Bradley Rubenstein reviews the exhibition Susanna Heller: Phantom Pain at Magnan Metz Gallery, New York, on view through April 20, 2013.

Rubenstein writes: "Heller's painting presents a journey of sorts… Traveling in a painting is not linear, and one must be willing to take the time to travel. Painting also embodies this place: the seeming contradiction between the thick stuff of paint (in all its finite opacity as the record of a mark having been made) and the volatile space or movement being suggested. Just like nothingness, or empty space, which is actually filled with energy and vibrating with electromagnetic fields and particles dancing in and out of existence, so also our thoughts and sights are connected to sensations and events that may not be visible to the naked eye but are no less real and recordable."