Sharon Butler reviews David Reed: New Paintings at Peter Blum Gallery, New York on view through June 25, 2016.

Butler begins: "At Peter Blum, the looping brushstrokes and open surfaces of David Reed’s remarkably spare site-specific installation are anything but casual. Entering the gallery, the viewer is faced with a 40-foot long multi-panel horizontal piece along the far wall. From a distance, it’s easy to imagine an old-school action painter laying down what seem to be curving, dripping strokes in a kind of improvised calligraphy. On closer inspection, however, it becomes apparent that some of the 'brushwork' is created by means of laser-cut stencils. Like Roy Lichtenstein, Reed is presenting a fictitious interpretation – in this case, a facsimile of gestural abstraction. Like a movie, Reed’s painting speaks of lived experience but isn’t real."