Painter Pam Evelyn On Making Her New York Debut with ‘Frame of Mind’

Painter Pam Evelyn’s abstractions explode onto the canvas like chaotic, kaleidoscopic dances of color, each brushstroke a step in a swirling choreography that floats and spins to a syncopated rhythm. They rise, they fall, inhaling and exhaling with a palpable earthiness, as if tethered to the ground yet tempted by the ether. At times, they transcend entirely, ascending to an otherworldly realm of lightness and air. Layer upon textured layer, Evelyn builds her compositions into dense, tactile meditations that channel the pulse of her surroundings—the rhythm of nature, the ebb and flow of human life and the multisensory experience of simply existing.

Dubbed the art world’s newest “infant prodigy” by the press, Evelyn was discovered by Larry Gagosian’s rival, Arne Glimcher, and she joined Pace Gallery last year. For a fleeting moment, she held the title of youngest artist on the mega-gallery’s roster—a distinction toppled this September when Li Hei Di, a year her junior, entered the fold. But Evelyn remains firmly in her moment, commanding attention with a solo exhibition in Pace’s New York space. The show features an array of large, predominantly horizontal paintings whose vibrancy pulses through the gallery, each piece alive with Evelyn’s dynamic touch.

Her painterly gestures hum with physicality, their movement gestural, lyrical and unmistakably musical, distilling the sounds and sensations of nature into pure, radiant form. These canvases mark a clear evolution in her work, advancing her exploration of the relationship between artist, environment and medium. Observer sat down with Evelyn a few weeks after the opening of “Frame of Mind” to discuss how this new body of work builds on her earlier pieces while deepening the sense of profound self-transference and dialogue between nature and the canvas.

There are many paths to abstraction, ranging from the spiritual and lyrical—distilling sensations in ways akin to poetry or music composition—to the raw, physical, gesture-driven approach, where intention translates directly into movement. When asked which resonates more with her, Pam Evelyn situates herself in the in-between. “I feel that both those aspects coexist,” she explains. “I think that with paint, it’s to entertain both extremities. Sometimes, my paintings fly, and I feel like I’m in that conversation where it hovers in a spiritual space beyond anything named and earthly. And other times, I’m trying to lean more towards what I see in front, the landscape, something that’s more under your nose.”

Critics have described Evelyn’s work as “intuitive landscapes,” abstractions that meditate on nature, the body and materiality, distilling sensations, frequencies and vibrations into interconnected forms. Her surfaces breathe with a life of their own, like leaves on a tree, swaying gently or moving rhythmically in sync with the wind. At times, they vibrate with the energy of earthbound flora—flowers and grasses seemingly animated by unseen forces. Or they evoke something loftier, capturing the fleeting, rapid transitions of a shifting sky.

In her latest body of work, unveiled in “Frame of Mind,” Evelyn shifts into a more meditative and contemplative mode. The once-frenetic painterly gestures of her previous works seem to have slowed into a serene, deliberate dance across the surface, punctuated by daring moments of restraint, where white space is left untouched. These voids suggest air and emptiness, allowing the work to breathe in ways that feel both expansive and intimate.

It’s no coincidence that these pieces emerged during a period of solitude and reflection, far from the noise and chaos of the city. That retreat granted Evelyn the quiet necessary to delve into a deeper introspection, forging a more personal dialogue between her body, the canvas and her environment. “I was fundamentally in solitude,” Evelyn recalls. “I realized how solitude can change your relationship with the painting, without all the noise and even the collaboration and exchange with like-minded artists and friends. Isolation changes everything. You’re just there alone with work, in its very nature. This makes everything a bit more intense but also makes you so much more involved. You become aware of how painting is intrinsically linked to everyday life.”

This psychological and introspective journey also inspired the title of the exhibition. These works function as frames for Evelyn’s sensations, capturing the nature surrounding her in an intuitive and spontaneous process. Her emotions, memories and subconscious responses to her environment filter through, resulting in what she calls “mindscapes.” In these paintings, the landscape transforms into something beyond words, an abstracted, emotionally charged realm that transcends the purely visual.

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Interestingly, the only predetermined element Evelyn worked with was the format, a constraint that inherently “framed” her painterly movements and decisions. “Everything just starts with that size, that scale,” she explains. “That decision will determine pretty much everything that happens after, how the linen is primed and how that surface is either porous or repels the paint.” This structural framework influences how each piece evolves, acting as both a guide and a boundary for the artist’s process.

Evelyn’s abstractions result from a dialogue with the canvas, a dynamic and iterative process of layering and refining that seems almost endless. Her approach, she says, is deeply intuitive: “I don’t ever have a pre-planned composition for the painting, so it’s sort of very reliant on this amendment that stretches over the duration of time. There’s this feeling of keeping things open, this idea that a painting doesn’t have to have a conclusion or end point for a while.”

While at least five of the paintings emerged from the same canvas format—a structure that, according to Pam Evelyn, allowed her to grow progressively more comfortable and bold—each abstraction feels distinctly its own. These works translate entirely different sensations and rhythms, with Evelyn increasingly freeing her painting process and embracing experimentation. The paintings pulse with varying tempos, embodying the vitality of forces, movements and even the air and breath weaving through flora. “The application and the treatment of paint can look so different, translating different behaviors, attitudes and sensibilities,” Evelyn explains. “At the same time, this sort of chord runs through all of them. It’s not on the nose; it’s quite subtle with some.” Even as the exhibition nears its final month, she admits that she still feels the need to sit with certain works—particularly those featuring tones of grey—to fully grasp what they suggest about her artistic evolution and where her practice might head next.

What ultimately sets Pam Evelyn’s abstract paintings apart is their ability to evoke not only a physical and spatial experience of the landscape but also a temporal one. Through her assiduous process of layering paint, her works achieve a dense, vibrating texture that mirrors the stratified nature of the world around us. Each painting translates the passage of time into visual form, capturing the complexity and depth of existence. In this sense, Evelyn’s abstract language functions more like a musical composition, channeling a symphony of sensations into a multisensory interpretation of the landscapes that inspire her.

Still, everything starts from that first mark from which all her compositions spontaneously and organically develop in a status of transfer through carefully calibrated gestures… “taking a line for a walk,” as Paul Klee once described it. “It’s that sort of focus on really looking and trying not to rush a specific moment where you’re living with the painting; the observation and action is taking place just from its presence,” Evelyn concludes.

Pam Evelyn’s “Frame of Mind” is on view at Pace Gallery, New York, through December 21.