In Nonlinear Landscapes, John F. Simon, Jr's current drawing show at Manhattan's Sandra Gering Gallery, the pioneering media artist brings his ongoing experiments with the ambiguous context of digital art into new territory. His abstract landscapes begin with forms and structures created by Simon's custom drawing software and the brilliant colors and interior shapes that enrich them are then filled-in by hand. The fractured topologies, exploded grids, seismically-disrupted geological formations, turbulent cityscapes, and liquified architecture of the drawings suggest a global terrain in dynamic flux, unpredictable yet open to exhilarating possibilities. Like Simon's previous works, these refer formally to artists such as Klee, Mondrian, Albers, and even Peter Saul. But while his earlier works programmed infinite permutations into the software within a tightly rational framework, these pieces transcend such boundaries with exuberant energy. - Marcia Tanner