Michael Reafsnyder Exhibition

Miles McEnery Gallery

This event has ended.

Michael Reafsnyder’s abstract paintings are widely appreciated for their immediate sensuous appeal: vibrant, generously worked surfaces visualize luscious worlds of color and movement seemingly unencumbered by physical constraints.

On occasion, a disembodied Smiling Face or loopy personage—perhaps Reafsnyder’s signature motifs—marks out territory in these sumptuous environments. Their presence adds narrative to what might otherwise be classed as pure abstraction. Yet these figures invite deeper contemplation, as Michael Schreyach suggests: “On a basic level, they control our pattern of visual scanning by soliciting us to follow their lines of sight or directional movement across the plane, laterally deflecting our views of deep space. More complex is what we might call their modes of existence. We are asked not only to notice the ways the personages are incorporated into or excluded from the field, but also to contemplate the character of the relationship between each personage and the environment in which it dwells.”