Guy Yanai at Ameringer McEnery Yohe

Tel Aviv-based artist Guy Yanai’s subject matter – houses, domestic interiors and portraits of plants – is sedate but his blocky, early video game aesthetic gives the paintings a jittery edge.   This plant appears to hover in space while reaching for the top edge of the canvas with an energy foreign to most potted plants. (In Chelsea at Ameringer McEnery Yohe through August 18th).

Guy Yanai, Palermo, oil on linen, 58.27 x 47.24 inches, 2017.

Maya Bloch at Thierry Goldberg Gallery

Young Israeli painter Maya Bloch is making a splash on the Lower East Side with her liquidy portraits of anonymous characters. This one’s indirect gaze, sloping face and coiffure that looks more like geology than a hairdo suggests an ageless, ghostly presence. (At Thierry Goldberg Gallery through Feb 17th).

Maya Bloch, Untitled, acrylic and oil on canvas, 2012.