“A painting is an altered state,” writes Laura Watt. “To give yourself over to looking is to enter that altered state. A painting should not contain itself. A painting should open like a house of mirrors at the traveling fair.” Watt likes to turn the horizon line into an abstraction. Taking the familiar trope and turning it on its head by painting in the vertical orientation, she creates something new and unexpected. She also layers gridded lines containing her signature lozenge shapes, brightly colored, to create swirling spirals. The paintings in Watt’s latest series at David Richard Gallery share these compositional components, creating a roomful of images that are speaking the same altered, yet animated language. —Clara Molot