The Howell Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Nancy Junkin, opening with an artist reception on Thursday, November 5th from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM at BancFirst Tower Gallery, 100 North Broadway Avenue.
Junkin is best known for figurative and abstract paintings defined by a looseness of expression, line, and color. Her abstracts begin with a movement of line rather than a preconceived plan, a process she compares to starting a jigsaw puzzle: “intriguing, exciting, frustrating and with some successes along the way.” Her figures are just as loose, often painted without facial features so that each carries a kind of universal gaze. Color, whether faded or bold, cool or warm, textured or luminous, sits at the center of both.
“In my studio, anything that can make a mark is fair game,” Junkin says. Her tools range from pencils and kitchen utensils to sticks from a pine forest and shells from the beach, and her elegant Japanese brushes to hardware-store finds. She builds the surface in layers, veiling areas and adding shapes and lines until the composition gains history and depth, often adding collage (words, scraps of paper, fragments of earlier paintings) as details emerge.
Junkin came to painting midlife by way of a recurring dream in which she wandered her house and found an unfamiliar room. A dream interpretation book read it as the sign of “a quiet spirit waiting to be developed,” and she followed it with restless determination: painting daily, taking classes and workshops, studying with a range of artists, building a library around favorites such as Matisse, Joan Mitchell, Fechin, and Diebenkorn, and visiting museums in London, Amsterdam, Belgium, Istanbul, and across the United States. Emotion, history, weather, and the landscape of her home in the heart of the country all shape the work. “Painting is my way of expressing a love for life that is even better than a dream,” she says.
The exhibition remains on view through January 29, 2027.
Click Here for Images of the Work
Exhibition Details:
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 5th, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Location: BancFirst Tower Gallery in The Underground, 100 N Broadway Ave, Oklahoma City
On View: November 5th, 2026 – January 29th, 2027
Valet parking available during Opening Reception at The Skirvin Hilton. Enter the Tower at
the North entry and take the escalator to the lower level.