The compelling art of Alison Weld depends upon the recognition that materials can be seen as ends in themselves . . .

One can see how the New York School's emphasis on the physical integrity of paint and the intuitive self is taken up again in her paintings which celebrate the physicality of materials in frank and open ways . . .

Weld establishes the language of gesture through the bold use of paint as material; her panels of thickly impastoed paint take gesture as the basis of art. But then she does something quirky and very contemporary: she juxtaposes another panel, created with a different material - fake fur, vinyl, artificial flowers - which she uses to comment, formally and metaphysically, on the lush expressionism of the painted panel . . .

It would appear that artifice is important to Weld because integrity is important as well, and that distinguishing between the two is intended to create a contemporary, as opposed to an historicist or traditional self. It is to Weld's credit that her intelligence seeks out not one but two kinds of being.

Jonathan Goodman is a poet and arts writer based in New York City.