Dan Nadel reviews paintings by Ellen Berkenblit recently on view at Anton Kern Gallery, New York.

Nadel writes: “In defiance and celebration of the earthen black that surrounds them, the vigorously delineated horses, flowers, hands, faces, stripes, a nude, and a foot found in Ellen Berkenblit’s striking new paintings at Anton Kern Gallery are a riot of luminous colors—violets, pinks, reds, oranges, greens, blues, and everything in between… the things in Berkenblit’s paintings seem to be malleable and evocative receptacles of color and texture. The intertwining of image and technique has long been a concern of Berkenblit, who … is, with [Carroll] Dunham, one of a handful of painters, including Dana Schutz, Jason Fox, and Amy Sillman, equally concerned with the possibilities of expressive figuration and virtuosic paint-handling.”