Time & Space Limited is pleased to present Forty Years of Painting–an overview of Lois Dickson’s work across her prolific career, situating new ideas alongside four decades of paintings. Ranging from organic form to geometric abstraction, the exhibition traces the natural development of the artist’s key motifs, the breadth of her technical explorations, and the playful approach that has remained central to her painting since the 1990s.
At the age of sixty—following a decades-long career managing the art collections of major corporations, including Prudential, Exxon, and Time Life– Dickson pursued a formal art education, earning a Master of Fine Arts at the New York Academy of Art, and Honors in Drawing from the New York Studio School’s (NYSS) full time Certificate Program. Her paintings have been shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions. She settled permanently in the Hudson Valley in the mid 1990s. Now ninety-six, Dickson continues to paint daily in her studio in Old Chatham, NY.
“No piece is ever truly finished,” says the artist. Her paintings are “constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed over days, weeks, often years.” Pieces made decades apart often bleed into one another. Echoes of the overtly organic shapes of fungi, rocks, and foliage, rendered faithfully in many of Dickson’s paintings, appear throughout even her most abstract work, including a new series inspired by photographs taken with a magnifying camera lens.
The artist works from life, memory, imagination, and a collection of source materials—drawings, studies, and photographs—welcoming experimentation and spontaneity, often landing somewhere between transcription and abstraction. Spontaneous gestures follow a grid-like structure that underlines many of her paintings. Originally used as a compositional guide, the diamond grid has gradually become an integral part of Dickson’s visual language. Sometimes it remains visible beneath the paint; elsewhere, it quietly structures the composition before dissolving into gesture and color. At times, the paintings depart from this visual language entirely and are composed spontaneously around texture, color, and form.
“It’s all open to interpretation and speculation,” explains Dickson. She hopes her paintings will invite multiple readings and interpretations through unique avenues of personal connection. She is especially happy “when humor finds its way into the mix.”
The nearly sixty works on view will be accompanied by a catalogue featuring early paintings, major series, and new developments, alongside text detailing the artist’s process and inspiration.
Forty Years of Painting opens Saturday, October 10, 2026, with an artist’s reception from 3-5pm, and continues through Sunday, November 8, 2026.