Scharf, a late-generation Abstract Expressionist and who apprenticed in the studio of Mark Rothko, applies paint in translucent layers to achieve depth and luminosity. He creates groups of paintings around the theme of a single color, working in a variety of scales and using shapes both geometric and biomorphic. Series have been dedicated to blue, silver, and gold, but black and white appear with the most frequency. As he explains: “Very young children discover how dark marks on white paper or white chalk on black become adventures; explorations of a kind that could haunt and obsess the entire life of a painter.”