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Review: Jennifer Boysen’s paintings stretch the form

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Sometimes it’s unclear whether you’re seeing Jennifer Boysen’s paintings or simply sensing them.

Her monochrome canvases at Cherry & Martin are irregularly shaped or textured panels that hover somewhere between painting and sculpture, illusion and presence. Their forms and textures feel just barely there, not unlike the optics of a Robert Irwin construction.

They may look flat only to reveal, on closer inspection, rather substantial volumes. The effect is subtle but quite magical, playing along the edges of perception.

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Painted in matte, light-absorbing tempera, the untitled works are like beautiful but inscrutable monoliths. Slim, white vertical canvases feature ridges at top and bottom that suggest columns emerging from the milky surface. A commanding, cross-shaped, turquoise piece has irregularly scalloped edges that seem chiseled like an arrowhead.

And in the corners of a smaller white square, networks of light gray dots press through, suggesting some industrial, non-skid surface but also forming a cross in the negative space. Balanced and self-contained, they feel like ritual objects.

Yet for all their tactile appeal, Boysen’s works are still resolutely paintings.

After stretching the canvas over its form, she paints the surface with a roller, which leaves an uneven distribution of paint at edges or ridges. This technique leaves the structures feeling gently worn and ever so slightly abraded, as if they were alive.

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Cherry & Martin, 2712 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A., (310) 559-0100, through Oct. 25. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.cherryandmartin.com

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