Joe Guy’s paintings constitute a meditation on absence. “Volume of Hours,” 1986–88, is a series of books that open onto their own empty contents. Shelf, 1985, is a simple and elegant support for nothing. A series of small works from the past several years share the title “Homage: Deus Absconditus,” 1985–86. In each work, three pieces are hinged together like the sections of an altarpiece and covered completely with a dense, almost reflective black made of graphite and wax. There is a sense in Guy’s work that an image has been obliterated by this blackness, as though content had been consumed by