TRACY THOMASON | THE NEW YORKER

Through the careful application of marble dust, paint, and clay, the Brooklyn-based artist evokes the heft of masonry and the formality of stone etching. Though executed on linen, her spare and abstruse abstractions seem to be something other than paintings. In “Black and Blue,” a periwinkle rectangle is the backdrop for a curving glyph, drawn with a raised black line of crushed stone. The symbol is echoed in several busier vermillion works, seen in radiating patterns alongside other recurring motifs, including a star surrounding a circle, a backward “E,” and an eyelid shape. Throughout, Thomason seems to be obeying her own strict, if secret, rules.