Arleen Goldberg and Maxwell Hendler form a man-and-­wife team for exhibition at the Ceeje Gallery. Both come out of the graduate school of the University of California at Los Angeles, both are concerned with the image and both have merit in the direct boldness of statement to be found in their painting. Of the two, there is greater consistency in the work of Arleen Goldberg even though she has many problems yet to solve. The vitality of color and vigor of painting, natural assets of the artist, do not compensate for a lack of structure. Curiously one is reminded of Matisse but in a maverick manner; there is not the “rightness” that marks the master. As yet color does not construct the canvas, there is a conflict between the flat surface and the third dimension, and space is not resolved. There is a feeling however that Arleen Goldberg knows the direc­tion in which she wants to go. Maxwell Hendler, on the other hand, vacillates between an uninspired treatment of still life that lacks entirely the selec­tivity of either Chardin or Morandi, and either a style somewhat closer to that of his wife or one that is so personal that it is threatened with the overload of literary involvement that is the prob­lem facing Strombotne. Is it possible that these two young artists are so conscious of the struggle to find a unique statement that as yet they are unable to really tackle the problems of discipline?

––Constance Perkins