John Yau finds a connection between a painting by Thomas Nozkowski and one by Philip Guston.

Yau writes: "Both Nozkowski’s and Guston’s paintings reveal themselves slowly. Their visual impact is not as immediate as it is in similar works. It takes close looking to see the figure-ground interaction in Nozkowski painting and the gray leg sticking out of the gray ball in Guston’s acrylic on paper. The pace of seeing is synonymous with — at least in this viewer’s mind — the act of waking up, as shapes and forms slowly become crystalline… Like Guston, Nozkowski, who doesn’t title his paintings and almost never mentions the sources of his work, wants to always be 'at the beginning of seeing.' This is one of the goals of his painting — to be true to the original experience and to reach that moment of seeing when all the names begin falling away."