Sharon Butler's exhibition at Theodore:Art marks shift from casualist theory to intentional painting

Sharon Butler's exhibition 'Morning in America' at Theodore:Art in Brooklyn featured fifteen paintings created between 2017 and 2020. The show ran from January 15 to March 7, 2021 at 56 Bogart Street. Butler's work demonstrates a departure from the casualist approach she championed in her influential 2011 Brooklyn Rail article 'Abstract Painting: The New Casualists,' which expanded on Raphael Rubenstein's 'Provisional Painting' concept from Art in America in 2009. While her process still begins with quick digital drawings made on her phone—part of her ongoing 'The Good Morning Drawings' series posted to Instagram—the resulting paintings are carefully planned and executed. Two 2019 paintings, 'Most Popular (October 2, 2018)' and 'Most Popular (November 23, 2018),' were based on Instagram drawings that received the most likes. Another work, 'Mueller Report (January 11, 2017),' measures 52 x 45 inches and features three vertical forms with harlequin-patterned triangles on a pastel ground. Butler's sophisticated brushwork and individualized color choices transform her digital sketches into material paintings that address the limitations of screen-based art. The exhibition reveals how social media platforms like Instagram can transform private studio exercises into public artworks, with Butler selecting drawings for painting based on both audience response and personal intuition about their potential.