October 28–November 4, 1999

cover story

10 in the Abstract

Like athletics or chess, abstraction — whether or not it’s utterly non-objective — presents painters with endless permutations of self-chosen challenges. Philly is full of abstractionists, so many excellent ones that it positively hurts to choose just 10. In fact, we added one to grow on — for 11.

• Edna Andrade

  makes crisp delicate optical teasers, though she’s recently become a rock-painting renegade.

• Jan Baltzell

  brings a classical sensibility to beautifully structured color.

• Quita Broadhead

  generously transforms harshness into grace.

• Moe Brooker

  ’s jazz-influenced riffs make it all seem easy.

• Charles Burwell

  places pattern on pattern in patterns with a cool postmodern sensibility.

• Lynn Denton

  ’s color is raw and intense with bold fiber-influenced accents — relentless as time itself.

• Neysa Grassi

  (above) builds up and wears down interwoven linear layers.

• Bruce Pollock

  ’s jeweled cellular structures echo with mantra-like repetition and variation.

• Bill Scott

  ’s calligraphic garden of rich color blooms with apparently effortless charm.

• Doris Staffel

  scripts an abundant dialogue of form and color.

• David Stephens

  incorporates a vast lexicon of symbols into his multi-part encaustic symmetries.

—Robin Rice