Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20every essay and review about mark sheinkman’s paintings makes note of the materials and processes that result in his distinctive work. A white oil and alkyd ground is covered with graphite that is subsequently removed with rags and erasers, establishing over-layers of undulating, curving lines. The marks read as “figure” while actually revealing “ground.” There was always more to it than that, and more so now than ever. The new works included in this exhibition show that Sheinkman has expanded the role of additive mark-making. The direct application of oil and alkyd paint and a larger measure of brushwork has resulted in gestures with a wider range of characteristics of thick and thin, hard and soft. In many of these paintings, he has so entirely entangled the marks that the layering is ambiguous, even contradictory. This complicates the implied depth of field and introduces a snap of tension between spatial illusion and factual surface. “Restrictions open up all kinds of possibilities,” Sheinkman says. Breaking one of them wide open after years of exploring curves, he has reintroduced straight lines and gestures into his paintings, opening up a new range of potential for formal exploration and art historical associations. The layered webs and idiosyncratic processes of Jackson Pollock, Brice Marden and Terry Winters have been mentioned in connection to Sheinkman’s work, but the recent deployment of straight, darting diagonal brushstrokes unsupported by an underlying grid points as well in the direction of Willem de Kooning and issues of pictorial space rooted in Cubism. Earlier this year, I saw a painting in Sheinkman’s studio and commented that its scale and compositional structure reminded me of de Kooning’s painting Interchange, in grisaille, and realized later that it also put me in mind of Robert