“A deeply layered, rigorously controlled formal structure undermined by a strange embarrassing whimsy occurs in almost every painting. While accepted in outlier artists like James Castle, or (more aptly for the 1930s) like Henri Rousseau, it is a quality that mainstream art has tended to eschew, until recently. … This contradictory dynamic of wacky sincerity is recognizable as something that the Midwest surreptitiously instills. … On the one hand, complex formalism conveys gravity, but then is betrayed by an inability to resist slipping a banana peel underfoot.”