Location: Gross McCleaf Gallery, 123 Leverington Ave, Philadelphia, PA, 19127
February 13 - March 14, 2026
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Paintings, a new solo exhibition by Peter Van Dyck. In his recent body of work, Van Dyck begins with an overarching spatial framework, constructing a unified field of space before turning his attention to the objects it contains. Interiors, still lifes, and thresholds unfold through measured shifts in perspective, resulting in the subtle curvature that defines his work.
For Van Dyck, the question is not what a painting is trying to say, but what it is trying to do and whether it is ‘working’. He describes two levels of success: first, the painting must achieve a legible sense of light and space. The second is less tangible. It is, as he explains, “...looking at the painting and being convinced that I’ve made something wonderful. That feeling is hard to define and there’s no concrete indicator of it.”
Although his painted spaces may recall the warp of a camera lens, their curvature is rooted in sustained observation and the physical act of turning one’s head to take in a wide field of view. As Van Dyck turns his head for observation, each shift of attention creates a slightly altered picture plane. These shifting vantage points, translated onto a single surface, create the gentle arc that unifies the composition. The result is not photographic illusion, but a rendering of lived experience, or what it feels like to build perception of a space.
Van Dyck works exclusively on rigid supports, allowing him to roughly engage the surface directly and without hesitation. Evidence of process remains visible, not by design but as a byproduct of honest engagement. “I’ve never finished a painting,” he notes. Rather than resolving toward a predetermined end, he allows each work to stand as it is at a given moment in its development. Mystery is not constructed for effect in his work, but arises from the complexity of perception itself. Each painting becomes an attempt to articulate an experience that can only be told through painting.
An in-depth conversation with the artist, Art Sync | The Surrounding Illusion: Conversation with Peter Van Dyck, by Elizabeth Johnson (edited by Matthew Crain), is available on the gallery’s website.
Peter Van Dyck was born in Philadelphia in 1978. He studied painting and drawing at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy from 1998-2002. While studying he also taught in the program from 2000-2002. He returned to Philadelphia in 2002 and began exhibiting his work in numerous group shows in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco. In 2003 he began teaching at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where, in 2011 he became an Assistant Professor in the Certificate/BFA program. In 2012 he was named one of 25 Important Artists of Tomorrow by American Artist Magazine. In 2013 his work was included in the book Painted Landscapes, Contemporary Views by Lauren P. della Monica. His work has also been reproduced in periodicals including, American Artist Magazine, American Arts Quarterly, Art News, American Art Collector, International Artist Magazine and Art and Antiques (Courtesy of PAFA).
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Location: Gross McCleaf Gallery, 123 Leverington Ave, Philadelphia, PA, 19127
February 13 - March 14, 2026
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present On Longing, a new solo exhibition by Marilyn Holsing. In this body of work, Holsing begins each painting with a colored ground of layered hues, building from that base until flora, tendrils, and shadowy environments take shape. Influenced by her work with dioramas and glass cloches, she studies how light reflects, distorts, and obscures, and how a surface can both reveal and conceal what lies within.
Holsing’s recent work grew out of an exploration of bell jars, objects that both protect and confine. In earlier dioramas, she encased sculptural figures within glass vessels, observing how reflections fracture space and alter perception. “Encasing these things in glass highlights their preciousness and their need to be protected from everyday life,” she explains. The paintings extend this investigation, imagining landscapes within containers and testing how interior and exterior space collapse into one another. The cloche becomes both vessel and boundary, a space in which life feels suspended or, in author Susan Stewart’s words, “arrested.” What appears delicate is deliberately set apart and made significant through its detachment.
Rather than constructing a fixed storyline, Holsing allows the painting itself to guide her decisions. “My earlier Young Marie work directed the narrative,” Holsing notes, “whereas with this work the narrative is open-ended and implied.” Forms press against their boundaries, reflections interrupt depth, and the space inside often feels denser than the room that surrounds it.
Drawing inspiration from Rococo painters, Dutch forest still lifes, and botanical illustration, Holsing embraces density and visual abundance. Without a preordained plan, she works through revision and response, allowing shapes, colors, and textures to interact until a narrative begins to take form. The resulting paintings hold tension between containment and expansion, surface and depth, inviting viewers to linger within their suspended worlds.
An in-depth conversation with the artist, Art Sync | Abundance: Conversation with Marilyn Holsing, by Elizabeth Johnson (edited by Matthew Crain), is available on the gallery’s website.
Marilyn Holsing lives and works in Philadelphia. She has exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond, including, The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, Delaware; Melanee Cooper Gallery in Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; the ICA at the University of Pennsylvania and Field Projects, New York. Her work is included in public collections such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Woodmere Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Fidelity Investments. She is Professor Emerita in painting at Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.