Liz Ainslie
Like on the Outside
October 28 - November 22, 2025
Opening reception: Thursday, October 30th 6-8pm

Deanna Evans Projects is pleased to present Like on the Outside, a solo exhibition of new works by Liz Ainslie. This will be her first solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view at 370 Broadway from October 28 - November 22, 2025. 

Liz Ainslie’s work incorporates her admiration of Gothic painting, Hellenistic frescoes, 1980s design, and minimalist architecture, along with the observations she collects while painting outdoors. By bringing all these influences into the studio, abstractions take on the qualities of things–the halo of a Gothic angel morphs into the hair of a My Little Pony toy. Through memory and fantasy, these phantoms shape her vocabulary of visual forms.

“The repeating shapes – the loops, grids, squiggles, and halos – come together as a lexicon, all gathered from an interior, subconscious place,” says Ainslie, “They emerge automatically, and as I reuse them, they take on new life, guiding the compositions, acting like figures or objects.” As seen in Jauntily, Ainslie incorporates dancing loops along with mountainous forms and an architectural grid structure. 

Like on the Outside refers to this melding of exterior and interior. Ainslie’s plein air observations come through as storms or slices of natural frenzy, while her invented collection of forms reins in the frenzy with grounded linear elements.

Through her observations of natural and human-made surroundings, Ainslie investigates the visual cues we collectively use to understand paintings. Combined with the introspection of the subconscious, she presents a visually implausible space that painting is especially apt to produce.

-

Liz Ainslie lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received an MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2004 and a BFA from Alfred University in 2001. Ainslie has had solo exhibitions at Transmitter Gallery and Airplane in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Creon Gallery in Manhattan, The Cohen Gallery at Alfred University, and Platform online. Her work has been included in shows at White Columns, Good Naked, Rhett Baruch, SARDINE, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Tappeto Volante, Orgy Park, Ground Floor Gallery, Outlet Fine Art, A.I.R. Gallery, Vox Populi, BCB Fine Art, and Gallerie Kritiku, Prague, Czech Republic. 

Her work has been reviewed or featured in Art Maze Mag, Maake Magazine, Giornale Dell’ Arte, ArtCal Zine, and The GC Advocate. Interviews with the artist can be found online at Maake Magazine, Gorky’s Granddaughter, The Conversation Art Podcast, Pencil in the Studio, and #fffffff Walls. Ainslie is a Co-director of Underdonk Gallery in New York, was a visiting artist at Trestle Projects in 2018, a faculty resident at the School of the Alternative in 2017, a resident artist at Millay Colony for the Arts in 2011 and at Atlantic Center for the Arts in 2006.