By Emma Barhydt
The light in the Flinn Gallery is unflinching. It sharpens every edge of color, every ripple of brushwork. On the walls, geometry hums. Lines bend, grids shimmer, and what first appears exact begins to waver—alive, restless. This is ‘Precisely.’, opening November 20, a new exhibition that turns abstraction into an experiment in control, patience, and wonder.
Curated by Chris Joy and Francene Langford, Precisely. brings together artists Sarah Walker, Nate Ethier, and the collaborative duo Anoka Faruqee and David Driscoll. Each works in abstraction, but their common language is discipline. Their paintings are meticulous constructions—almost scientific in their rigor — yet what they reveal is something unmistakably human: the beauty of close attention.
Nate Ethier’s Viaduct (2025) thrums with electricity. Bands of neon pink and yellow stretch across a dark grid, forming an architecture of color that’s almost musical. It feels engineered to the micron, but also oddly human, like a pulse caught in paint. A Rhode Island native now based in New York City, Ethier holds an MFA from Boston University and a BA from Goddard College. His work, often described as “meditative records of touch and repetition,” reflects a deep commitment to the labor of abstraction—the kind that rewards patience over flash.
Sarah Walker’s Interspecies II (2023) shifts the tone entirely. Her composition swirls with biological intelligence— cells, spores, unseen currents—each rendered with deliberate care. Walker, who lives and works in Brooklyn, holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and California College of the Arts. Her paintings have been shown nationally and internationally, and her career has been supported by grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. In her work, precision is not cold; it’s tender. Her lines trace the fine balance between growth and control, chaos and pattern— a painterly reflection of her belief that structure and chance can coexist.
Anoka Faruqee and David Driscoll’s collaborative works explore the tension between digital order and human touch. Their layered grids and optical interference fields shimmer as you move, a reminder that perception itself is unstable. Working together since 2012, Faruqee and Driscoll have developed a practice that combines algorithmic planning with manual execution, translating mathematical systems into tactile, shimmering surfaces. Faruqee, born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a graduate of Yale University and the Tyler School of Art; she currently teaches painting at Yale. Driscoll, who earned his BFA from Ohio State University, brings a background in traditional painting methods to the partnership. They build their systems by hand, one gesture at a time, until the surface seems to hover between logic and illusion.
What unites these artists is not a shared aesthetic but a shared patience. Every piece asks the viewer to slow down, to recalibrate the pace of seeing. Precisely. rewards that stillness. It’s a show about what happens when thought and craftsmanship meet in balance—when the act of looking becomes as intentional as the act of making.
The exhibition opens Thursday, November 20, at 6 p.m., with an artist talk on December 4. Precisely. runs through January 7, 2026, at the Flinn Gallery.
