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.”