WARREN ISENSEE | WHITEHOT MAGAZINE

Color plays a crucial role in maintaining this perceptual energy. Isensee’s palette sets his work apart from more worn-out types of geometric abstraction that depend on merely formal connections or historical references. Here, color functions in a tonal range that feels both tactile and deliberate, working in harmony with the compositional systems instead of sitting on top of them. Raspberry pinks, aqua blues, golden browns, and acidic greens pulse across the surfaces, energizing the paintings without overpowering their structure. These colors do not simply solve formal problems; they seem to reference internal states—affective, cognitive, even physiological. Their relationships suggest a logic rooted less in art-historical tradition than in lived, albeit elusive, experience.

Despite the clear process behind the compositions, the paintings resist flattening into diagrams. Their surfaces are pristine and flawless, giving an initial impression of mechanical precision. From a distance, the works can look almost machine-made, with symmetry and perfection suggesting an impeccable, automated process. However, closer inspection reveals subtle variations—tiny shifts in line, edge, and surface—that reaffirm the presence of the artist’s hand. This tension between mechanical appearance and human execution becomes one of the exhibition’s central tensions. The paintings exist in a liminal space between control and intuition, system and touch.

This tension becomes even more complex due to several works that intentionally disrupt Isensee’s established compositional logic. In paintings like Head Charge and New Normal, the artist moves away from his usual mirroring techniques. New Normal, in particular, shows a clear deviation: the bottom half of the composition neither mirrors the top nor shares its palette, breaking from a key structural principle in Isensee’s work. The change is subtle—easy to overlook at first glance—but once noticed, it unsettles the overall coherence of the image.

This breach in symmetry feels more like a recalibration than an anomaly. The break in logic doesn't abandon the system but instead reveals its contingency. By disrupting the expected order, Isensee highlights the constructed nature of his visual language, reminding viewers that even the most stable systems can be revised. The title New Normal emphasizes this shift, implying a redefinition of balance rather than its collapse. What emerges is not chaos, but a recalibrated order—one that embraces asymmetry, intuition, and deviation.

Within the broader scope of contemporary abstraction, Isensee’s work finds a compelling middle ground. It neither falls back into the self-referential purity of formalism nor fully adopts the expressive excess often linked with gestural abstraction. Instead, the paintings introduce a model of abstraction that is both systematic and sensory, analytical and embodied. They invite viewers to engage not only with what they see but also with how seeing itself is structured—through repetition, expectation, and subtle disruption.

The exhibition ultimately explores perception under pressure: how visual systems endure, strain, and sometimes break. Isensee’s recent paintings suggest that altered perception isn’t a rupture but a state of heightened awareness, where structure becomes visible just as it starts to weaken. In this way, the work feels especially relevant, reflecting a modern condition where established patterns—visual, cognitive, social—are constantly tested and reshaped.

Rather than providing spectacle or direct commentary, Isensee’s paintings reward careful viewing. They develop gradually, revealing their intricacies through attention and closeness. What initially looks fixed turns out to be changeable; what appears mechanical unveils the trace of the hand. In these subtle oscillations, the work finds its strength—not through bold statements, but in the thoughtful balance between order and openness, logic and intuition, the familiar and the new.
 

Riad Miah —