Barbara Davis Gallery

05/29/2026

05/14/2026

On view through June 20: FOLDING

Vargas-Suarez Universal
& Eduardo E. Portillo

This exhibit imagines landscapes, technologies, and histories as overlapping systems folded onto one another...one artist examines the systems that extend us outward into the universe, while the other explores the systems that shape how we inhabit the earth.

05/02/2026

Stop by the gallery and explore our current exhibition:

FOLDING
Vargas-Suarez Universal and Eduardo E. Portillo


Image:

Tazumal A720, 2026
Acrylic on shaped canvas and mirror
56 x 60 x 7 in

Drawing lies at the conceptual heart of my practice. With an emphasis on line and instinct, I draw with space itself. The three-dimensionality of the work invites light to activate the compositions: shadows stretch and bend across the wall, forming living lines that shift throughout the day.

With the introduction of new layers of symbolism by incorporating worldly materials such as mirrors and sand. Sand falls like a freeform hourglass, marking the quiet passage of time. Glass mirrors—formed from sand themselves—reflect the world back onto itself, collapsing the boundary between natural matter and human construction. These materials suggest a cycle of transformation where earth becomes architecture, landscape becomes reflection, and matter becomes memory.

~ Eduardo E. Portillo

05/01/2026

Barbara Davis Gallery is pleased to present Folding, an exhibition bringing together the work of Vargas-Suarez Universal and Eduardo E. Portillo:

April 24 - June 20, 2026

Folding is an exhibition with two artists with two profoundly distinct—yet surprisingly harmonious—universes. Eduardo Portillo’s work is restrained, minimalist, and silent; within it, every form seems to uphold a poetics of causality. His artistic language is intimate, almost a whisper—an exercise in balance where matter breathes and transforms into pure gesture. There is a silent poetry in his pieces—and, at the same time, a keen subtlety that creates tension on the surface in a very particular way.

The manner in which the plane seems to yield—almost to breathe—generates an intimate and deeply conscious experience of light, of emptiness, and of the contained gesture. It is a body of work that does not seek to impose itself, yet endures

In contrast, Vargas-Suarez Universal is not merely contemplated; it is traversed. It is a space held in suspension, where forms never quite settle—as if everything were in a state of perpetual transit. Fragments, lines, and glimmers drift across a deep, almost infinite field, evoking the sensation of floating beyond the reach of any known reference point.
There is a palpable sense of drift within it—of a journey undertaken without gravity.
It is akin to an astronaut’s spacewalk, where every movement is uncertain and every trace leaves an imprint upon the invisible.

The circle does not confine; it expands.
It serves as a threshold.

And within its bounds, language fragments only to constantly reconstruct itself—as if striving to name a territory that does not yet exist.

It is not merely an image of space;
it is the memory of having inhabited it.

04/23/2026

TOMORROW!

"Folding": Vargas-Suarez Universal & Eduardo E. Portillo

Opening reception Friday, April 24 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

This exhibition brings together two artists who approach abstraction as an intensely human form of navigation. Whether grounded in earthly landscapes or reaching out to the cosmos, their works unfold like maps—guiding the viewer through complex terrains of knowledge, memory, science, and place.
“Folding” explores the interaction of cosmic systems, human histories, environments, and technologies. In the space between orbit and soil, vector and root, reflection and trajectory; these artworks invite us to consider our position within a vast and ever-unfolding universe.

02/06/2026

Come by and see the wonderment of Yuriko Yamaguchi’s sculpture, “Aki”, currently installed at the gallery.

02/06/2026

Stop by the gallery and experience the intriguing work by artist Lauren Luloff now on view at the gallery.

02/06/2026

Stop by the gallery and discover the intriguing work by artist Yuriko Yamaguchi now on view.

01/30/2026

Barbara Davis Gallery is excited to announce the representation of Paweł Dutkiewicz.

Paweł Dutkiewicz’s understated approach to painting continues to point to the internal and results in a ruminative experience, encouraging viewer introspection.

Based in Kraków, Poland, Paweł Dutkiewicz has rich experience as a professor working with students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and the University in Katowice.

His work has been shown in several important institutions, among them: Zacheta National Art Gallery, Warsaw, Poland; Galeria Foksal, Warsaw, Poland; The Schindler Factory, Krakow, Poland; Galeria Krzysztofory (established by Tadeusz Kantor in 1957), Krakow, Poland; Lichtblicke Institute of Polish Culture in Berlin, Germany; and Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Slupsk, Poland. Dutkiewicz is a grant recipient of the Polish Ministry of Art and Culture, and his work can be found in numerous corporate and private collections across Europe and the United States.

“When painting, color must be considered a very precise tool, similar to a classical musical instrument, as complicated to use as an organ or piano. The content of a painting is conveyed through the color choices, i.e., through the juxtaposition of colors and the relationship between colors, just as in a piece of music, where abstract, individual sounds, and even the silence between them, together create the content of the piece.” - Paweł Dutkiewicz