Works on Panel

Paint, dried, peeled and laid back on like skin. Mark Westervelt’s works on panel set his signature paint skins onto wooden blocks: dried acrylic and latex, peeled from plastic and laid onto the wood in overlapping layers of gloss and matte color. The block gives the faces and figures a sculptural depth, closer to an object than a picture, and the edges of the wood show the build-up of paint. Westervelt, a Chicago painter trained at the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Chicago, calls the approach figurative abstract expressionism. Small panels stand easily on steel shelving or a mantel. Group them like a row of carved heads, and let them stare.