Continuous Abstraction
Gillian Ayres, Alice Baber, Sandra Blow, Lilly Fenichel, Perle Fine, Grace Hartigan, Helen Pashgian, and Joan Truckenbrod
Fair Dates: 24 – 27 September, 2026
Location: Stand 424, Javits Center, 429 11th Avenue, New York, NY 10001
Gazelli Art House is pleased to present Continuous Abstraction at The Armory Show 2026, a cross-generational presentation bringing together pioneering women artists whose practices have expanded the language of abstraction across painting, sculpture, light, and computational systems. Bringing together works by Gillian Ayres, Alice Baber, Sandra Blow, Lilly Fenichel, Perle Fine, Grace Hartigan, Helen Pashgian, and Joan Truckenbrod, the presentation traces connections between post-war abstraction, Light and Space, and early computer art.
Rather than presenting abstraction as a singular movement or closed historical category, Continuous Abstraction approaches it as an evolving visual language shaped through material, gesture, perception, rhythm, and systems. Across generations and geographies, the artists in the presentation challenge established narratives surrounding abstraction while foregrounding practices that have often remained under-recognized within dominant art historical discourse.
At the center of the presentation are Alice Baber, Perle Fine and Lilly Fenichel, three artists whose distinct trajectories illuminate the breadth of American post-war abstraction. Fine occupied a significant position within the New York School: a member of American Abstract Artists and one of eleven women included in the landmark 9th Street exhibition of 1951, she was also among the first women admitted as a voting member of the influential 8th Street Club. Moving between gestural, geometric and more atmospheric modes of abstraction,
Fine developed an uncompromising visual language in which color and structure remained in constant tension.
Baber pursued color through a different, deeply sensory approach. In Yellow Croquet Second Wicket (1961), painted in Paris, translucent passages of yellow, green, pink and orange dissolve into shifting biomorphic forms. An early example of her commitment to abstraction, the painting reflects an approach in which color became an active, perceptual force rather than simply a compositional device.
Fenichel offers another parallel yet distinct trajectory. Moving between California and New York before settling in New Mexico, she developed a fluid visual language that shifted between gesture and geometry, balancing restraint with improvisation while resisting stylistic categorization throughout her career. Her work is currently included in Abstract Expressionists: The Women, a major touring exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts featuring works from the collection of Christian Levett and FAMM (Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins), on view at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky.
Grace Hartigan further expands the presentation’s dialogue around post-war abstraction and the New York School. Emerging in New York during the 1940s and 1950s, Hartigan became one of the leading figures of the Second Generation Abstract Expressionists, initially gaining recognition for her experiments in total abstraction before gradually incorporating recognizable imagery, figures, and references drawn from literature, history, and everyday life. While closely associated with the predominantly male circles surrounding Abstract Expressionism, Hartigan consistently resisted rigid formal boundaries, developing a highly individual visual language that moved fluidly between abstraction and representation. Across later decades, her increasingly layered and autobiographical compositions introduced elements influenced by Cubism, gesture, and narrative structure, expanding abstraction into a more emotionally and psychologically charged terrain.
British abstraction is represented through Sandra Blow and Gillian Ayres, two artists who transformed painting into a site of material and emotional intensity. Blow emerged as one of the leading figures of post-war British abstraction following her studies in Italy with Alberto Burri, incorporating rope, plaster, sawdust, and collage into tactile compositions that pushed painting beyond the plane of the canvas. Ayres approached abstraction with equal freedom and physicality. Celebrated for her exuberant use of color and improvisational energy, she rejected formal rigidity in favor of a dynamic and instinctive approach to painting. Together, Blow and Ayres foreground abstraction as something physical, expressive, and continually in flux.
The presentation extends beyond painting through the work of Helen Pashgian, a foundational figure of the California Light and Space movement. Since the 1960s, Pashgian has used industrial materials including resin, acrylic, and coated glass to create luminous sculptural forms that shift with the movement of a viewer. Her works dissolve distinctions between object and atmosphere, transforming abstraction into a perceptual and spatial experience. Although increasingly recognized in recent years, Pashgian was one of only two women associated with the original Light and Space movement in California.
One thread within the booth explores abstraction’s relationship to systems, structure, and computational thinking. Joan Truckenbrod was among the earliest artists to employ computer programming languages such as FORTRAN within artistic practice during the late 1960s and 1970s. Translating algorithmic structures into drawings, textiles, and woven forms, she established a pioneering dialogue between computation, handcraft, and artmaking decades before digital art entered mainstream discourse. Her work forms a vital historical bridge between early computer art, geometric abstraction, and process-based artistic practices.
Together, the works in Continuous Abstraction position abstraction as a living and adaptive visual language continually reshaped by women artists across generations. Moving from post-war painting to later explorations of perception and form, the presentation foregrounds artists who expanded the boundaries of painting, sculpture, and perception while often remaining outside canonical narratives. Rather than presenting abstraction as a closed chapter of modernism, the booth considers it as an ongoing field of experimentation shaped by changing materials and ways of seeing.
About the Artists
Gillian Ayres CBE RA (1930–2018) was a pioneering British abstract painter celebrated for her exuberant use of color and gestural freedom. Emerging in the 1960s, Ayres became a leading figure in British abstraction and was appointed Head of Painting at Winchester School of Art in 1978. She was awarded an OBE in 1986, elected a Royal Academician in 1991 and appointed CBE in 2011.
Alice Baber (1928–1982) was an American painter whose explorations of color, light and form developed across Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting. Working between New York and Paris, Baber developed a distinctive language of translucent, biomorphic forms, approaching color as both an emotional and perceptual force. Her work is held in more than 40 public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Stedelijk Museum.
Sandra Blow RA (1925–2006) was one of Britain’s leading post-war abstract painters. Following her studies in Italy and encounter with Alberto Burri, she developed an experimental approach incorporating materials including rope, plaster and collage into large-scale compositions. Blow exhibited internationally throughout her career and was elected a Royal Academician in 1978.
Lilly Fenichel (1927–2016) was an Austrian-born American painter whose practice moved between gestural and geometric abstraction. After fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe, she became part of the West Coast art scene before later establishing herself in Taos and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has been included in major exhibitions including Women of Abstract Expressionism at the Denver Art Museum and Action, Gesture, Paint at Whitechapel Gallery, London.
Perle Fine (1905–1988) was an American painter and significant figure of the New York School. A student of Hans Hofmann, Fine developed a practice spanning gestural, geometric and non-objective abstraction before establishing her studio in East Hampton in the 1950s. Her work is held in major collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
Grace Hartigan (1922–2008) was an American painter and leading figure of the New York School. Rising to prominence in the 1950s, she moved between abstraction and recognizable imagery, drawing increasingly on literature, history and everyday life. Her work is held in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Helen Pashgian (b. 1934) is an American artist and foundational figure of California’s Light and Space movement. Since the 1960s, she has explored the perceptual qualities of light through translucent and reflective materials including resin, acrylic and coated glass, creating sculptural forms in which light, material and the viewer’s perception become inseparable.
Joan Truckenbrod (b. 1945) is an American artist and pioneer of digital and computer art. Since the 1970s, she has explored relationships between technology and material practice through programmed drawings, textiles and electronic imagery. Her work is held in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
