For Newsweek art critic Peter Plagens, this represents his 10th solo exhibition at the Nancy Hoffman gallery, dating back to 1974.

In his last exhibition at Nancy Hoffman - more than four years ago in 1992 - Plagens's mixed media paintings featured predominantly white backgrounds (although much of this "background" was painted near-to-last) on which his characteristic clumsy/pretty configurations comported themselves. Later that year, Plagens abruptly shifted to primarily black-background paintings. This year, the black evolved to subtly different (in each painting) slate grays, and the foreground configurations became even more eccentric. Plagens's method of including a single hard-edge "badge" of bright color in each picture continues, intensified.

Peter Plagens was born in 1941 in Dayton, Ohio.

---all text courtesy Nancy Hoffman Gallery.