Eleanor Ray reflects on the recent exhibition Between Silver Light and Orange Shadow: Paintings by Elena Sisto at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York.

Ray writes: "After making images of young painters for several years, Sisto seems able in her newest work to remain conscious of the experience of the new painter, looking with fresh eyes, while also making use of decades of experience in painting. Just as the newest work represents a shift from an intellectual consideration of young painters to a physical identification with them, as Sisto suggests in a recent interview with Art in America, it also represents a further step away from painting about a particular idea. In the closely cropped images, ideas are not separable from the images’ expression in paint. This concrete state of being recalls Sartre’s dictum that 'existence precedes essence' – a person can only be defined by her actions, rather than by her aspirations."