Teng Fei's Blossoming Tide

A monumental canvas by John Richard, *Blossoming Tide* arrives as an act of painterly confidence — sixty inches tall and six feet wide, commanding a wall the way a well-placed architectural element commands a room. Applied in oil on a hand-painted black ground, Teng Fei's composition moves between restraint and abundance, the dark field lending the blossoms an almost luminous suspension. The wooden support carries its depth with quiet authority, and the piece rewards distance as readily as it rewards close inspection. This is the rare work that neither decorates nor dominates, but simply presides.