The painterly practice of Norwegian artist Fredrik Vaerslev (b. 1979) centers on the systematic interrogation of the many social meanings of abstraction in art – though at its heart we will always find the pure and unadulterated “joy of painting.” Vaerslev’s first solo show in a US art institution will bring together eight new paintings, each representing a circumscribed body of work through which the artist has conducted his research into the serendipities that give rise to abstraction.