For Immediate Release:

Jay Grimm Gallery at 505 West 28th Street, New York, will hold an exhibition of paintings byJon McCafferty from May 4 through June 4, 2000.

McCafferty 's new body of work marks a stylistic progression away from the strict verticality of his earlier work. These paintings use more fluid, open compositions and layers of transparent colors that have an almost atmospheric sensibility. The clarity and brightness of the forms in the 'Nominal Paintings ' are the result of McCafferty 's patient, careful explorations in the use of poured oil and alkyd paint over the last decade.

The eight 'Nominal Paintings ' use as a starting point the letters from the artist 's first name (Jonathan), rendered in an typeface from early computers. These "O.C.R." characters (an acronym for Optical Character Recognition) are the armatures for the paintings, which sometimes demarcate forms and at other times are only visible as a raised area of paint underneath a field of color. The internal logic of the paintings abstracts the lettering, transforming them into structural motifs without specific meanings.