Paintings, an exhibition featuring the work of celebrated Hudson Valley artist Rudy Vavra ran in tyte Gallery from April 1 – May 31, 2025.

Vavra’s work, shaped by more than three decades of artistic exploration, is rooted in abstraction and the poetic interplay of color, texture, and light. His approach—beginning with spontaneous marks inspired by the fleeting beauty of flower stains left by pilgrims at holy sites—transforms each painting into a journey of discovery. Independent curator Tatiane Schilaro Santa Rosa describes his work as “highly gestural… inviting viewers into a fictional world of color and depth, where light plays across the surface in ephemeral marks.”

The exhibition highlights Vavra’s mastery of layering, offering meditative, slow-looking works that reward close observation. “Abstraction is not about an artist’s cryptic intention behind the marks,” says Santa Rosa. “Instead, it is an urge—a method—to make language visible through gesture and color, a narrative of sorts.”