Image: "Listening" (detail), 2025, Chris Gregson
Piedmont Arts in Martinsville, Virginia, will present ‘Chris Gregson: Novus Ordo Seclorum’ from August 29 through October 31, 2026. The exhibition features a new body of paintings by Gregson, an artist based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, that examines sensation, memory and perception through layered calligraphic marks and fields of undulating color.
According to the museum, the paintings are built through successive applications of thin oil paint. Their surfaces accumulate over time, producing richly textured visual narratives that evoke space, time and place. Each composition develops through a process of accretion, with individual marks contributing to a larger, unfolding experience.
The exhibition is organized around two interconnected series: expansive horizontal compositions and diptychs. The horizontal works suggest landscapes and distant horizons without identifying a specific geography. Because they lack a fixed horizon line, the paintings present ambiguous terrain shaped by memory and imagination rather than direct representation.
The diptychs focus on relationships between paired panels of color. Through juxtaposition and visual dialogue, the works consider opposition, compatibility, sameness and harmony. The pairings also investigate how meaning can emerge through both difference and connection, extending the exhibition’s interest in perception beyond a single image or panel.
Gregson studied at the former New York Studio and Forum of Stage Design. His work is held in corporate, private and public collections, including those of Markel Group Inc. and the Taubman Museum of Art. The exhibition’s title, ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum,’ is presented by Piedmont Arts as the name of this new group of paintings; the museum’s description does not provide a translation or further explanation of the title.
Piedmont Arts is located at 215 Starling Avenue in Martinsville, and admission to the exhibition is free. The museum will hold an opening reception on Friday, August 28, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., ahead of the exhibition’s public run. A gallery talk at 6:15 p.m. will bring together Reni Gower, curator of the concurrent exhibition ‘COLLECTive Concerns: Collage and Assemblage,’ and Gregson as the artist of ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum.’ Complimentary refreshments and music by Joanie McPeak are listed in the museum’s event information. ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum’ remains on view through October 31, 2026.
