John Yau reviews Ed Clark: Paintings at the Tilton Gallery, New York, on view through February 18, 2017.

Yau writes: “Clark’s approach is simple and straightforward, and he has not altered it much over the years. I don’t think he needs to. I think what needs to happen is to bring together in an exhibition different examples of what he has done over the course of his career. He gets a lot to happen in his paintings and works on paper, and he has an exquisite sense of color, especially when it comes to pale blues and pinks, and black and white. Clark’s colors can be dusty and muted as well as striated, with two hues in one broad broom stroke. The striations and the stacking of horizontal swaths of creamy paint evoke sky and landscape, calm and turbulence. When the upper and lower forms of a painting curve inward from the top and bottom edges, and exert pressure on a band horizontally bisecting the canvas, the shapes feel sculptural and soft — gentle billows of color.”