John Goodrich reviews the exhibition Lois Dodd: Recent Paintings at Alexandre Gallery, New York, on view through March 1, 2014.

Goodrich writes: "Something mysterious happens when a painter commits impressions of nature to canvas. Even though the act of painting involves reductions—simplifications of form, omissions of detail—expressiveness is liable to expand. For an artist liberated by this re-ordering (and the best are), a richness of vision supplants the sheer plenitude of nature. Lois Dodd is clearly such an artist… The thirty, mostly small paintings of houses, landscapes and flowers reflect her familiar, idiosyncratic outlook: the probing, often mischievous curiosity about the appearance of ordinary objects, and the peculiarities of translating them to a flat surface. As always, Dodd hides none of her process, rendering masses in broad planes that serve as foils for agile, darting detail."