When you look at a Maxwell Hendler painting, you might want to compare the work to a trendy car finish. New York critics have categorized Hendler’s kind of art as belonging to the ‘fetish finish school of Minimalism.’ And I can see how the Pop art colors mixed with the Minimalist art intersect, but really these descriptions act to obfuscate the impact these works have on a viewer. I respond a great deal to the reflective qualities these works produce. Like a mirror with a bright colored lens, you are absorbed into the painting along with your surroundings. I compare it to the moment I first walked up to a Rothko painting. I swear, I almost kept walking right into the painting and off into a mist of his other world. Instead of another world, Hendler seemed to help me reflect upon myself with an almost cheery optimism. Rather than the transcendent quality that Rothko invokes, Hendler just made me feel happy to be present in the space I was occupying. Light hearted titles like, ‘Dude,’ Love’s Attire,’ and ‘Perfectly Normal’ helped to further lighten my mood. The ‘Dude’ is this nice mustard yellow that feels almost edible, in fact, almost all the pieces make you a little hungry for something sweet or spicy. I am happy he allowed for the sides of the paintings to reveal the exposed wood. The paint can be about ‘Painting’ and not about just plain objects. To say Maxwell Hendler is an accomplished artist is an understatement to say the least. He was the first contemporary artist to be featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art back in 1975. Reviewing his past work is like seeing a retrospective of art movements in the past 50 years. Like Picasso, his style of art production reflected or ushered in each trend. You could try to label him as Minimalist now, but this would not help you get the full picture of his depth and breadth of works.... (http://www.modernhouston.net/maxwell_hendler_the_texas_gallery.html) The elements of Hendler's work are simple and straightforward — resin with a wood support — but the effect is not. Neither is the process of creating it. I don't know the specifics of the stuff Hendler is using, but if you've ever gotten craftsy and picked up two-part resin at the art supply store, you'll appreciate the magnitude of what Hendler has achieved. With two-part resin, a chemical reaction takes place when the resin is mixed with the catalyst; it's then poured over something or dumped into a mold. Too much catalyst, and it can fracture or, some say, explode. Too little, and it's a sticky, reeking mass. Even if you mix it right, bubbles usually form in the surface. You are supposed to get rid of these with a blow torch while not setting your studio on fire. Still, that's the easy part. Getting the surfaces as perfect as Hendler's is something else entirely. Reportedly, a lot of his works don't make the cut, and the ones that do can take up to two months of wet sanding to achieve their glass-like finishes. There's a lot of chromatic magic going on in Hendler's paintings. If you look at the sides of the pieces, you can read the strata of the resin and get a glimpse into the artist's process. Sometimes, as in the butter-yellow work, it looks like a single pour of one gleaming, opaque color. But in the large black plum-colored painting, there looks to be a layer of a lighter, opaque blue followed by a layer of dark, translucent blue-black. The light scatters through the translucent layer, hits the opaque one and bounces back to the viewer. It gives the work depth, making it like looking through colored water to the bottom of a pool. The darkest works are best viewed from an angle; seen head-on, they reflect the viewer. (http://www.houstonpress.com/content/printView/6595002)