Drawings and a small, painted self-portrait are among the earliest pieces in the exhibit and attest to Blackman’s draftsmanship and artistic training. His softly contoured graphite drawings depict various casts and statues that Blackman studied during his arts training. His self-portrait presents a young man in front of a field of bright yellow paint. His face in shadow, a critical gaze reveals the discerning and determined personality of Blackman as a young artist.

The largest work in the exhibition, measuring in at over 8 feet tall and 14 feet wide, comes from Blackman’s transitional abstract expressionist period from the late 1950s and early 1960s. While thick paint and brushy paint application easily distinguish this series from Blackman’s later works, the foundational forms are present in the spherical orbs that sit atop the dark structural shafts in the monumental triptych. The smaller abstract expressionist works contain linear gestures that seem to reappear in the later work as asemic writing. Primary colors also emerge as an interest during this period, a palette that carries through to the most recent paintings in the show.

Most of the pieces in the current show were created during the mature, later decades of Blackman’s career from the 1960s to present day; a time when the artist had largely isolated himself from the rest of the Philadelphia art scene and the gallery world. Brightly colored knobs, joysticks, and buttons protrude from intricate sculptural designs while asemic writing, color wheels, and gridded charts communicate encrypted instructions across painted surfaces. The works feel somewhat utilitarian, as though they exist as controls for a machine, or perhaps, they are board games or mysterious pictographs with riddles to be solved.

Often made from found objects such as Styrofoam and wooden pegs, Blackman has arranged and transformed the pieces into delightful and surprising works of art. The generational, optimistic fascination of the space age is present and alive, the inspiration for the work seeming to arise from a time when the machines of the future might save the world. While this period of Blackman’s work feels hopeful and connected with science fiction, a drawing and a large satellite dish shaped target are all that remains of his magnum opus, a 12 feet tall and 38 feet wide painted relief sculpture.