November 14 – December 18, 2026
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 14, 6-8PM (pre-register here)
Main Line Art Center is proud to present Accumulating Systems, the 23rd Annual Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, featuring Sarah Gutwirth, Lexa Walsh and Injoo Whang. The exhibition, juried by Ricky Yanas, is on view November 14 through December 18, 2026.
Beginning with traditional methods and materials, these three artists set up systems for themselves to work, focusing on specific subject matter and forms, building and redefining meaning through each addition and recomposition, finding new depths in every iteration and articulation.
While their themes and content are uniquely disparate, they are bonded by their commitment to process and what that process reveals. In some instances, these revelations encompass complex dynamics of human power, our desire for resistance, our attempts to contain history and understand the natural world, and the question of how to reconcile the spiritual realm with material experience. Their work asks you to look across individual pieces, to look longer, see the patterns, consider the systems at play, revel in them and take joy in the accumulating process of understanding.
This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Meyer family.
The Meyer Family Award for Contemporary Art, presented by Main Line Art Center in conjunction with the Betsy Meyer Memorial Exhibition, honors chosen artists with an exhibition in the Center’s gallery and an award of $1,000. This award and associated exhibition program is an effort to support talented contemporary artists, to honor deserving artists in the field, and to encourage excellence and experimentation in artistic practice, presentation, and community involvement.
Sarah Gutwirth received her BFA and BA in painting in 1978 from a joint program of Reed College and the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland OR. Her MFA in painting is from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1985. She has held three tenure track teaching positions, receiving tenure at two and retired in 2017 as Full Professor of Painting Emerita at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. Gutwirth’s work is about deciphering hidden or obvious connections between our natural world, and our echoing of nature through our created world of art and objects. We have always sought to understand the world through trying to decipher how things are connected to other things. What family do they belong in? Her most recent work is organized loosely on a grid. The abstraction of that form allows a less literal narrative connection between imagery and situates the painting as belonging to contemporary art rather than landscape or still life genres. She starts from a guiding metaphorical frame such as “migration” or “enchantment”. Then compiles an album of images (her own and belonging to paintings by others) related to that concept, and then organize them into a composition. The resulting work is like the cento, a poetic form derived from borrowed lines woven into an original composition and it also relates to a commonplace book, where a person writes meaningful citations and references books they have read.
Lexa Walsh is an artist, cultural worker and experience maker. With a background in both sculpture and social practice, she makes context specific projects, exhibitions, publications and objects. Walsh’s upbringing as the youngest child of fifteen, in a household of elite athletes and their trophies informs her work. Being the only bench warmer in the bunch led her to not only becoming a tween cheerleader, but also forming an interest in alternative lifestyles, economies and communities, practicing collectivity while coming of age in the post punk cultural scene of the 1990’s San Francisco Bay Area. Walsh is a graduate of Portland State University’s Art & Social Practice MFA program and holds a BFA in Ceramics from California College of Arts and Crafts. She was Social Practice Artist in Residence in Portland Art Museum’s Education department, received the CEC Artslink Award, the Gunk Grant, the de Young Artist Fellowship, and Kala’s Print Public Award. Walsh makes context-responsive, multifaceted projects, exhibitions and objects about power, value, war and resistance. Using ceramics, textiles, overlooked craft materials and found fashion and home accessories, these works become (anti) war memorials and emblems for alternative ways of belonging. “Breathe With Me Grieve With Me Heave With Me” is her most recent body of work, initially inspired by the simultaneous broadcast of the 2024 (and 2026) Olympics alongside war and international conflict.
Injoo Whang is a mixed-media artist and creates geometric abstract works on paper, collages, and installations inspired by architectural elements. She earned a BFA in Korean Traditional Painting from Hong-Ik University in Seoul before moving to the United States in 2002. In 2004, she received her MFA in Fine Art from Parsons School of Design in New York. Inspired by architectural elements and patterns in her surroundings, she recomposes visual fragments into geometric abstract works on paper, collages and installations using sumi ink and water based mediums. Each piece begins with a single mark or paper cut-out, which she repetitively accumulates to form a larger whole. This process is rooted in traditional Korean painting and calligraphy where ‘gi’ (기)- the infusion of energy- is achieved through long periods of repetition and the artist’s spiritual cultivation. Like the traditional layering of translucent pigments to achieve depth and variations of color, her process builds meaning through accumulation. Through this meditative process, Whang explores the interplay between the individual and the collective, positive and negative space, and simplicity and complexity. The energy that emerges from repetition creates immersive abstract landscapes that invite viewers into contemplative spaces shaped by collective existence.
Ricky Yanas is a Mexican-American artist, curator and cultural organizer living in Philadelphia. Working within a pragmatic tradition of problem finding, his work extends through a variety of disciplines (photography, documentary film, installation, archival investigation, and place-making) with the aim to create inter-sectional/inter-historical spaces of inquiry, mutual engagement, and collaboration through collective art making.
In 2016, Yanas founded Ulises, a bookstore and curatorial project, with Nerissa Cooney, Lauren Downing, Joel Evey, Kayla Romberger and Gee Wesley. In May of 2024, Ulises re-opened their storefront location at the Ray building in Philadelphia’s South Kensington neighborhood.
