Like most other kinds of painting, abstract painting demands a particular set of skills; it demands that the artist have a specific kind of ability to compose, use color, and respond to scale. The most important aspect of abstract painting lies in the painter’s ability to develop an idea that is both conceptual and visual. It is this particular ability that allows the viewer to distinguish between an image that’s so-so and one that is memorable, engaging and significant. Michael Freitas Wood has this ability and consequently his work performs a rare and interesting act; it frees our gaze and memories from the hold of images we have already seen and experienced. Each of his paintings seems a reinvention of abstraction itself. This has a great deal to do with the enormous originality of his work; in an extremely unique and genuine way, Wood’s work both rejects and reinvents the conventions of contemporary abstract painting. His ability to redefine abstraction causes us to reevaluate the importance of painting. One of the most important characteristics of his work is his success in creating a kind of image far removed from the pre-coded, stereotyped, superficial flow of mediated images produced by many other artists. Michael Freitas Wood’s paintings present a paradox to their viewer; they are highly thought-out yet spontaneous both in their impact and the way in which they are made. Looking at them entails two different kinds of experience: the first of these is of an intuitive and sensuous immersion in intense color and bold form. The second is of deliberation and intelligence as these paintings are consequences of Wood’s powerful use of line and gesture and structural tracing of color. The space of the painting itself, the arena Wood acts in, is very important; its compositional limits and divisions emphasize this sense that the canvas itself is the arena for both thought and action. His work turns on an incessant exploration of textures and material resistances (different kinds of paint and painting mediums, some self-made). Wood seems less concerned with the expressive nature of materials than with their inherent energy, an energy that includes a sense of suspension or reserve. Wood forswears the easy cynicism of much contemporary painting; creating instead a body of work which represents a passionate commitment to painting itself and to the very specific set of visual poetic values it upholds. Unlike many other painters, the idea of beauty is extremely important to him; for him, it is the purpose of painting. Wood believes that painting is particularly well suited to give beauty a voice and a physical presence.   KATHLEEN WHITNEY