Sarah Ball at Stephen Friedman Gallery

At over eight feet high, British artist Sarah Ball’s portrait of Elliot has stunning presence in Stephen Friedman Gallery’s Tribeca space. Drawn to young individuals whose self-fashioning demonstrates their creativity and defies gender norms, Ball meticulously renders details of face, hair and dress in an appreciation of each subject’s unique identity. (On view in Tribeca through March 23rd).

Sarah Ball, Elliot, oil on linen, 100 3/8 x 80 7/8 inches, 2023.

Silas Borsos at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

‘Green Orchestra’ positions an apple, pear, watermelon and limes like a chorus line, while a mountainous pile of blueberries rises up behind four plums and half an apple in Silas Borsos’ paintings at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. Featuring delightfully idiosyncratic arrangements of fruit that suggest table-top performances, Borsos’ paintings depart from traditional histories of still life in fanciful ways.   Here, ‘Orange Peel Pyramid’ presents a sole segment of orange leftover from an orgy of peeling, alongside five blueberries nestled as delicately as robin eggs in discarded pulp. (On view in Tribeca through April 6th).

Silas Borsos, Orange Peel Pyramid, oil on linen, 11h x 14w inches, 2024.

Vija Celmins at Matthew Marks Gallery

Titled ‘Winter,’ Viya Celmins first New York solo show in six years at Matthew Marks Gallery sees out the season with paintings featuring snow against dark backgrounds.  Those familiar with the artist’s signature subject matter may identify the work as a night sky painting for which she is renowned, but what look like stars are in fact flakes of snow.  Celmins has explained in an interview that she aims to wrestle something vast down into the space of the canvas, fixing it there.  The new snow-related paintings suggest she’s taken the universe and transposed it into something positioned right before our eyes.  In a further twist, the piece’s title, ‘Snowfall(coat)’ reveals that the snow is not actually seen in front of the darkness of night but has been pictured instead on a black coat. (On view in Chelsea through April 6th).

Vija Celmins, Snowfall (coat), oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 13 1/8 inches, 2021 – 23.

Raymond Saunders at Andrew Kreps Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery

Thought-provoking and pleasurable as it was, Andrew Kreps Gallery’s 2022 exhibition of iconic west coast painter Raymond Saunders’ work turns out to have been just a taster for the artist’s tour de force three-gallery show now on view at Kreps and David Zwirner Gallery, curated by Ebony L. Haynes.  Known for poetic compilations of text, signage, drawing, and materials from everyday life, Saunders’ paintings – mostly from the 80s and 90s – show him making layered allusions to the act of art making.  In this untitled piece from the mid ‘90s, faint drips, frost-like paint marks and a huge white brushstroke bring to mind an artist’s stylistic options.  A monumental fruit at center seems to nod to still life tradition while a page from a text on how to build a flat human figure drawing model, positioned near a text giving instruction on how to play a game, slyly suggests a calculation of artistic success.  (On view through April 5th/6th).

Raymond Saunders, Untitled, acrylic, spray paint, chalk, collage, and mixed media on canvas, 23 ¼ x 20 5/8 inches, 1995.

Mernet Larsen at James Cohan Gallery

Fascinated for decades by Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cezanne, painter Mernet Larsen applies her own delightfully eccentric perspectival distortions to her French forebear’s iconic imagery in new work at James Cohan Gallery.  Larsen diversifies the cast of characters in ‘The Bathers (after Cezanne)’ adding bikinis to figures more robotic than robust and emphasizing artificiality in the human figures that replace Cezanne’s stabilizing triangle of trees in the original. A diving figure heading into flat waves akin to the slats in Japanese Bunraku puppet theater (which allow figures to move through water) and a woman to the left literally holding up the top of the painting add dynamism and complexity.  By alluding to Cezanne but shifting away from his focus and results, Larsen emphasizes the choices behind a painting’s design and nods to the many iconic painters who have moved beyond inspiration to find their own unique results.  (On view in Tribeca through March 16th).

Mernet Larsen, The Bathers (after Cezanne), acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 59 ¼ x 39 ½ inches, 2023.