96 x 192 x 7 inches
Contributed by Lawre Stone / Meg Lipke makes enormity relatable. The immense Slanting Grid welcomes visitors to her exhibition “Matrilines” at Broadway Gallery. Monumental in scale, soft in countenance, this 8 x 16-foot work of painted and stitched fiber-filled muslin rises above the viewer, floating grandly along one of the gallery’s longest walls. Although potentially overpowering and undeniably emphatic, the form greets the viewer with the tenderness and comfort of a child’s plush toy, painted in the seductive colors of a sunrise: red, pink, yellow, and green. Lipke’s dimensional paintings challenge the orthodoxy of the grid with irregular, organic shapes that evoke human limbs, domestic furnishings, or upholstery. Abstract gestures animate the surfaces, creating depth and mood. The result is a hybrid form that is both painterly and sculptural, inviting viewers to consider the relationship between surface and volume and ponder what constitutes a painting.
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34 x 38 x 3 inches
In Matrilines, the exhibition’s title piece, Lipke has stitched a large, nearly rectangular frame using tubular forms shaped from muslin stuffed with fiberfill. A mere five inches thick with visible seams, this work is painted using wax resist in tones of terra cotta, gold, and a touch of muted blue. Here the grid is explicit but misaligned, the accumulated muslin and stuffing torquing the structure. Jagged bolts of painted fabric charge erratically across the center in warm, earthy oranges, their irregularity calling up the non-linear qualities of matriarchal structures. Three triangular forms point downward along the bottom edge, operating as a visual rudder that grounds the piece while repeating this sign of matriarchal power.
108 x 164 x 5 inches
On another wall, six medium-sized works feature tight, compact forms painted in rusty browns, deep blues, warm yellows, and earthy reds, evoking the interplay between land and sky. The sewing machine seems to have tilled the fabric into crisp furrows, like plowed land. Brushed paint and saturated dye push the painterly qualities of this group, creating a range of atmospheric and illusionistic space, balancing the sculptural and the painterly. This group’s titles— “Channeled Terrain”, “Maternal Ground,” “Shower of Arrows,” “Sedimentary Amulet,” “Primary Landform”, and “Primary Landform II”— span Lipke’s interest in paleolithic sites, megalithic mounds, and the ancient matriarchal cultures.
The legacy of women making and representing culture is a powerful subtext throughout the exhibition. Lipke’s materials and technique recall the work of the twentieth-century feminist artists who came before her in embracing craft and looked beyond painting’s traditional format of canvas stretched on a rectangular support. They call to mind the work of Lipke’s forbears: Eva Hesse’s transformation of the picture frame into a body (Hang Up, 1966), Harmony Hammond’s cloth-bound grid forms (The Meeting of Passion and Intellect, 1981), and Elizabeth Murray’s off-kilter shaped canvases (Making It Up, 1986). The exhibition showcases Lipke’s supple brand of resistance. She questions traditional definitions, advances material experimentation, and asserts her feminist lineage while celebrating painting itself as an evolutionary phenomenon.
“Meg Lipke: Matrilines,” Broadway Gallery, 375 Broadway, New York, NY. Through December 13, 2025.
About the author: Lawre Stone is an artist based near Hudson, NY. She was a Two Coats of Paint Resident Artist in October 2025. Her most recent solo painting show was at Tanja Grunert Gallery in 2024.
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Good write up. It looks like a wonderful show.