Ed Schad reviews the exhibition Brenna Youngblood: Activision at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles, on view through October 26, 2013.

Schad writes that Youngblood's paintings "speak of memory, of the business of old sheds, woodshops presided over by tinkers and gypsy poets far from anything glossy and even farther from fashion. [Her] added bits of photos and objects further shock the surfaces. However, in the gallery, these paintings are inexplicably bright, and in light of the rough materials, the luminosity is paradoxical… Youngblood borrows devices from many artists: the sweeping interactions of shape and planes offered by color field painters, the blurred ghosts of history painters post-photography like Luc Tuymans and Gerhard Ritcher, and the symptomatic readymades of Mike Kelley. However, Youngblood doesn’t make a fuss about any of these devices. She seems to simply follow a force wherever it takes her materials…"