Bradley Rubenstein reviews Bill Jensen: Transgressions at Cheim & Read, New York, on view through May 9, 2015.

Rubenstein writes: "Jensen strives for an ego-less, unpretentious practice devoid of preconceived outcomes, surrendering to the painting process, allowing it to determine the path and destination of his work. His intensive layering and reworking of the canvas results in highly tactile and seductive surfaces: paint is plastered on, scraped off, seeped, dredged, brushed, and smoothed until a certain 'presence' is achieved; he attempts to create paintings which, like self-contained beings, affect the world around them—a characteristic he refers to as 'emotional density.' In the work shown at Cheim & Read, Jensen riffs on subjects taken from Chinese poetry, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, the icons of Andrei Rublev, and contemporaries, like Jasper Johns and Carroll Dunham."