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 20Longo’s uncanny charcoal copies of iconic Abstract Expressionist paintings from Pollock to de Kooning to Mitchell. Sheinkman, along with Longo and most everybody else, acknowledges that historical Abstraction Expressionism is a closed chapter, but also recognizes that it remains fertile territory for question, response and exploration, with or without irony or conceptualism. As do I. I’ve known Mark and his work for more than twenty years, and in 2009 included him in a thematic exhibition about contemporary approaches to gestural abstraction called Action Precision. The title was respectfully borrowed from an important 1984 show of paintings by six of the younger Abstract Expressionists, curated by Paul Schimmel. His show was about the ways in which Joan Mitchell, Michael Goldberg, Al Held, Alfred Leslie, Grace Hartigan and Norman Bluhm invigorated a canon coalescing during the 1950s. Mine was about the ways in which certain painters today manifest the ongoing viability of expression through gestural improvisation in an era opened irreversibly to the innumerable approaches available to artists today. Sheinkman begins each painting with only the parameters of the materials, process and format that he has chosen. He begins and proceeds mark by mark, action by action, decision by decision, revision by revision. He doesn’t advance with a plan or destination in mind. His process is flexible and fluid, and allows him considerable leeway to react and change course, continuing until a conclusion has been achieved. “The process is what’s engaging,” he says, “because you’re paying attention all the time.” jill weinberg adams December 2016