Teresa Cullen’s painterly surfaces seem simultaneously to explode and engulf the objects she depicts. Cullen uses color to intoxicating effect: rich browns, smoldering oranges, whites as pale as translucent skin.

Color in her paintings exceeds the boundaries of objects—or the objects’ like solar cells, absorb and intensify ambient color. In Time’s Backyard, 1992, for example, white forms hover on an earthy grayish surface grazed with flame-colored yellows and sky-blues. The objects seem dematerialized—both time-worn and ethereal—but the surface that engenders them remains tactile and sensual.

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