BO BARTLETT: PAINTINGS FROM THE HOMEFRONT

Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to present a new collection of works by Bo Bartlett, on view 2 April through 9 May 2026 at 515 West 22nd Street. This marks the artist's sixth solo exhibition with the gallery and continues his investigation of the American experience through figurative realism. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring an essay by Craig Drennen. The exhibition gathers new paintings and works on paper that depict sun‑soaked beach scenes, outdoor tableaux, and charged moments of stillness—spaces where light, atmosphere, and human presence are palpable. Bartlett's figures engage the viewer with compelling intensity: some face us directly, demanding attention, while others turn away, inviting reflection. As Drennen writes, "Bartlett's figures are eternally positioned and waiting for us, presenting themselves as directed by the artist. They seem to acknowledge the spectators as part of a compositional method used since Rembrandt's time to make viewers feel included within a scene." He continues, "In Bartlett's more recent paintings, the family and friends he portrays seem to recognize their role as performers. They stand poised within the paintings, ready to be photographed." In these works, Bartlett's signature sense of staging and narrative restraint creates scenes that feel at once deeply familiar and subtly enigmatic. His compositions, rendered with a cinematic clarity and even, uninsistent light, forgo drama in favor of quiet observation. Drawing from personal histories and recurring locations—from the coastal landscapes of Maine, where Bartlett has spent his summers for over two decades, to his Southern roots, where he still lives, surrounded by the people and places that have long shaped his life and career—Bartlett constructs images that balance emotional resonance and narrative tension. As Drennen writes, "It is easy to imagine that, in the late phase of a long career, a deep well of emotion might arise in an artist for whom the present cannot be seen without the overlay of the past. One can imagine how valuable it might feel for Bartlett to ask his loved ones to step into his paintings and hold their positions for one last time."