Tal R This book is the first full-length assessment of the paintings of Tal R (b. 1967), an Israeli-born Danish artist whose enigmatic work offers intersections of personal experience and wider history through a visual jigsaw, finely balanced between representation and abstraction, of what the artist terms 'Kolbojnik', a Hebrew term for leftovers. Tal R's paintings are exceptionally idiosyncratic yet informed by an expansive view of the history of painting, with a diverse range of references including Fauvism, Symbolism and folk art. To the casual observer, his works depict amalgams of people, places and things. But deeper scrutiny reveals them as complex conceptual playgrounds where these seemingly simple categories are exploded and examined as 'construction' sites of both literal material (including collage, photography and sculpture) and meaning. For all students and lovers of painting, Tal R's works, like those of Chris Ofili or Laura Owens, have cleared a pathway for painting to continue after modernism and postmodernism without apology, beyond the worn out 'death of painting' mantra. Terry R. Myers text offers an authoritative account of the twists and turns that path has taken so far. Philip Taaffe This book presents a comprehensive view of the work of American painter Philip Taaffe (b.1955), who has expanded the parameters of painting through his use of silkscreen, linocuts, collage, stencils, gouache, chine-collé, marbling, acrylic, enamel, watercolor, and gold leaf. Possessing many technical skills, Taaffe has moved decisively between unique pictorial inventions and repeated patterns and images, as well as overlaying divergent modes of representation, such as pattern and biomorphic abstraction. John Yau's insightful text is the first to look at every part of Taaffe's artistic development, from the works he made at Cooper Union, while a student of Hans Haacke, to the present. It pays special attention to Taaffe's acquisition of different techniques, as well as investigating his various sources of inspiration, which include the work of experimental filmmakers Maya Deren, Joseph Cornell, Stan Brakhage, Bruce Conner and Harry Smith, and the paintings of Swiss artist André Thomkins (1930-1985). bel ensemble