Tag: geometric abstraction

Gallery shows

Bettina Blohm and Don Voisine: Affect as subject

Contributed by Adam Simon / Two galleries with a focus on abstract painting, a short walk from each other in downtown Manhattan, currently have exhibitions that share a vocabulary of basic geometric forms, directional brushwork, and an emphasis on color relationships. Both shows present the rectangle as a primary condition of most painting and the dynamic interplay of forms within the rectangle as a drama unfolding. Yet these two shows couldn’t be more different. Seeing one after the other, as I did, was a study of how affect itself, manifested through color choices and paint application, becomes a subject for abstract painting, analogous to but different from a subject for representational painting.

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Solo Shows

Kate Shepherd: Feel me

Contributed by Sharon Butler / Kate Shepherd’s 2025 exhibition “ABC and sometimes Y,” at Galerie Lelong & Co. in New York, hums in the space between precision and poetry. The paintings are specific and unshowy, rendered in colors that Shepherd selects for their emotional undercurrents. She teases out big questions: How do we interact with the world? How can we untangle what we see? And how do color and form quietly alter our perceptions? The result is a kind of geometric sorcery whereby shapes don’t sit still – they shimmer, shift, and keep you guessing. Every line, every wobble feels heartbreakingly human, which is extraordinary for geometric abstraction.

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Solo Shows

David Diao: Deconstructing Modernism

Contributed by Sharon Butler / What conceptual painter hasn�t looked at an Ikea how-to diagram and at least fleetingly thought it would make a fine subject for a painting? David Diao has gone farther, deconstructing a Gerrit Rietveld chair and using the shapes and colors as the subjects for a new series of paintings, on view at Postmasters through March 12.

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Solo Shows

A Two Coats Conversation with Stephen Westfall

Stephen Westfall has engaged with geometric abstraction in singularly rich and sophisticated ways for more than thirty years, never complacent but always considered. Last week, I had the opportunity to talk with him at Alexandres new Lower East Side space, where his work is on view through December 22.

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