Canadian-born artist and Texas A&M University Instructional Assistant Professor Rebecca Pugh presents To the Horizon, a solo exhibition of new abstract paintings inspired by the Texas landscape and the experience of repeatedly traveling between Houston and College Station. The exhibit is on view through July 25, 2026 at Sabine Street Studios (North Gallery) in Sawyer Yards.
Check out her gallery video tour on Glasstire.
Working from memory rather than direct observation, Pugh transforms familiar roadside experiences — grasslands, wildflowers, ranch fences, cattle, highway overpasses, and shifting horizons — into a distinctive visual language of geometric forms, layered surfaces, and graphite mark-making. During her commute, she records voice notes documenting fleeting observations, later translating those recollections into paintings that explore movement, distance, memory, and place.
The exhibition includes several new works created since relocating to Texas in 2020, including an 18-foot painting installation inspired by the image of a collapsed wooden fence encountered during a summer drought. Throughout the exhibition, angular forms echo the spaces between fence posts, railings, and twisted barbed wire, while graphite drawings mounted onto painted surfaces evoke wind moving through grass, the rhythm of highway travel, and the abstraction of everyday spaces.
The exhibition’s title reflects Pugh’s interest in abstracting the landscape below the sky, while also referring to the familiar moment when Houston’s skyline appears in the distance from the crest of a stacked Interstate 45 interchange on her drive home from College Station. For the artist, that view of the horizon has become both a recurring sight and a metaphor for place, memory, and the experience of returning home.
“To the Horizon is about the landscape that exists below the sky,” says Pugh. “It reflects my experience of driving across Texas and the emotional pull of seeing Houston’s skyline emerge in the distance as I return home.”
Rather than depicting recognizable places, Pugh investigates how repeated observation transforms landscape into memory and abstraction. Her paintings invite viewers to consider the overlooked visual patterns embedded within everyday travel and the ways movement through place shapes perception.
Pugh earned her M.F.A. in Studio Art from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2015 and is currently an Instructional Assistant Professor in the College of Performance, Visualization & Fine Arts at Texas A&M University. Recent solo exhibitions include Highways to Houston at Lone Star College–University Park (2026) and Fences and Fields at the Dougherty Arts Center in Austin (2025).
TO THE HORIZON: REBECCA PUGH | on view through July 25, 2026
Sabine Street Studios (North Gallery) at Sawyer Yards
Gallery Hours: Monday–Saturday 9 AM–5 PM
ARTIST TALK | CLOSING RECEPTION | PODCAST TAPING
Saturday, July 25, 2026 | 12–1:30 PM | Sabine Street Studios
RSVP ON EVENTBRITE
Houston Cultural Events Calendar
Join artist Rebecca Pugh in conversation with Melissa Richardson Banks as part of the MUSED Houston Live! series, which will be recorded before a live audience and released as a future episode of the MUSED Houston podcast.
The artist talk and MUSED Houston Live! podcast taping are funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.
