Empty Spaces Exist No ore

At Montage Gallery through Oct. 25

By Blake de Pastino

Empty Spaces Exist No More
At Montage Gallery through Oct. 25

Maxine Taylor came hard by the realization that the real world was no longer for her. After nearly three
decades of painting landscapes and street scenes, Taylor began tinkering with abstraction only a few
years ago, working toward a less literal and more problematic way of framing the world as she saw it.
Just in the past year, though, she finally uncurled her fingers from around the rule book of realism and
let her hands roam. And as her tight little show now on display at Montage Gallery proves, few things
are more strangely comforting than watching an artist revel in newfound freedom.

The tradition that Taylor cribs from in Empty Spaces seems to date back to Jackson Pollock and Franz
Klein, but labeling her a stone-cold Abstract Expressionist falls shy of the mark. This most recent
work--all 22 pieces were produced in the past year--are both warmer and more economical than
old-school Ab Ex. The show's title aside, Taylor doesn't seem to suffer from the same horror vacui that
drove early expressionists to saturate every inch of their canvases. Instead, she displays a tendency
toward fewer, thicker strokes; a palette that could be described in terms of tints rather than colors; and a
willingness to let her compositions breathe through just a thin drapery of acrylic, watercolor, ink, and
pastel. As curator Mitch Angel puts it, "she uses only enough blankets to keep you warm."

" I Haven't Put My Finger on It," for instance, marches out just a few two-inch-wide bands of earthy color,
with tiny, draftsmanlike boxes of ink lingering nearby; but everything eventually retreats under a coat of
acrylic, a pale dun so faint that it nearly matches the paper underneath, keeping the scene enticingly muted.
The aptly titled "A New Point of View," meanwhile, is a Zen-tinged composition of watercolor ribbons in pea
green and peach, with a small splash of coffee brown ripping through the center, and four inky forms,
painted with a calligrapher's brush, looking like equal parts stick figures and Japanese kanji.

It's this mixture of airiness and geometry that suggests Taylor is developing her own unique slang, and in
"Roots of Change" (pictured) you can see that it all stems back to her days in landscape painting. Two
thick black stripes form a kind of horizon near the top here, a faint triangle hanging below, like a lake
mirroring a mountain scene. From the center of the frame run five thin lines, each ending with a rough red
rectangle. They could be roads leading to buildings, or stems ending in petals. Either way, you get the
sense that something's on the go, like there is most places in this show, and that in time everything takes
its own course.