Dk-Y-Gr, 2009, oil on primed steel 5 x 5.375 x 2.125 inches
The second show of the art collective named TRANS, TRANSformal offers a peek at abstract painting from nine artists from Munich, San Francisco, Tokyo, and upstate New York, revealing similar formal concerns with color and context. Nancy White’s petite steel abstractions barely rest within the idea of painting; painted squares of steel they look like origami in process. Each slight fold beckons the mind to consider the possibilities, but no recognizable form appears; the hand-sized work is simply an open geometric shape, and frozen in its openness on the wall at eye level. In Richard Shur’s more conventionally-sized paintings, a contemporary Mondrian is conjured with taped squares of obliquely overlapping color jostling for space between cool expanses of unpainted linen (Pharmaka, Downtown LA).