I Thought I Saw You Out There

I Thought I Saw You Out There
Guest Curated by Bill Scott
Terry Bruszewski · Afif Hanna · Glenn Harren · Jeffrey Morabito
Anna Shukeylo · Gillian Wainwright · Mark Webber

May 20 - June 14, 2026
Reception: Saturday, May 23, 2-5pm

When young I thought of artists as belonging to an elusive, longed-for community. Now, however, I view them as individuals whose visual pursuits can occasionally overlap. I love the paintings of the seven artists in this exhibition. Their individual approaches to their subject matter both connect and separates them from one another. We all have different goals, yet when working in my own studio, I feel sometimes I have tried to hit the ball back to each of them. I’ve known Terry Bruszewski and Glenn Harren the longest since we were students together in art school. Terry and I painted together and frequently posed for one another. Ever since, his paintings have lingered in my mind’s eye. Thanks to the internet I’ve recently come to better know and admire Glenn’s paintings. When I taught, Afif Hanna, Jeffrey Morabito, and Anna Shukeylo were students. I learned far more from them than they ever possibly could have learned from me. In the decade or two since meeting them I’ve felt totally engaged to see how each of them have grown as artists, in ways I never anticipated. I’ve been looking at Mark Webber’s figure paintings far longer than I’ve known him. Gillian Wainwright is the painter I only recently met. I once titled one of my own paintings in response to her painted depictions of her garden. This exhibition is titled I Thought I Saw You Out There, from one of her paintings. I’ve always enjoyed seeing these painters works and it’s a pleasure to bring them all together, if only for a moment. For the past fifteen years, I am grateful to Tina Rocha and Michael Kowbuz for inviting me to present several group-shows at Cerulean Arts. Whenever I’m at Cerulean, I feel the once longed-for community to be less elusive.