ARTnews, November 2005

Michael Kessler at Nuart, Santa Fe, page 191

by Richard Speer

Few painters wax more poetically about the ongoing duel between Apollonian order and Dionysian chaos than Michael Kessler. In these abstract paintings (all 2005) Kessler continued his well-honed superimposition of squares and rectangles atop luxuriantly layered organic backgrounds, shot through with arcing spurts of acrylics, varnishes, and gesso. Depending on the interplay of materials, some works finish glossy, others waxy; some layers recede into muted planes, while others sear forth as if barely containing some preternatural incandescence.

It is an unlikely updating of Hans Hofmann, this skillfully modulated push-and-pull between the polar drives to surmount nature and to surrender to it, rather like ancient ruins, toppled and overgrown with vines. Kessler’s ruins are his immaculate geometries, cancer-eaten by lichenlike tendrils that spread across and penetrate into the thickly built-up paint. There is something poignant in this.

Chromatically, Kessler has long enjoyed the alchemy between black and red. Jewel-like works such as Kalli exult in the interplay of onyx and ruby tones. But recently the artist has ventured into thrilling greens—grading Alder from chartreuse to kelly to forest—and blues—using Narita and Fishpond as springboards for exploring cerulean and ultramarine, navy and midnight.

Kessler seems to feed off his colors' saturation; when he departs from it, as in the less exhilarating ecru etudes, he loses his bearings. It is as if he senses that in the great battle his work chronicles, nature always wins; the best humanity can do is live—and paint—with intensity.