#mckenziefineart – Art Spiel

October 2, 2025October 3, 2025

Double Vision: One Artist, Two Solo Shows, Double the Stripes

Portrait of the artist, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Haynes

In early September, painter Deborah Zlotsky pulled off what few artists even attempt: two solo shows opening at once, on opposite sides of Manhattan. The Light Gets In filled McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side, while Genealogies took over Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Chelsea. A double dip in one city, on one calendar page. It might sound like a scheduling accident, yet standing in front of her candy-striped canvases, the simultaneity feels deliberate. Zlotsky thrives on overlap: order brushing against disorder, geometry trembling at its edges, patterns that carry memory while stumbling into the present.

October 11, 2024October 10, 2024

Gary Petersen: The Shape of Walking at McKenzie Fine Art

*Garden of Music (after Bob Thompson),* 2024, acrylic and oil on canvas, 54” x 94”

For artists working within the realm of geometric abstraction, understanding the weight of art history is vital. The hard-edge lines, a keen understanding of color theory, and structured patterns—all form part of a visual language that has evolved over a century. Artists today, when approaching geometric abstraction, face a unique tension. On the one hand, they inherit the legacy of giants such as Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, and Kazimir Malevich, whose works laid the foundation for what we understand as “geometric art.” On the other hand, the question looms large: How does one continue to make geometric abstraction in 2024?

June 6, 2019November 15, 2020

Altoon Sultan – Luminous Clarity

Altoon Sultan, Convergence, 2018, egg tempera on calfskin parchment, 9 1/2 x 12 in. Photo courtesy of McKenzie Fine Art.

Altoon Sultan‘s egg tempera paintings depict close ups of agricultural equipment with incisive color and architectural forms. Her paintings consistently reveal inner tensions: the shapes are abstracted and literal, the colors are vivid and subtle, the space is shallow and dimensional. The artist shares with Art Spiel some of her rich experience as a painter, her work process, and her on-going projects.