Sharon Butler blogs about the exhibition Ryan McLaughlin: Raisins at Laurel Gitlen, New York, on view through December 22, 2013.

Butler writes: "Hovering between still life and abstraction, the charming yet dour small-scale paintings [by McLaughlin at the 2012 Frieze Art Fair, NY] featured a minimal, greyed-down palette and shallow space. In 'Raisins,' his solo show at Laurel Gitlen, McLaughlin has moved even closer to abstraction, depicting the flattened space of billboards and advertisements. The palette is brighter and the images look redacted, as though McLaughlin has scraped off more concrete, specific images."