Matt Morris reviews an exhibition of paintings by Norman Zammitt at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, on view through September 6, 2014.

Morris writes: "While peers in the loosely delineated movement of Light and Space in California from the 1960s onward abandoned painting in favor of more immaterial installation strategies, Norman Zammitt made a career of reasoned, deliberate canvases informed by floaty sensorial aspirations. His small paintings at Andrew Rafacz are rewarding to viewers precisely because of the tension between their physicality and the optical trickery that their composed horizontal bands of nuanced color excite in the eyes of viewers…  nowhere does Zammitt indulge in the smoke-and-mirrors theatricality of say James Turrell or Robert Irwin. Rather these are Albers-like postulations that not only conjure otherworldly perspectives but also render the means of manufacturing such illusions quite transparent."