James Panero Selects "Paul Resika: Recent Paintings" as Critic's Pick in The New Criterion

Paul Resika, End of the Day #3, 2022, Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches.  (BP#PR-8878)

“Paul Resika: Recent Paintings” at Bookstein Projects, New York (Part I: April 20–May 12): At the age of ninety-four, the painter Paul Resika is not interested in sailing off into the sunset. A new exhibition of his latest paintings at Bookstein Projects is so radiant it must be shown in two parts. Now on view through May 12 is a suite called “The End of the Day”—sunlit seascapes by way of blazing abstractions. A painting from his moonlit series called “Free and Easy” is also on view. Then from May 17 through June 9, Resika will show two monumental paintings, titled Cerulean and Tangelo, of sail-like triangles against luminous backgrounds. Taken together, the compositions depict the how as much as the what of painting, by an artist who has spent a lifetime in paint. —James Panero