John Goodrich reviews John Walker: Recent Paintings at Alexandre Gallery, New York, on view through November 15, 2014.

Goodrich writes: "Few painters have expanded the original impulses of Abstract Expressionism in more directions than John Walker… But his biggest departure from 'classic Ab-Ex' may be his reliance on the perceived world. Although moodily abstracted, his images from the last decades have been consistently inspired by observations of the real. His urgent strokes and brooding color, moreover, reveal a certain discipline of form; their forces build in ways that create discrete, tangible presences in his paintings … A minority of the marks are recognizable as objects, but all read as presences in the almost mystically deep and bright spaces. Though painted on humblest of supports, the colors and forms capture the primal experience of land meeting sky, and the artist seems to experience it anew each time."