In this group of new paintings and works on paper collectively titled "Shift", Margaret Neill has relaxed her motifs and intensified her color, while introducing an expanded sense of space and movement within her mobile compositions. In these works free flowing forms slide in and around each other in a highly elastic glide, creating an aqueous ambiguity. Her previous body of work explored a quietly malleable figure/ground relationship layering the repeated meanderings of oval forms over fields of subtly contrasting color. The new paintings blur that figure/ground relationship as forms with gracefully undulating perimeters press well beyond the constraints of the paintings? formats and bring into question the exact nature of their interactions. We look into the burnished and translucent surfaces of these paintings as if gazing into slowly moving water and sense the earth shifting tectonically under our feet. These associations are strengthened by her palette which ranges across the spectrum from pale aquatic blues and greens to earthy pinks, reds and browns, to deeper violet tones. The subtle layering of brushwork in the underpainting adds a textural dimension to these paintings. Tactile traces of the brush add to the illusion of watery flow as created in the more viscous mineral matter of oil paint. Margaret Neill's bright new paintings develop just such a flow and share with us their thoughtful and meditative pace.

Margaret Neill's paintings and works on paper are in several important collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. As well as numerous corporate and private collections. This is her second solo exhibition at Metaphor.