On view at the artist’s solo exhibition at Lennon, Weinberg, 514 West 25th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues, New York 212 941 0012 through Saturday (December 20)
Restraint with a smile has always been Stephen Westfall’s hallmark. As surely as his method of tight, almost heraldic geometric abstraction remains focused, so are his stylistic references correspondingly diverse. His paintings acknowledge both minimalism and pop in their serial logic and jazzy, synthetic color. A somewhat designer-ish, language-game take on abstraction places the artist in the dubious company of postmodern contemporaries but Westfall seems incapable of irony: indeed, his work is pervaded by ingenuousness, placing him in genuine and respectful dialogue with the luminaries of the purist tradition in modern painting.
This was an artcritical PIC in December 2008.
print