the use of symmetry, Lincoln’s paintings capture the feeling of light moving across a landscape. In a world saturated with rapidly changing high-definition images, Lincoln’s work offers us an alternative that encourages close looking and deep engagement with color, light, and form.

About the Artist: 

Born in Bloomington, Indiana in 1981, New York-based artist Amy Lincoln paints dream-like scenes of imagined landscapes, atmospheric activity and vibrant, fantastical foliage. Recalling her upbringing in Oregon, where beach visits under overcast skies were frequent, Lincoln’s paintings explore the phenomena of light reflection and refraction. She completed her MFA at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art in 2006 and her BA at University of California, Davis in 2003. Lincoln’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sperone Westwater (2024; 2023; 2021), Taymour Grahne Projects, London (2022), Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York (2018; 2016) and Monya Rowe Gallery, Saint Augustine, FL (2016), among others. Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including Johansson Projects, Oakland, CA (2024), Columbus Museum of Art, OH (2023), The Hole, New York (2022), Sargent’s Daughters, New York (2018), and Regina Rex, New York (2017), as well as internationally at Galerie Valerie Bach, Brussels, Belgium (2020) and Taymour Grahne Projects, London (2022; 2021). Lincoln has been awarded residencies at the Wave Hill Winter Workspace program, the Inside Out Art Museum Residency in Beijing, and a Swing Space residency from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Columbus Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia.