Benjamin Butler paints trees. As a shtick, it’s awfully specific, but as a formal constraint, it’s surprisingly open-ended, because the organic patterns of a plant’s growth, while necessarily always having a particular, recognizable type of coherence—one that’s similar to but more limited than that of any good painting—are extremely flexible; because Mr. Butler can pull those patterns almost to literal figuration, or push them toward decorative abstraction; and because of his sophisticated but fanciful colors. Read More