Stephen Maine reviews the exhibition Olive Ayhens: Interior Wilderness at Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York, on view through June 28, 2014.

Maine writes: "Demonstrating formal finesse, visual wit and disarmingly direct technique, the recent paintings of Olive Ayhens are a pleasure to behold. The profusion of anecdotal detail in this artist’s work (in particular, her obvious fondness for certain members of the animal kingdom) suggests a dreamlike narrative symbolism, but that doesn’t obscure the fact that she’s also an abstractionist of the first order… nine medium-sized paintings — in oil on canvas or linen, from the last five years — that attest to Ayhens’s command of her pictorial means: elastic or distorted space, a distinctive palette, and a willingness to allow realism to dissolve into pure abstraction. That these elements are knit together just a bit uneasily adds to the works’ power and charm."