Recently I was welcomed into the Brooklyn studio of painter Karen Schifano . Schifano's minimal compositions, painted in a vivid palette, reveal sensitive, painterly touches when closely inspected. The work is confident and bold and the power derived from this stance contradicts delicate variations in what at first appears to be a solid color ground. The forthrightness of the work makes the discovery of a line barely visible or a feathered corner or edge that much more gratifying when discovered. Lately, other compositional elements have been introduced that interact with and against the larger forms. The addition of graceful curvilinear forms: a hovering ellipse here, the swoop of an "infinity symbol" there, allow for a more complicated reading of the space and at times it may seem that a stage has been set. This aspect allows for elements of narrative, character, and a psychological reading to come into play. Schifano's work has recently been includ...