Terry Winters: Table of Contents

 

Terry Winters’ show Table of Contents at the Matthew Marks gallery reveals - and exploits - the endless fertility of art's simplest elements - dots, lines, and geometric shapes. Each carefully constructed painting is both abstract and symbolic, and so expressive as well. Some works seem to reference astronomy, stars and universes, while others seem to present a biological subject suggesting cells and neurons. Throughout, Winters is an absolute master of layering. Each painting plays with the eye as the dots go over the lines and color blocks, varying in shape and color slightly, as if they were close or far away, or bend around some invisible constraint. A sense of real depth in these abstractions is achieved through these slight variations in dots as well as via the pops of fluorescent color that show around the edges. It is extremely satisfying to see the human touch in the brushstrokes of the painted dots or the multilayered rectangles. The artist invites the viewer to take their time with each work, and the subtleties of color slowly reveal themselves the longer one looks. The large, almost majestic, scale (88 in x 68 in) adds to this sense of magic. The viewer feels as if he or she is standing in front of something intriguing, not entirely transparent, but important, beckoning. The work is large enough and spacious enough compostionally for the viewer to swim around in it while noting every detail.