Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by Pia Fries, on view at 515 West 22nd Street from 14 May through 20 June 2026. The exhibition is accompanied by a digital catalogue with an essay by Angela Stief, the Director and Chief Curator for contemporary art at the Albertina Modern in Vienna, Austria.

In her ongoing practice, Pia Fries creates expansive abstract works that blend oil painting techniques with screen-printing. Her newest compositions utilize an intricate mixed-media approach, integrating images of wood and accumulated paint from her palette screen-printed directly onto wood panels. The works are inherently self-referential in their materiality and content.

The usage of photography and screen printing embedded in the work is an essential component of the paintings. Stief suggests that this element “structures the pictorial genesis without determining it.” Furthermore, it “introduces an aspect of foreignness— or perhaps more appositely of resistance—into the painting,” an action that simultaneously challenges and extends the work’s autonomy. Pia Fries has, in many respects, developed a unique visual alphabet, the meaning of which is only revealed through the interplay of the individual elements.

Pia Fries’ material research seeks an “aspiration that clearly exceeds mere reproduction,” offering a contrast to our oversaturated world of digital images. This methodical approach to artmaking is not simply about depicting an image, but about engaging with the physical substance of the mediums themselves. As Stief writes, “The elements of the print no longer point primarily to the material of the painting itself, but instead reference the structural characteristics that define the underlying pictorial surface.”