"To understand the high esteem in which the deceptions of vision are held here, one needs a brief description of Marcus Andre's waqy of working -one in which a sense of incompleteness and a chance of error are always intervening. Without planning the

development of the painting at all, the artist starts out by applying large amounts of paint on canvas that form a heavy and shapeless color bulk, working pigments into an encaustic that he spreads all over the surface somewhat like a sculptural material. As the artist manipulates this material, he extrates values from its ïnside", as if by turning it inside out with the to-and-fro motion of wide brushes, squeegees, and other paintbrushes.

In this process he resolves the heavy layers of paint from one side to the other of the painting surface, momentarily uncovering an absolutely vital color along its edges that, however, soon may be lost under the movement of the squeegee, thus falling back to the initial non-defferentiation of the paint. In the course of his action, the artist brings the canvas from wall to floor and then back up to the wall again, in sucessive motions - a procedure that allows him to deal simultaneously with painting as an optical field and as arena for an active bodily performance."

Sonia Salzstein