Now on view #AtDKG: ‘White and Black Paintings, 1975–1977,’ an exhibition of historical paintings by Sam Gilliam, through December 17 at our LA gallery. ‘Abacus Sliding’ (1977) is notable both for the varied ways in which Gilliam handled the black paint that defines its foreground and for the vivid, luminous array of tones that hover beneath its brooding surface. The work is characterized by its encyclopedic embrace of painterly technique and the variety of its improvisational responses to the relationships between pigment, medium, and support. At its center, though, is the result of another bold use of collage: a spiraling composition of rectangular forms provides a series of windows into alternate spaces, each of which evokes its own light and mood. Such interventions suggest that, even as Gilliam was creating pictures carefully delimited within the confines of individual stretchers, the source of his work was a place that was larger, wilder, and more alive than anything that could be contained in a single painting. Images: #SamGilliam, ‘Abacus Sliding,’ 1977, acrylic on canvas with collage. Photography: Jeff McLane