For true art fair truffle hounds there is nothing like a new name. Karin Waskiewicz, for instance, a Kent State graduate who got her BFA in 2010 and has been picked up by Schroeder Romero & Shredder. This neophyte – as yet untested on a New York wall – made her debut at Miami’s Pulse, December 1-4, 2011. Otherwise smooth, solid monochrome expanses are punctured by what read as lunar pockmarks to reveal hidden reserves of lustrous color. Or else the paint seems chiseled away, casually exposing a chromatic array of layers. There is a cold, indifferent beauty to these painterly/geological formations: even if matter-of-fact technical explanation were at hand, that would hardly dent the sense of mystery. DAVID COHEN
Karin Waskiewicz, Collective Behavior, 2011. Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches. Courtesy of Schroeder Romero & Shredder
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