As usual, the work is highly abstracted but full of recognizaable motifs: palms, swimming pools (complete with racing-lane buoys), handrails, tile floors. ReeL doesn't so much represent a place as give you the feel of a place. Well, jazzed up a little with way-pumped up color.

 

Oh, and what color. This is where the sexy comes in. I hardly know any painters currently working who consistently paint such sexy colors as Erik ReeL.

 

Pool (yellow) gives us a mjustard yellow (a color I normally detest) for what seems to be a pool deck. All I know is, it feels like the perfect place to plunk my naked body down for that awesome tan. Then ReeL gives us a pink version which is off-the-chart scrumptious.

 

I don't know what half the lines mean or exactly what ReeL's space is all about; the magic of these paintings is that I don't care. It is their feeling and the deep sense of joy I get gazing at them for a long time that counts.

 

The odd abstraction of ReeL's compositioins short-circuits my rational mind. I like that. It works. I'm reminded I can feel again; that paintings and art can be enjoyed again. No jaron, no long-winded conceptual arguments, no contexts. Just bellisimo painting.

 

There is purpose in that. These paintings remind us not to forget our joie de vivre in spite of the ugly world around us. And that is an admirable achievement in itself.