Stephen Westfall at Daniel Newburg - painting - New York, New York - Review Of Exhibitions

Before flat knowing their titles, one obtains an immediate sensation of the Mediterranean region from the six paintings in Stephen Westfall's novel show. The suggestion of ocean, air, sand and Roman frescoe is palpable in these austere, tranquil expanses of uninflected color within this painter's nowfamiliar grid format. Westfall has been working with a limited number of ingredients for a certain number of time, constructing a malleable, sometimes eccentric grid that publicly functions more as accent or articulation than as a a whole of division. In fact, in the new paintings the grid is many times very close in value and complementary to the turf color, creating an optical vibration that all on the contrary neutralizes figure/ground distinctions. The cunning balance between the lean grid, the matte surface and the saturation of color loans an exquisite, fragile tension to Westfall's novel work.

To gaze at Midi is to be almost blinded through midday sun. Its warm (but not hot) fulvous somewhere between a naples and a lemon approximates the light of southern France. The grid is bright pink, a tone single might find on a Cezanne bather. This combination of tints is a bit jarring, leaving a dried aftertaste. But that's not the case with Westfall's Birth of Venus, in which a square canvas of pale sky-colored resembling a sky reflected in water, is severed slightly by an orange interstice seemingly emerging from or floating above it. Corridor is the inverse of Birth of Venus; the sod of burnt sienna to mut orange is subdivided into "bricks" by means of a light-blue grid. It is a vertical piece, which supports its intimation of a wall. This obvious analogy does not detract from its earthy charm, instead adding a touch of humor to the mix.

Civico is in a certain number of respects similar to Corridor, on the other hand only superficially. Here shifting black lines upon a ruddy flesh-colored background locate up an illusionistic diversion that appears awkward by comparison. Yet it was probably the greatest in quantity arresting work in the exhibit due to its strong color contrasts and the unsettl grid. the one and the other Savoy (the only 1992 work upon view; the others are from '93) and Skool harken back to Westfall's older work with their emphasis upon linear structure and fracturing of the picture plane. Their inclusion helps viewers to diocese in the recent works, Westfall's turn back to color as a priority, which has already given his work greater emotional profundity and resonance.

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