Pia Fries
Selected Works
Press Release
Miles McEnery Gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of paintings by Pia Fries, on view at 515 West 22nd Street from 14 May through 20 June 2026. The exhibition is accompanied by a digital catalogue with an essay by Angela Stief, the Director and Chief Curator for contemporary art at the Albertina Modern in Vienna, Austria.
In her ongoing practice, Pia Fries creates expansive abstract works that blend oil painting techniques with screen-printing. Her newest compositions utilize an intricate mixed-media approach, integrating images of wood and accumulated paint from her palette screen-printed directly onto wood panels. The works are inherently self-referential in their materiality and content.
The usage of photography and screen printing embedded in the work is an essential component of the paintings. Stief suggests that this element “structures the pictorial genesis without determining it.” Furthermore, it “introduces an aspect of foreignness— or perhaps more appositely of resistance—into the painting,” an action that simultaneously challenges and extends the work’s autonomy. Pia Fries has, in many respects, developed a unique visual alphabet, the meaning of which is only revealed through the interplay of the individual elements.
Pia Fries’ material research seeks an “aspiration that clearly exceeds mere reproduction,” offering a contrast to our oversaturated world of digital images. This methodical approach to artmaking is not simply about depicting an image, but about engaging with the physical substance of the mediums themselves. As Stief writes, “The elements of the print no longer point primarily to the material of the painting itself, but instead reference the structural characteristics that define the underlying pictorial surface.”
Pia Fries (b. 1955, Beromünster, Switzerland) studied at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Lucerne, Switzerland, and at the Academy of the Arts, Düsseldorf, Germany, where she studied under Gerhard Richter. From 2014 to 2023, she held a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, Germany.
Over the course of her career, Pia Fries has exhibited internationally at numerous institutions and galleries. In 1999, her work was included in the 48th Venice Biennale, dAPERTutto, curated by Harald Szeemann, as well as the Fourth International Biennial, curated by Dave Hickey in SITE Santa Fe in 2001. Notable solo exhibitions have been held at Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Bottrop, Germany; Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France; and Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Her work is held in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany; Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany; Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Paris, France; Neues Museum Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Germany; Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hannover, Germany; and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany, among others.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Foundation for Graphic Art in Switzerland Prize, Zürich, Switzerland; the Gerhard Altenbourg Award, Lindenau-Museum, Altenburg, Germany; the Art and Culture Award of the City of Lucerne, Switzerland; the Fred-Thieler Prize, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany; and the Nordmann Prize, Canton of Lucerne, Switzerland.
Pia Fries lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany and Lucerne, Switzerland.
