A dense mesh of color dominates the latest paintings by Erik Schmidt. Small areas of pigment and moments of looming color are joined together like a jigsaw puzzle with strong lines in between—and then: white. Many of the paintings, which were inspired by the time Schmidt spent in Japan in 2015, shows what one sees if he were to gaze upwards at an intersection: an impenetrable, unattractive thicket of the utility lines of a megalopolis.

Schmidt pursues these nodes in increasingly strong abstraction. The cables, the colorful building facades and the gaudy advertisement signs are certainly recognizable, yet dissolve the more one delves into the image, increasingly becoming pure painting. Erik Schmidt makes his interest in structure, geometry, and, not least, color as material, almost physically palpable. His paintings are equally reflections about painting itself—about color, surface and, influenced by his recent engagement with the tradition of Japanese art—about line.