Michael Weinstein

Unsurpassed in contemporary photography as a straight abstractionist, Paul Clark's signature is a compelling power that he achieves through mastery of and concern for every dimension of the black-and-white aesthetic, and a penchant to pose new challenges to himself in his successive series, each one more intense and balanced than the last. In his most recent "Barriers" series, Clark shot construction sites and yards through webs of fencing that are often rife with tangled vines and branches, flattening perspective so that the softly focused and varied background is compressed into the sharply etched foreground, and producing a dense and compact force field of visual vectors that releases a jolt of energy in the viewer. Clark is at his best when he combines natural and industrial forms in syntheses that drive home the insight that the same power is at work everywhere, most markedly in the energetic response that we are capable of making to the world.

Paul Clark shows at Bell Studio, 3428 North Southport, (773)281-2172, through August 4. (2006-06-30)

Also by Michael Weinstein

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