Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience. Chuck Close

For the second part of the Summer Salon series, we selected seven artists, each of whom has developed a signature and recognizable expression using paint as a medium. Whether it is constructing and then deconstructing as in the works of Chris Gwaltney and Henry Jackson or in building up luminous divisions of space like Kim Kitz and Leslie Allen. Michael Cutlip’s work resembles improvisational jazz compositions that bring disparate images together, finding new resolutions. Jylian Gustlin’s new series, Caelum, depicts colorful evocative figures in charged and airy atmospheres. Finally, New York artist Dana James uses inks and glazes with acrylics to create images that have watercolor-like qualities in some areas contrasted with bright areas of opaque applications of paint.