Matthew Carter's newest series of paintings, hellequinharlequinclown, are a reminder that traditions of figuration and abstraction--though often treated as trends or movements supplanting one another throughout modern and postmodern art history--are traditions of simultaneity. This is most eloquently manifested within Carter's consistent use of the
harlequin pattern, which refers to the garb but can be read as an abstraction or a stand-in for the figure.