UNFOLDING
Claire B. Cotts
June 20 – July 11, 2026
Opening Reception & Artist Walkthrough
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 3:00–5:00 PM
Nüart Gallery is pleased to present Unfolding, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Claire B. Cotts, on view June 20 through July 11, 2026, at Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica.
In Unfolding, Cotts creates layered compositions that balance geometric structure with intuitive mark-making. Rounded forms, vertical passages, and recurring motifs move across the picture plane, creating relationships using shapes with different levels of solidity and openness, that creates movement juxtaposing stillness. Built through successive layers of paint, scraping, drawing, and revision, the surfaces retain evidence of their making, allowing the paintings to unfold with it color, texture, and rhythm.
While the work is rooted in abstraction, many of the forms are informed by observations of the natural world and the body. References to breath, pulse, water, landscape, and shifting light are transformed into visual structures rather than direct representations. Areas of luminosity emerge alongside darker passages, creating a dynamic interplay of weight and balance, that create some spatial tensions. Throughout her paintings, light functions as a means of organizing perception of what the viewer's experience.
Cotts's paintings are layered, the surfaces full of evolving forms revealing a practice grounded in process, that is very intuitive and structured.
Claire B. Cotts received her MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, and her BFA from Oberlin College. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, she spent a year living and working in Turkey. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in numerous public and private collections. Cotts lives and works in Berkeley, California.
EXHIBITION INFORMATION
UNFOLDING
Claire B. Cotts
June 20 – July 11, 2026
Opening Reception & Artist Walkthrough
Saturday, June 20, 2026 | 3:00–5:00 PM
Nüart Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue, Suite B4
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Gallery Hours
Tuesday–Saturday | 11:00 AM–5:00 PM
Media Contact
Diana Cignoni
(424) 900-3888
fineartla@nuartgallery.com