Nick Nes Knowlton reviews Formal | Loose | Painting, curated by Jennifer Murray, at Ralph Arnold Gallery, Loyola University, Chicago, on view through April 11, 2015. The show features paintings by Michelle Bolinger, Samantha Bittman and Anna Kunz.

Knowlton writes that the works on view "are a refreshing contrast to lifeless painting that threatens visual communication itself in a hunger for conceptual novelty. Together they confirm that a voice can still be found in purely formal painting about the process of abstraction itself."