Anne Russinof photoblogs a visit to Emily Berger and Claire Seidl “vis-à-vis” and Mark Wethli: New Work at The Painting Center, New York, on view through April 19, 2014.

Kathleen Whitney notes in the catalogue essay that "Both [Seidl and Berger] maximize all types of ambiguity – spatial, structural and inferential. They consistently reconsider and revise as they work; the changes are at the heart of their respective processes… For Seidl, each painting is the consequence of the fluidity and mutability of paint, color relationships and action within a given territory. She cultivates an allusive image, one constructed from a complex, nuanced and layered space. …Berger’s work represents the interplay of additive and subtractive processes … her wavering, sensual, horizontal bands are shadowed by changes and readjustments…seemingly caught in a transitional state; just after or before coming into being. …Berger’s expanding and contracting bars of color and Seidl’s agitated or meditative fields present an expansive architecture of form and concept. Their work is the record of a commitment to the physicality of paint and its transformative promise."

Wethli's quiet paintings on paper are: "Inspired by Shaker drawings, Tantric art, amateur sign painting, and the history of geometric abstraction, among other sources, the paintings’ reductive design, burnished color, and deliberate yet make-do brushwork blur the boundaries between functional and aesthetic readings as well as the experiences we bring to each."