John Yau reviews Peter Shear: Magnolias All at Once at the Fortnight Institute, New York, on view through July 16, 2017.

Yau writes: “Shear is interested in composition, color relationships, how forms sit within the rectangle of the canvas, what can be done with the edges, and the texture of paint… There is something wonderfully open about Shear’s process. He never claims to say more than he’s able, recalling [poet Norman] Fisher’s description of words or, in the artist’s case, brushstrokes lying on the surface.”