Merlin James at Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

How perfect that this artist is named Merlin for he casts a wide and magical spell in his latest show of perfectly scaled paintings that for the most part are abstract but have dollops of landscapes, figures (including some erotic ones) and oddly shaped canvases. Yes these are magical and subtle and seductive little darlings that are mouth watering in their casualness, colors and markings. In some of the works Merlin reverses the canvas and shows us the stretchers and supports that are minimally painted with lovely shapes and incorporating small 3-D elements usually hovering on the edges and are then covered over with a transparent layer or scrim giving them a theatrical look as if we are watching a play that is about to happen. Some of them have nice wooden frames or borders surrounding them, but most are on canvas with some of them having concaved sides that give the works a warped eccentric look. One canvas has a single flower growing out of a vase set on a table that at first I thought it was a person wearing a weird hat, another is a tangy erotic almost pornographic painting of a woman, legs spread and hunched on a table top with an detached erect penis hovering near her vagina like a space ship about to take off. There are also sublime landscapes with acidy colors, textured mountains and small marvelous abstractions so beautifully painted and composed in their small constricted spaces that they catch you off guard in their perfect splendor. As usual critics have the need to compare and line up influences when composing their reviews and articles, “they remind me of this painter and that painter” and I guess that’s their job, but it’s not mine. I look at other artist’s art for what is there in front of me (or in many cases what isn’t there) and with these terrific paintings I simply relish them for their own being. Why this wonderful painter was not included in Moma’s lousy “Forever No” fiasco is beyond me, and serves as a reminder of the many large and small mistakes the curators made in putting that very flawed show together. I don’t think I’ve been so moved by a group of paintings since Bill Jensen’s deeply felt incomparable small paintings of the early 70’s.