CULTURAL CURRENCY MEET THE STANDOUT ARTISTS WHOSE BOUNDARY-PUSHING WORK WILL COMMAND ATTENTION AT THIS MONTH’S DALLAS ART FAIR. BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL, IAN ETTER, TERRI PROVENCAL, AND DARRYL RATCLIFF
Sky Glabush, My Trip to Saint Remy, 2026, watercolor and gouache on paper, framed with Optium museum plexiglass, 15 x 12 in. (sheet size). Courtesy of the artist and Philip Martin Gallery.
Sky Glabush, Arles, 2026, watercolor and gouache on Sky Glabush in his studio. Courtesy of the artist and paper, framed with Optium museum plexiglass, 12 x Philip Martin Gallery. 15 in. Courtesy of the artist and Philip Martin Gallery.
SKY GLABUSH Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles Landscape is elemental to the human experience. Whether through imagery or direct encounters, it is a universally understood paradigm. Sky Glabush’s broad practice offers viewers motifs from the natural world that feel at once familiar, even if they are drawn from unfamiliar places. Working from photographs, en plein air, or from his imagination, Glabush’s work inspires calm contemplation. As gallerist Philip Martin adds, “His work offers classic themes but also [explores] what painting means in our present moment.” The Canadian artist’s large paintings are visually magnetic. Their deep monochromatism, combined with themes drawn from nature, is immediately alluring. Up close, their gritty, textured surfaces, created by combining sand with oil paint, almost fracture the image into abstraction. “That sense of color and opticality but physicality, too, work hand-in-hand,” says Martin. As an avid reader of poetry, Glabush’s work evokes emotional responses that invite deep thought and even reverie. While this year marks the Dallas Art Fair debut of the Los Angeles–based Philip Martin Gallery, it is more of a homecoming than an introduction for gallery and artist. As a frequent participant in the erstwhile TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art, Martin is familiar with the city’s robust collector commu70
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nity. And as he and his partner, Portia Hein, are graduates of The University of Texas’ MFA program, he has felt the pulse of the Texas art scene for decades. With this in mind, Glabush is an ideal artist to highlight, as his work is already extensively collected locally. For the fair, the gallery is bringing a broad range of his oeuvre. In addition to the large paintings, there will also be smaller ones, which offer a quieter intimacy, as well as his jewel-toned works on paper. The works on paper are at the core of Glabush’s practice He works on several at a time, and they continuously inspire and inform his paintings. In these intimate pieces, executed in the unforgiving medium of watercolor, he will usually depict a conventional motif while also including an unexpected element. Martin looks forward to presenting Glabush’s work to local audiences. “Dallas is really a place to raise the bar. We know Dallas and how serious the collections and collectors are and how mind-bendingly high the bar is. It’s just really exciting to show there,” he extols. The city looks forward to welcoming him back, this time as a Dallas Art Fair exhibitor. –Nancy Cohen Israel