Amy Twomey doesn’t begin a painting knowing what it will become. She starts with attention, repetition, and time — and trusts the image to arrive on its own. That way of working sits at the center of “Fragments of Memory,” her solo exhibition running Jan. 23 to March 21 at the Fort Works Art Gallery.
Twomey is a Texas-based painter whose work pulls from the familiar without settling into nostalgia. Her canvases suggest landscapes, domestic objects, and quiet symbols drawn from everyday life, but they resist fixed meaning. Images surface, dissolve, and reappear, layered into surfaces that feel worked over rather than resolved.
Over the years, Twomey’s practice has deepened into a process guided by intuition rather than planning. She paints without sketches or predetermined narratives, allowing each canvas to evolve in response to what is already present. She has described entering a trance-like state while working, following the painting instead of directing it. The result is work that feels cohesive without being rigid, intentional without being overdetermined.
That commitment to process is what first drew Fort Works Art founder and director Lauren Saba to Twomey’s work, according to a release. Saba, whose gallery has become known for artists who follow their own internal logic, recognized in Twomey the same inward focus she has seen in the early exhibitions of Kyle Steed and in the close, attentive work of Jeremy Joel. It was not resemblance that mattered, but conviction — a sense that the paintings were being made for their own sake, not for an audience or an outcome.
“Fragments of Memory” reflects North Texas less through imagery than through rhythm. The paintings move at an unhurried pace, shaped by repetition and restraint, echoing the quiet beauty of the region itself. Twomey translates personal experience into symbols that remain open enough for viewers to bring their own associations. Objects, places, and moments hover between recognition and abstraction, allowing meaning to emerge slowly, if at all.
By painting her own story without insisting on interpretation, Twomey creates space for others to enter the work on their own terms. The exhibition becomes less a statement than an invitation — to look closely, to linger, and to recognize something familiar without needing to name it.
“I am attracted to the process-oriented nature of Amy’s work, and the ability of an artist to experience the making of the artwork as the sole priority rather than the end result, Saba said in a statement. “It is a different and exciting approach. The passion comes from a different place, with no intended narrative — you’re really just feeling it out and seeing what happens and that’s a beautiful thing to experience.”