Gary Edward Blum

Aiming to prove that artistic opposites can coexist, Gary Edward Blum merges Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, and trompe l’oeil realism in his beguiling acrylic-on-canvas paintings. Ranging from small- to large-scale, his compositions are visual puzzles, inspired by Agnes Martin, Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Rothko, and painting’s iterative history of realism and representation. His works feature grids subtly visible beneath a muted coating of pigment. A colored horizontal band, near the bottom of the picture plane, demarcates a block of space that looks like a studio floor, which, in turn, causes the rest of the picture to appear as a wall. In the center of his works, Blum inserts his trompe l’oeil tease: a painted piece of paper, replicating all or part of the overall composition, which seems to be taped to the canvas’s surface.