Thomas Micchelli reviews works by Andrew Forge on view at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York through August 14, 2015.

Micchelli writes: "'They take a long time to make.' That’s what the British artist and writer Andrew Forge said when he was 'questioned as to the meaning of his paintings,' … Such a brass-tacks perspective would seem to make Forge’s pointillist abstractions strange bedfellows with the all-white paintings of the American pragmatist Robert Ryman — both artists approach each new work as tabula rasa, an unpremeditated engagement with the empty surface … but there is an experiential connection as well. The simplicity of Ryman’s monochromes compel you to examine how the painting is made — the length, direction, thickness and texture of the stroke — and Forge’s labor-intensive, tessellated patterns, painted one dot at a time over months and years … subliminally draw an equal amount of attention to the hard reality of the painting’s evolution."