Peter Malone reviews paintings by Emily Mason at Ameringer McEnery Yohe, New York, on view through February 7, 2017.

Malone observes: “Though Mason’s palette is keyed to the higher pitches, it avoids the flash and punch embraced by much recent abstract painting. Apparently not interested in deadpan statements or the lure of eye-candy, she creates works that are for all their luminosity quite minimal and understated… Because Mason paints on a prepared white ground, not raw canvas, her transparent washes seem more akin to J.M.W. Turner’s late work, especially regarding that vague sense of landscape that nags at a viewer’s attempt to read its implied space. True to the tradition of mid-century abstract painting, these works resist such interpretation, remaining stubbornly fixed at a moment in the process when the artist was compelled to simply let it alone.”