ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM has historically been defined by male artists, who rose to fame in post-World War II America. While women were practicing unique modes of painting alongside their male counterparts, they were given little emphasis or attention within the canon of art history both then and now. Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction does not attempt to rewrite history, but instead it identifies and gives prominence to emerging and mid-career women working in the field of gestural abstraction today. Consisting of six contemporary painters--Keltie Ferris, Maya Hayuk, Jill Nathanson, Fran O'Neill, Jackie Saccoccio, and Anke Weyer--this exhibition expands the discourse of abstraction in the United States over the past ten years and focuses on the performance of painting. It explores each artist's signature style and poses questions about potential relationships between abstraction and gender. In the large-scale paintings of pours, stains, strokes, and drips, the use of gesture via new techniques is redefined and even reclaimed as the younger generation of abstract painters pay homage to their forerunners. Here, one discovers the significant role of women painters in the contemporary history (or "her-story") of abstraction. Confronting the Canvas: Women of Abstraction is one of the first museum exhibitions to focus solely on contemporary female painters.