Cat Spilman’s “Dear New York” Opens at Isabel Sullivan Gallery in Chelsea

Isabel Sullivan Gallery presents Dear New York, the first US solo exhibition by London-based painter Cat Spilman. The show opens Thursday, May 7, 2026 with a public reception from 6–8 pm at the gallery’s Chelsea location, 501 West 23rd Street, and remains on view through June 7, 2026. The artist will be in attendance.

Dear New York is equal parts homecoming and love letter. Spilman (b. 1990) moved to New York at 18 to attend the School of Visual Arts, just blocks from Isabel Sullivan Gallery’s Tribeca location, before spending nearly a decade painting sets for film and television in the city. In 2020, a personal loss brought her to the UK, where she turned to painting as a private cathartic practice. What began in grief has grown into an internationally exhibited body of work.

Solid shapes and overlapping lines replace figuration in the paintings, while a deliberately limited palette shifts focus entirely to rhythm, movement, and composition. “It’s really not terribly cerebral, it’s all emotional,” Spilman has said of her process. “I think of them as self portraits. Of course not figuratively, but in a very interpretative way they’re all snapshots of who I am in the moment and what I’m dealing with.”

Spilman works without a plan, allowing each canvas to take shape through instinct and feeling: a crooked border, a missed patch of primer, a composition that builds from accident. The restriction of two colors, rather than limiting her, gave her freedom: the freedom to build a new visual language that speaks directly from emotion rather than concept. The result is work that is honest, vulnerable, and defiantly human.

Dear New York arrives as a fully realized statement from an artist who found her voice far from home and is now bringing it back.

Exhibition Details Show: Dear New York Artist: Cat Spilman Opening Reception: May 7, 2026 | 6–8 pm | Open to the public On View: May 7 – June 7, 2026 Venue: Isabel Sullivan Gallery Chelsea | 501 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011 Hours: Tue–Sat 10 am–6 pm | Sun 12–5 pm Website: is.gallery