"my work puts color first and my decisions about drawing are in the service of giving the color the expanse and sequence it needs to glow, to be light-like... the pouring allows for lots of color activity; thickening, thinning, overlapping that lets the under-colors come through."
Jill Nathanson has long pursued what she describes as the “active life” of color, treating it as both subject and driving force in her practice. Rooted in the legacy of Color Field painting, she graduated from Bennington College, where her work was shaped by encounters with artists such as Sophia Healy, Kenneth Noland, and Larry Poons, among others. She later received her MFA from Hunter College in 1982.
Nathanson’s paintings are composed of poured, translucent planes of acrylic and polymers that form luminous, spatially complex fields. Her process combines the unpredictability of fluid paint with a structured, intentional composition, creating a dynamic between open expanses and layered transitions. The works are marked by subtle tonal variation and brilliance of hue.
Nathanson has exhibited widely throughout the United States with her work being included in several important exhibitions including The Legacy of Hans Hofmann, The Painting Center, New York (2006, curated by Karen Wilkin and Geoffrey Dorfman); Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction, Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Florida (2016); Point of Departure: Abstraction 1958–Present, Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska (2021); and Drawn to Color, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2023). Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; and the Sheldon Museum of Art, among other institutions, as well as in numerous private collections. Nathanson lives and works in New York and has been represented by Berry Campbell since 2014.