A solo show of my paintings, Aggressive Women 1977-2025, is opening at George Adams Gallery in New York on September 9th.
You Rang?, 2025. Mixed media on panel with secondhand frame, 22.5H x 18.5W with frame.
Aggressive Women 1977-2025
Paintings by Katherine Sherwood
September 5 – October 11, 2025
Opening Reception: Friday, September 5, 6 - 8pm
George Adams Gallery
38 Walker Street, New York, NY 10013
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Friday 10am - 6pm
For ramp & mobility assistance, call 212-564-8480
George Adams Gallery is pleased to present Aggressive Women 1977-2025, an exhibition of paintings by Katherine Sherwood.
The Aggressive Women series features portraits of dominatrixes and female saints drawn from black-and-white personal ads in 1970s BDSM magazines and religious prayer cards Sherwood encountered in her Catholic high school. The paintings are displayed in beat-up thrift-store frames and installed salon-style, from floor to ceiling.
Installation view: Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, 1982.
Originally created in 1977-78, the series was shaped by a punk DIY ethos, confrontational feminism, and a self-taught, visually blunt approach to figuration.
Returning to the work in 2024-25, Sherwood has “cripped” the figures by giving them prosthetics, wheelchairs, and canes - visual affirmations of disability grounded in her own experience.
“While this country's abiding puritanical and patriarchal values would praise the saints and damn women engaging in BDSM as transgressive sinners, Sherwood rejects this. The two categories of women can also be seen as representations of stages in Sherwood’s life converging during a moment of self-discovery, not just of her sexuality, but of herself as an artist and a feminist.”
—from Exhibition Text by Lucy Zimmerman. 2025
St. Rosalia of Palermo, 2024. Mixed media on panel with secondhand frame, 22.5H x 18.5W with frame.
***UPDATED*** Accessibility Note
I’m pleased to share that the George Adams Gallery has improved the accessibility of their space for people who experience stairs as a barrier to access.
The gallery has permanently installed a rail-mounted chair lift on the back staircase leading directly to the exhibition. For visitors who use manual wheelchairs and are comfortable transferring to the chair lift, gallery staff are available to assist with the transfer and to carry manual wheelchairs down the stairs.
There is a ramp available at the front entrance to navigate the three steps. For ramp & mobility assistance, call 212-564-8480.
I hope this makes the exhibition more available to my community of disabled artists and allies.
A selection of images of some of my favorite pieces from the show is available on my website.