New York-based painter Dan Walsh infuses his minimalist, grid-like compositions with a sense of play, combining precise geometric forms with rhythmic energy. His practice spans painting, sculpture, watercolor, and artist books, all reflecting his enduring exploration of geometric abstraction. Walsh’s hand-drawn linework examines the logic of paintings through methodical systems such as repeating shapes and block-like patterns. This is exemplified in 2003, made of acrylic paint on canvas, where mathematical structures and human spontaneity converge.

In Prop, the repetition of red and pink squares contained within a blue grid floating on a halo of green reveals a playful architectonic sensibility that treats color as structure. Irregular concentric blue bands outline the squares, generating an optical illusion that makes them appear to radiate with energy. Borrowing stylistic tropes from Optical Art—such as rhythmic and repeating patterns—Prop invites perceptual shifts when observed from various angles. This effect is influenced by Walsh’s interest in the meditative qualities of Tibetan mandalas, whose entrancing forms can appear to pulsate. 

About the Artist: Dan Walsh (b. 1960, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, and later attended Hunter College, New York. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Walsh has exhibited his work in national and international institutions, including the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; MoMA P.S.1, New York; Centre national d’art contemporain in Nice, France; la Synagogue de Delme, France; CCNOA (Art + Architecture), Brussels, Belgium; and Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz, Germany. His work was featured in the Ljubljiana Biennial, Slovenia; Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art, France; and the Whitney Biennial.