Sharon Butler

[4][5][6] In a 2014 review in the Washington Post, art critic Michael Sullivan wrote that Butler "creates sketchy, thinly painted washes that hover between representation and abstraction.Though boasting such mechanistic titles as 'Tower Vents' and 'Turbine Study,' Butler’s dreamlike renderings, which use tape to only suggest the roughest outlines of architectural forms, feel like bittersweet homages to urban decay.

"[5] Critic Laurie Fendrich called Butler's work "beautiful and grittily compelling," suggesting in a 2021 review that her brushwork and color come out of her earlier casualist approach.The paintings "feel slightly off-balance, but not so much that they’re ugly.

"[11] In a 2023 review in The Brooklyn Rail, Adam Simon wrote that Butler approaches geometric abstraction with an unusual restlessness and an idiosyncratic penchant for disequilibrium, and he declared that her paintings are full of "innuendo and wit.

"The tension between exacting, mechanical processes -- often digital and screen-based -- and the humanism inherent in handmade images and objects have always been stand-ins --  a visual metaphor -- in my work."

[14][15] Butler has shown her work internationally at galleries in Baltimore, Birmingham, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, Hartford, Miami, London, Los Angeles, Paris, New York, Seattle, Tuscaloosa,and other cities.

'"[39] Subsequent interviews and art reviews of Butler's own work made clear that ideas for the original article were rooted in her own painting practice and artist statement.

[29] She has also received residencies from Art21 (PBS affiliate), New York, NY (2009),[43] Counterproof Press (2014),[44] Yaddo (2015, 2018),[45] and the Cultural Space Subsidy Program (2015–2018, 2019–2021, 2022- 2025).