Four rare examples of John McLaughlin’s small-scale paintings from the 1950s and ‘60s exemplify the artist’s career-long effort to encounter the truly abstract and to eliminate material reference. Working exclusively with a vocabulary of simple rectangular shapes distributed upon neutral fields, these gem-like paintings depict the remarkable variety McLaughlin was able to achieve within his disciplined realm of elemental forms and subtle variations of hue and tone.

Three paintings by John McCracken inhabit a genre that bridges the space between McLaughlin’s (philosophical) and Corse’s (environmental) approaches to art making. Like futuristic renditions of the mandala, these paintings address space and perception by way of a hyper-segmented, monochromatic canvas. Variations in the color and intensity of action from work to work illuminate the range of McCracken’s exploration of space and perception in a two-dimensional form as a means of accessing realms or dimensions beyond the familiar.

Two paintings by Mary Corse explore a polarized duality between perceived depth and two-dimensionality. Fields distinguished from one another not by color but by a sense of weight or luminosity move in and out of the viewer’s perception, challenging the audience not only to capture but to simultaneously comprehend floating, glowing panels and bands.