Rebecca Pugh’s ‘Fences And Fields’ Art Exhibition Opens June 29 In Austin
Texas landscape paintings by Rebecca Pugh will be featured in a solo exhibition at the Julia C. Butridge Gallery in the Dougherty Arts Center in Austin from June 29 through Aug. 9.
“Fences and Fields” includes 28 two-dimensional and three-dimensional paintings. A reception will take place July 9 from 7 to 9 p.m., followed by Pugh’s artist talk at the gallery on Aug. 6 from 7 to 9 p.m.
This is the first solo exhibition in Texas for Pugh, who is an instructional assistant professor in the Visualization program and curator for Wright Gallery. The Canada native has lived in Texas since 2020, when she came to Texas A&M.
“For the past decade, I have explored my surroundings through my work,” Pugh said. “My recent paintings are very abstract. Although there are no pictures to be seen in them, they are autobiographic and tell a story about my life in Texas.”
Pugh commutes to campus from Houston, and said she would record voice notes about the colors she saw in rural areas. She created collages of screen-printed color swatches and digital paintings to reflect her ideas from the drive.
“I would focus on my remembered feelings and the formal qualities that I have developed through my practice,” she said. “I’m interested in the shapes and colors up to the horizon — like fences and wildflowers on the side of the highway, and the grass in my peripheral view while driving.”
Pugh referenced the grass in her paintings through straight lines and angular shapes in different color schemes. Some of her work features hard-edge shapes and line work drawn in graphite pencil.
“I hope visitors of my work may think about what a landscape painting could be,” she said. “There is only a single work in my show from a previous exhibition that has a blue sky, titled ‘Perimeters.’ Now, I’m making landscape paintings without any sky at all.”
The exhibition includes an eight-work installation titled “SPUR-515,” which spans 25 feet long, inspired by driving past a long fence in Navasota, Pugh said. Bright colors from fields of wildflowers along Texas State Highway 249 inspired several other paintings. She also created sculptures that resemble “abstract tumbleweeds,” with braided strips of painted canvas and ripped bed linens, which is the same material she used in her large paintings that stand in the center of the gallery.
Three of Pugh’s works from this exhibition were also featured in April for the 2025 Faculty Biennial at the J. Wayne Stark Galleries in the Memorial Student Center. The series of work will expand, Pugh said, and it will be showcased in two solo exhibitions in Houston next year: at Lone Star College, University Park, in January, and at Sawyer Yards Art Studio in the spring.
“I’m grateful to the city of Austin for providing me with this opportunity,” she said. “And the College of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts for supporting my work and exhibition.”
Top image: “70 mph” was featured in April at the 2025 Faculty Biennial at the J. Wayne Stark Galleries.
