"Adam Balogh"

Balogh's paintings might be seen as experiments in textural disruption. They begin with flat hazy surfaces resembling thin but uneven veils of cloud illuminated by the moon or the sun in different stages of dusk or dawn. The surfaces are then rippled, subtly like a lake drizzled on, dramatically like a conflagration or itinerantly like the path of an excited particle. A chromatic abstractionist would have stopped at the hazy surface. Balogh wonders what would happen if he placed his finger in a Rothko and swirled around a bit.

When the rippling is moderate, Balogh's paintings evoke something vast, something galactic and ambient. There might be something nascent and microscopic stirring, leaving imprints (which not only bestow texture but seem to introduce new colors) many times larger than the imperceptible thing in motion. In the pieces where texture dominates, the hazy surface seems less liquid and more like a membrane, which veiny structures stretch but can't quite burst through.

-Eugene Hwang