John Haber reviews the exhibition Tom McGrath: Profiles in Fugitive Light at Sue Scott Gallery, New York, on view through June 10, 2012.

Haber writes: "A chain-link fence runs through [the paintings], parallel and close to the picture plane, while other barriers to entry run in and out of sight… The fence suggests a point of entry to these 'Profiles in Fugitive Light.' Its patterning occupies a place between nature and culture… Its grid encloses and maps real spaces, just as it demarcates the canvas. Abstraction teaches that large paintings are never devoid of life, because they relate to both the wall and the viewer. So what if one can enter fully only through color and light? McGrath differs only in identifying pictorial space with contested ground outside."