One might easily dismiss Benjamin Butler’s paintings as blandly pretty or ironic “bad painting,” a faux-amateurish retread of early 20th century Modernism. But they are, in fact, rather subtle paintings with a deceptive simplicity that belies a lot of art-historical knowledge and painterly know-how: the kind of work that takes time to warm up to.

All of them in his recent exhibition “Some Trees” depict not so much trees, as a nearly schematic glyph: the idea of a tree. As in Untitled Forest (2012), for instance, the suggestion of branches is rendered as one or two veering curves attached to a vertical line—enough to convey “tree”-ness. Mondrian’s trees come to mind, as if Butler is picking up an art-historical loose end and running with it, although, stylistically, they are more akin to Alex Katz. Similarly, Butler’s nods toward Minimalism suggest an attitude of resisting both the idealism of pure abstraction and the picturesque qualities imbued in his subject. Read More