Jordan Kasey at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

Young Brooklyn-based artist Jordan Kasey channels Picasso’s monumental females, Botero’s swollen figures and a sense of the surreal in her huge paintings, now on view at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. With faces mostly cropped out, ‘Poolside’ foregrounds log-like stacks of limbs belonging to a brand new breed of weighty Titans. (On the Lower East Side through March 12th).

Jordan Kasey, Poolside, oil on canvas, 77 ½ x 108 inches, 2017.

Jonathan Gardner at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

Clashing juxtapositions of patterns and color, a doubled figure (or tripled if you include the shadow), flatten shapes and simplified figures quote canonical 20th century artists from Magritte to Picasso, suggesting we look to the past to see the present in this surreal scenario by Chicago artist Jonathan Gardner. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery through June 28th).

Jonathan Gardner, The Shadow, oil on linen, 36 x 22 inches, 2015.

Jill Mason at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

‘Dolly meets the Greek’ by London-based artist Jill Mason assembles unconnected elements – Princess Di hair, a cartoon ear and a scrap piece of siding painted with waves – to create a funny, cheeky portrait befitting a surreal romance novel. (At Nicelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side through May 18th).

Jill Mason, Dolly meets the Greek, oil on canvas, 55 x 47 ¼ inches, 2013.

Louise Despont at Nichelle Beauchene Gallery

Louise Despont, Serpens, graphite and colored pencil on antique ledger book pages, 2012.
Louise Despont, Serpens, graphite and colored pencil on antique ledger book pages, 2012.

Louise Despont brings together representations of the constellations Ophichus and Serpens with Persian carpet imagery in her amazingly intricate graphite and colored pencil drawing, ‘Serpens.’  Created on collected vintage accounting ledgers, this labor intensive piece wows with its detail and evocation of esoteric bodies of knowledge.  (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery’s new Lower East Side location, 327 Broome Street through Jan 20th.)

Valerie Hegarty at Nichelle Beauchene

Valerie Hegarty, Watermelon Tongue, canvas, stretcher, acrylic paint, modeling paste, paper, glue, foil, gauze, glue, thread, 2012.
Valerie Hegarty, Watermelon Tongue, canvas, stretcher, acrylic paint, modeling paste, paper, glue, foil, gauze, glue, thread, 2012.

This is one watermelon you do not want to eat…or be eaten by.  A giant lick of modeling paste extends from Valerie Hegarty’s repulsive ‘Watermelon Tongue,’ curbing the appetite and recalling ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ one inspiration for this painting.  Hegarty was also thinking of last year’s news reports of exploding watermelons in China, which were mistakenly sprayed with growth accelerator.  Now do you want to know where your food comes from?  (At Nichelle Beauchene Gallery on the Lower East Side, through October 20th).