Color pools and flows in Oslo-based artist Ragna Bley’s acrylic on sailcloth paintings at Downs and Ross, offering a lushly colored alternative to drab, late-winter New York. Inspired by marine biology and the endlessly fascinating shallows and depths of the sea, each painting complicates the reference to water with its dynamism and color. (On view on the Lower East Side through March 6th).
With their black skin highlighted blue and featureless faces, Alex Gardner’s characters evade racial identification and offer no way to read their expressions. In this painting at The Hole NYC, only hands supporting a foot are visible, but the title ‘Cheer Stunt’ brings to mind a group performance full of suspense and excitement. Backlighting suggests a digital space or perhaps a stadium at night while alternatively, smooth, stylized hands and foot could be part of a new sculptural monument. (On view on the Lower East Side through Dec 27th. Masks and social distancing required).
At over twenty feet tall, late Catalan fiber artist Josep Grau-Garriga’s monumental tapestry ‘February Light’ dominates visitors to Salon94 Bowery. Made in the 70s after Grau-Garriga had pioneered a move away from realist tapestries crafted with expensive materials into expressionist compositions fashioned from fibers including string, hemp and even old sacks, February Light’s wooden rods and ropes give the piece a remarkable boldness. Created in the years just after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, the many openings in the blood-red areas of the artwork seem to continue Grau-Garriga’s frequent political allusions. (On view on the Lower East Side through Feb 29th).
LA based artist Luis Flores deliberately employs the feminized craft of crochet to create self-portraits which undermine the concepts of masculinity he learned as a boy from his male relatives. Here, he fights with himself in an installation featuring a series of wrestling moves enacted by his body doubles and observed by his passive and skeptical wife. (On view at Salon94 Bowery on the Lower East Side through April 20th).
An all-powerful, muscular man subjugates woman and destroys nature in a series of potent paintings by Judy Chicago from 1984, now on view at Salon94. His invincible nature comes into question, however, in this painting from a triptych titled ‘Rainbow Man,’ in which he strains to bend a rainbow that snaps out of his hands and boomerangs back into shape. More than thirty years after being painted, the artist’s warning has only become more relevant to contemporary attitudes to the earth and the environment. (On view on the Lower East Side through March 3rd).
