...Many of the aforementioned artists have been associated with a free-floating circle of Los Angeles "enigmatic realists" who often meet to discuss ideas and even work from the model.
But, by including nerwcomers such as Murphy and Huang, and especially by opening up the discussion to a powerfully engagé photo-realist like Helnwein, 'image and Enigma' proposes further possibilities and more intricate relationships, demonstrating that the energy of the enigmatic image has suffused yet more widely through current artistic practice.
from the unsettled unsettling times we live in, could we expect anything less? And could anything less than a lucid, concentrated collection of such work make the point as urgent as our times require?

excerpt

Complete article: Artweek, Los Angeles
february, 2004