Contributed by Sharon Butler / In July, Two Coats of Paint welcomes Vermont artist and Visiting Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Middlebury College Corrine Yonce to the Residency Program. She was the 2025 recipient of the Diane Gabriel Visual Artist Award from Burlington City Arts. For Yonce, unlike artists like, say, Andrew Cranston, home is not four walls and a warm, fuzzy feeling. It is something in motion, something that breaks apart, and reassembles itself throughout life.
Yonce works with a combination of canvases and household objects like curtains, shelves, toys, carpet, and blankets – materials that are invested with symbolic meaning, conveying the intimate and precarious nature of domestic life for those who are in danger of losing, or have lost, their housing.
But I’m Giving It Anyways (Unsolicited Advice), 2026
Yonce’s work – raw, tender, and highly personal – explores what “home” means for people who have experienced housing insecurity. Curtains and blankets, for example, evoke warmth and privacy, yet they also signal the transient, foldable nature of domestic arrangements. Looking closely at the paintings, we can see old torn photographs buried in the paint, souvenirs and mementos caulked into the surface. Alice Dodge, writing in Seven Days, noted that Yonce’s “unusual materials get to revel in their weirdness,” also citing her “painterly sensibility.” The result is a transformation – from damaged remainders to a fragile new whole. Since home sometimes barely holds together, the work is deliberately unstable.
Yonce grew up knowing what it is like to lose a home, and today, in addition to teaching, they work professionally as a housing advocate, helping other people who face similar struggles. Activism shapes what Yonce makes and the installations are documentary as well as personal. Alongside paintings, they might include audio interviews, photographs, and physical objects.
One of Yonce’s most striking installations, “I’m Sorry If This Isn’t What You Needed, But I’m Giving It Anyways (Unsolicited Advice),” was at the ATM Gallery, located in an ATM kiosk in the middle of a Shelburne, Vermont, parking lot. Yonce used foam, cardboard, tile, and sketches to transform the small, unlikely space into something warm and intimate. During the installation process, Yonce was also helping family members navigate homelessness. Ultimately, Yonce’s work is never resolved or finished. It’s briefly assembled, creating situations that hold until they don’t.
Corrine Yonce Two Coats of Paint Artist Residency, 22-19 41st Avenue, 6th Floor, Studio #10, Long Island City, NY. July 19–24, 2026. Open Studio: Wednesday, July 22, 5–7 pm. For more info or to schedule a visit, email STAFF@twocoatsofpaint.com with STUDIO VISIT in the subject.
Studio playlist: “I am a chronic chronicler of the Spotify playlist: my musical addiction of the season right now is Car Seat Headrest’s re-release of Teen of Denial: Joe’s Story. Something about it brings all those goosebumps of nostalgia and the grief and joy of time passing, in all its sharp, mundane everydayness! It’s almost its own thing with the fresh takes and how much the sound quality changes the songs. My two recent playlists are Exquisite Corpse and bouncing from small to large arcs (but never straight lines) but be warned – there’s no rhyme or reason to the genre, it’s all just the soundtrack of whatever is rolling around in my life at the time.”
Upcoming exhibition:
Corrine Yonce, “Feeding Champlain Valley,” Sheldon, Vermont, a hybrid of small mosaic and large-scale mural (in process).
Art Hop Open Studios. 420 Pine Street, Friday, September 11 to Sunday, September 13, 2026.
Following:
Insta: @corrine_yonce
Bluesky: @corrineyonce.bsky.socia
Substack: Corrine Yonce
About the author: Sharon Butler is a painter, publisher of Two Coats of Paint, and director of the Two Coats of Paint Residency Program.
