Don Voisine doesn’t do studio visits for Instagram. He doesn’t paint to please an algorithm. And he definitely doesn’t care if you call his new show “timely.” For over forty years, he’s explored the same visual territory—taut geometric abstraction with a personal twist—and somehow, he’s still finding fresh ground.
There’s a name for that uncanny sensation of meeting someone once and then suddenly seeing them everywhere: the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. I met Don Voisine about a year ago at an art talk reception, and afterward, I couldn’t stop noticing him—or, more precisely, his work. Artists I admired lit up when I mentioned his name: “Oh, I love Don.” “First, you see the basic structure, then you look closely and notice all the beautiful edges, textures, and subtle finishes.” “His paintings feel like jewels with many facets—you never lose interest.”
Critics agree. In a 2013 review for The New York Times, Roberta Smith described Voisine’s work as “a master class in the power of restraint,” noting how his compositions “command attention through subtle shifts and meticulous balance.” He may not be a household name, but among artists, he’s revered as an artist’s artist.
Two weeks before the opening of his latest show, enact/re(d)act, at McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side, I made my way to Voisine’s studio on Powers Street in Williamsburg. Powers Street is not Bedford Avenue. Put it this way: no smoothie bars. (Yet.)
Voisine greeted me in a slate-gray T-shirt and black jeans, tilting his chin upward with a friendly expression—a Mainer greeting. No “darling,” no air kiss. Just: Are we doing this or what?
Don has lived in Williamsburg since 1985, before Williamsburg became Williamsburg. “I had a loft near the Bridge,” he said. “It was the heyday of the crack epidemic. Nobody came to Brooklyn back then.” He gave me a “what are you gonna do?” look. “I had two studio visits in five years.”
“When I first moved here,” he added, “Williamsburg had such a bad rep, the Italians would say they lived in Greenpoint instead.” He laughed. “Powers Street has changed slower than Bedford. You can still work here.”
He gestured toward a canvas—dark bands, sharp angles, a slash of red—and just like that, we were immersed in his world: a realm where geometry becomes expressive and precision invites contemplation.
Born in 1952, Voisine has the steady gaze of someone who’s spent decades weighing edges and calibrating contrast. He wears clear-framed glasses and keeps his expression mild, even monkish. Whether in the studio or at a gallery, he gives the impression he’d rather be painting.
He grew up in Fort Kent, a small town near the Quebec border in Maine, where winters are long and people speak French. “My mother was French Canadian,” he told me. “We spoke both languages at home. But kids who only spoke French—once they got to school, they weren’t allowed to use it. A lot of them fell behind.”
His father, who spoke English, died when Don was three. As a teen, Don took evening classes and interned at the Maine State Museum. Later, he studied at the Portland School of Art and the Concept School for Visual Studies.
In 2023, the University of Maine at Fort Kent awarded him an honorary doctorate. “It meant something,” he said quietly.
Voisine moved to New York in 1976 and fell in with a downtown theater crowd. From 1978 to 1985, he worked with Ping Chong and the Fiji Company, managing stage and building sets. But by ’85, he was all in on painting. He joined American Abstract Artists in 1997, served as president from 2004 to 2012, and was elected to the National Academy of Design in 2010.
When I visited his studio, there was a box of punk and rock records in the corner and a half-consumed coffee on the table. He was sorting paintings for his gallerist, Valerie McKenzie. “She knows what she wants,” he said calmly. “She knows what will sell.” He didn’t sound bothered. “She knows what she’s doing. I don’t like to install the show.”
At the May 16 opening, McKenzie Fine Art on Orchard Street was packed. I arrived early and spotted Don just outside the gallery, clad in a black suit, crisp white shirt, and skinny gray tie drifting lightly in the breeze. He looked like one of his paintings—precise, balanced, quietly charged. I almost wanted to frame him.
He hadn’t seen the hang. “Valerie took care of it,” he said. Then, with a wry smile: “Showtime.”
Inside, the paintings were bold—diamonds, X-shapes, and single long lines flanked by narrow bands of color that seemed to pulse. But linger a moment, and the structure gives way. Shapes float, wedge, and pierce. Layers tease the eye. What initially feels rigid slowly reveals its restlessness.
“There’s real confidence in this work,” McKenzie told me the next day when I dropped by—a short walk from my apartment. She pointed to a painting called Jack, where two identical blues appear wildly different depending on context. “Same color,” she said. “It’s just what they sit next to.”
A friend once described Voisine’s paintings as “sensuously severe,” McKenzie told me, adding that she has several in her personal collection. “I think about the surface textures, the restraint, the elegance of form. There’s refinement in what he does. His work provides a moment of gravitas—stillness and clarity that anchors the whole environment.”
Though diamonds dominate this show, they aren’t alone. “There are still a few Xs,” McKenzie noted. “But the two biggest works leave them out entirely.” One standout, Entre’acte, greets visitors at the entrance. “That black veil over red gives the impression of something swinging open,” she explained. “It’s architectonic—you sense space behind it. The thin pale-blue line below makes the green vibrate. Step back, and the entire painting feels alive—full of motion and subtle vibrations.”
Later, I called Don to see how he felt after his big day. Was he pleased? “I think so,” he said. “It was crowded. But I started seeing the rhythms Valerie had set up—juxtapositions I wouldn’t have made myself. Sometimes, through someone else’s eye, I learn something new.”
And the work itself, after all these decades?
“It doesn’t get easier,” he said. “Not if you’re really trying. Not if you’re after something new.”
After the opening, he added, he was exhausted. “That’s a lot of talking for a guy from Maine. I just wanted a drink.”
At 72, Voisine still paints like a man who hasn’t solved the puzzle he set himself decades ago. He still doesn’t blink.
Go see the show. It doesn’t shout—it knows exactly what it’s saying.
All photos courtesy of McKenzie Fine Art unless otherwise indicated.
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Don Voisine: enact/re(d)act runs at McKenzie Fine Art, 55 Orchard Street, New York, NY, from May 16 through June 29, 2025. Follow @donvoisine and @mckenzie_fine_art on Instagram.
About the writer: Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s new narrative nonfiction book, The Aviator and the Showman, about Amelia Earhart and her husband, George Putnam, will be published by Viking on July 15. An excerpt will appear in The New Yorker in early June. @lauriestories