Naomie Kremer at Hosfelt

When looking at certain kinds of abstract art, you are often tempted to find something figurative for your eyes to latch on to. Naomie Kremer's frenetic, tactile paintings indulge that urge without crossing the line into overt figuration. Kremer, based in Oakland and Paris, inaugurated Hosfelt's New York gallery--a high-ceilinged space with dark wood floors and lots of natural light--with an exhibition of 10 oil-on-linen paintings and one slightly out of place charcoal-and-graphite drawing (all works 2005 or 2006).

The largest of the paintings, the 84-by-144-inch triptych Then and Now (French Connection), feels like a mural you could walk into. There's a vague suggestion of a busy landscape scene: a pastel-blue pond is surrounded by flat leaves and bursts of purple, green and indigo foliage. It's possible to pick out tree trunks and windows, and something that looks like the rear end of a horse, or maybe a lumpy boulder. Kremer alternates between quick, staccato brushstrokes and firmer, broader applications of color. Similarly, she contrasts cool blues and lime greens with warmer pinks and sherbet oranges.

Kremer's paintings are not bound by the size of the canvas; the smaller works are equally dense and expansive. Fleshy oranges, pinks and golds clash with purple and forest green in In the Mix. Tight splotches indicate animal tracks while egg-shaped whorls and clots join forces to create movement diagonally across the painting. Just below and left of center, a tiny box emerges, broken into four panes. It acts as a window into a vortex, implying that there's more to be seen beyond the seductive, flickering surface. Power Cord (62 by 54 inches) is made up of swirling red-orange peaks that look like flames from a bonfire, set off by tangled cross-hatches of purple and green. The bluish pastels in the upper left corner resemble a swath of sky, creeping down the canvas to encircle and contain the flames.

Kremer writes about exploring space and time in her paintings, and calls her new works "improvisations." She borrows some of these ideas from Kandinsky's early theories of synesthesia, and from Futurism, though her paintings are less concerned with violent action. Instead, they bubble with energy and layered flashes of paint spread out like fractals, constrained by the occasional plant form or storm cloud.

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