Karin Davie’s show of recent work is a lively collection of canvases brimming with painterly bravado. Davie’s energetic gestural abstractions make an ambitious contribution to the historical project of painting. Though the images are palpably contemporary, and employ an undeniably unique mode of picture-making, Davie’s work evokes painting from the very dawn of the endeavor.

Viewing the work, I was reminded of a visit I made years ago to the Botticelli Room of the Uffizi. Alongside behemoths such as the Birth of Venus, Primavera, and that famous Centaur, hangs Ghirlandaio’s 1484 Madonna Enthroned with Angels and Saints. According to the standard pattern, the painting depicts a group of figures worshiping the young Jesus seated on the lap of the Virgin, with kneeling patrons in the foreground.

The painting is a masterpiece. About six feet square, every inch is bejeweled in stunning detail, the figures, drapery, flora, and every other minute feature are portrayed with a graceful intensity. The thousand parts form a whole, creating an image of completeness through complexity. Standing in front of the painting, the profound impression is that this is somehow a perfect work of art. Its perfection is neither the sort that excludes other possibilities nor the dubious sort that purports to embody a culmination of history. It is perfect in the sense that it lays out in clear terms what its intentions are and by what means they will be accomplished, and then proceeds with unflinching rigor to the end.

One of the finest works in Davie’s exhibit is the large Between My Eye and Heart No. 18 (2005). Long, unbroken brushstrokes of rich purple, fleshy peach, pink, and lush green squirm and pulse over a deep field of grey-blue. The relationship of this painting to the renaissance goes far beyond the superficial chromatic similarity it bears to the work of that period - though it deserves mention that her use of color is masterful. Rather, the work’s best qualities are traceable to the artist’s command of illusionary depth, her delicate balance of material indulgence and pious control, and her pursuit of the most sublime beauty in its natural habitat, just on the edge of ugliness. Davie’s is perfect painting, her parameters are clear, and she accomplishes her objectives with unimpeachable skill and remarkable poetry in a way that Ghirlandaio would applaud. Achieving all this by means of her own bold, idiosyncratic brushwork enriches the history of painting. It is a pleasure to see such work while the paint is still drying.