Jasmina Danowski / Brazen Truths / 2007 / Oil and alkyd on panel / 19 x 19 inches / Spanierman Modern

Created with thin washes overlaying thick paint surfaces, the colors and forms in Danowski’s panels are compressed and charged, drawing energy from the confinement of the small, square supports. The strength of these intense works is seen in the way they hold their own against the much larger works on paper, with the two groups “forming a field of connections and interactions.”

The artist states that in the panels, it is “as if the paintings are searching to break out continuously from their own rules.” Many capture a suspended moment between control and release, with forms strained to the breaking point and pressurized as if to thwart an explosive chain reaction that has already begun. An inevitable hilarity appears about to burst forth at any moment but is barely restrained. This sense of play, using broad humor and subtly curbed energy, evokes the brilliant comedic physicality of Buster Keaton, whom Danowski cites as a hero.

Danowski’s process entails allowing her marks and colors to develop their own implicit potential, “the story they carry within them,” and the tales they unfold are to be generated as much by the observer as by the artist.