“ […] The painter’s process is always the result of a search for the unseen and desired—the glimpsed. Rosenthal’s paintings are so unusual that one is almost inevitably led to wonder about how they come into being. How and why does this or that maculation occur at just this or that place on the rectangle of the canvas, or in the space of the painting—keeping in mind that the canvas and the painting are not exactly the same thing? […] Rosenthal’s process involves both adding and taking away, which means using both paint and solvents. The taking away, the via di levare that Michelangelo considered the sculptor’s method, is more important, more determinative of the final result […] What actually happens in the encounter with such paintings? How can an art that seems to work with something so much like emptiness end up feeling so “full”? Rosenthal clears away more space than most other painters do because what he wants to see there is more. ”

Barry Schwabsky 2018