The paintings Estelle Thompson showed in her major exhibition in Walsall, England, three years ago were large in scale. Called “Fuse” paintings, their dimensions calculated in relation to the architecture of the gallery’s spaces, all were composed of narrow vertical stripes whose edges shaded into each other. While their physical proportions encouraged the viewer to feel securely anchored within the surroundings, the blurred quality of their surfaces made it impossible to get a visual fix on them. That the resultant disequilibrium between visual and somatic input has been a familiar experience

“Those who did not live before the revolution,” as Talleyrand notoriously claimed, “never tasted the sweetness of life.” Despite its obsessive attraction to the art of the ancien régime, Alexis Marguerite Teplin’s work has been made in cognizance of more than one revolution. Though far from a McDermott & McGough–style full-body immersion in the past, her project reflects an outsider’s fascination for a douceur de vie she can only imagine. The London-based American’s multifaceted practice includes painting and assemblage alongside less easily classified works like painted-on found posters (these