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Even just 2 years ago Abts still seemed an island of jilted tight trompe-leoil abstraction perhaps only harking back to the much forgotten "abstract illusionists" or all the way to constructivists. But the rise of tight-knit illusionist abstraction, in say Braunig or Orion Martin as much as Owens among others, makes Abts seem less hermitically sealed as the reference - if not influence - spreads in the reaction against mass-processed abstraction and toward slow-abstraction and icon illusionism.
See too: Tomma Abts at David Zwirner, Sascha Braunig at Rodolphe Janssen