In lieu of the traditional artist or gallery statement, a five-line poem describing a closeness to nature that allows one to ‘hear the grass grow’ introduces Brooklyn painter Jordan Kasey’s oil paintings at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery. The new work features the artist’s typically monumental people lounging in the grass on a sunny day or forming a crush of bodies in a family group hug. Just as one pink flower provides privacy and perhaps shade to the figure in the foreground of ‘Meadow’ pictured here, Kasey portrays the natural world – even in this surreally stylized manifestation – as providing peace and rejuvenation. (On view through June 20th).
Jordan Kasey, Meadow, oil on canvas, 72 x 96 inches, 2026.
Glowing orbs in the form of lamps and chandeliers light Danielle Mckinney’s small, intimate oil paintings at Marianne Boesky Gallery, softly illuminating the private refuges of her imagined female protagonists. Blue eyeshadow or vividly painted red nails pop out against nude (or nearly) bodies of women who distinguish their living spaces through selectively placed accents of lush, bold color. The green and turquoise tones on this reclining figure’s face mask recall the green strip on the face of Matisse’s famous portrait of his wife, suggesting a fearless woman in charge of her own story, one as confident and rich as the towering abstract artwork behind her. (On view in Chelsea through June 13th).
Danielle Mckinney, Recess, oil on linen, 18 ¼ x 14 inches, 2026.Danielle Mckinney, Recess, oil on linen, 18 ¼ x 14 inches, 2026.
Emily Kraus’s oil paintings tower over visitors to Luhring Augustine’s Tribeca space, their repeated patterns alternately boldly colored and faded, like a stutter that periodically bursts into explosive expression. The London-based American artist calls this group of abstract paintings her ‘Stochastic Series,’ after their unpredictable patterns and emphasizes the paintings’ relation to her own body. Assigned a small studio with bad lighting while pursuing her MFA a few years ago, Kraus innovated by wrapping the walls in 360 degrees of canvas and later painting from within a cube structure which she rotates as she works. Titled ‘Anemoi’ after the winds from Greek mythology, this painting suggests an opening through which twisting gusts might pass. (On view in Tribeca through June 13th).
Emily Kraus, Anemoi, oil on canvas, 125 ¼ x 225 ¼ inches, 2026.Emily Kraus, Anemoi, oil on canvas, 125 ¼ x 225 ¼ inches, 2026.
Darkly mysterious or floodlit, Emma Webster’s new landscape paintings at Petzel Gallery are an uncanny blend of realistic elements and digitally abstracted forms. This painting’s title, ‘Wasatch,’ suggests a location in the western Rocky Mountains, but while the birch trees in the foreground are identifiable, they’re surrounded by flat, undetailed saplings and strange, shadowy terrain in the back left that belongs to a digital world. Multiple light sources which cast a variety of shadows and the appearance of a rearing bull place the painting in the realm of fantasy, creating an intriguing blend of possible permutations between real and imagined worlds. (On view in Chelsea through June 6th.)
Emma Webster, Wasatch, oil on linen, 84 x 60 inches, 2026.
Orkideh Torabi’s solo show at Asya Geisberg Gallery is titled ‘Kings and Conquerors,’ but might more accurately swap ‘kings’ for ‘queens’ as the female protagonists of her vividly colored paintings take charge in the world and in their relationships with men. At the gallery entrance, a confident woman in shades and cowboy boots drives straight towards us on her motorbike, a diminutive, worried-looking man on board behind her. In other works, groups of men cheat at cards or gab loudly over beer. When women appear in the paintings, however, they control the situation, as in this humorous recasting of the typically male magician and his female assistant. (On view in Tribeca through May 16th).
Orkideh Torabi, Noise Cancellation: On, dye on canvas, 30h x 22w, 2026.
Kay WalkingStick’s latest solo show at Hales Gallery in Chelsea, ‘Mesas/Mountains/Sky,’ follows her 2022 exhibition there, ‘Mountains/Canyons/Clouds,’ in presenting landforms and sky as subject matter for paintings that showcase the majestic beauty of the natural world. Each fluidly painted scene is accompanied by abstract designs, patterns copied from Native American beadwork, pottery or other objects which belong to the cultures resident in the scene depicted. Here, ‘Sage Brush and Cholla’ pictures plants important to Navajo communities while including a pattern with stepped forms around a cross symbol referring to the four directions of the universe. (On view in Chelsea through May 30th).
Kay WalkingStick, Sage Brush and Cholla, oil on panel in two parts, 40 x 80 inches, 2025.Kay WalkingStick, (detail of) Sage Brush and Cholla, oil on panel in two parts, 40 x 80 inches, 2025.
Known for his ‘rough’ collage and socially committed artwork, late NYC artist Benny Andrews traveled the U.S. in his final years, following the paths of migrants he pictured in his ‘Migrant Series,’ now on view at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. Linking to his own diverse ancestry, Andrews pictured the forced migration in the 19th century of Native Americans from the southeastern US in the ‘Trail of Tears’, the experiences of Black Americans participating in the Great Migration from south to north in the early to mid-20th century, and farmers and their families who left the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl era. Andrews’ characteristic open spaces of canvas lend themselves to the feeling of strangeness that pervades pictures of train stations, encampments and other points of departure as figures set out into the unknown. Here, Black migrants perform for or serve white patrons at the Cotton Club, a representation of skill and hard work that speaks to the resilience of those forced to make their way into new lives. (On view through Aug 7th).
Benny Andrews, Cotton Club Study #4, The Migrant Series: Great Migration, oil on canvas with painted fabric collage in artist’s original painted frame, 24 ¾ x 18 7/8 x 1 ¾ inches, 2004.Benny Andrews, (detail of) Cotton Club Study #4, The Migrant Series: Great Migration, oil on canvas with painted fabric collage in artist’s original painted frame, 24 ¾ x 18 7/8 x 1 ¾ inches, 2004.
A vividly colored landscape near his family home in Israel, the forest in Ukraine where many family members were murdered during the Holocaust and a dance party on Fire Island are subjects of New York artist Doron Langberg’s huge new canvases at Deitch Gallery, all an attempt to personally process two years of war. Langberg wrote a statement about his new work and gave an interview to the New York Times; beyond that, visitors are left to make their own interpretation of the peaceful and fraught places pictured. The artist explains that Van Gogh and Munch inspired him to look to the landscape as a place to grapple with darkness; by extension, here he pictures the community at the Meat Rack rave which momentarily gave relief to pervasive feelings of heaviness. (On view through this Saturday, April 25th in Tribeca).
Doron Langberg, Meat Rack Rave, oil on linen, triptych, overall 96 x 240 inches, 2024.Doron Langberg, (detail) Meat Rack Rave, oil on linen, triptych, overall 96 x 240 inches, 2024.
Known for washy, intensely colored close-up portraits of celebrity musicians and creatives, Elizabeth Peyton’s paintings and prints from the last three years at David Zwirner Gallery atomize her subjects, building their forms up from stark white backgrounds via individual brushstrokes. In the show’s best works, a face takes up all or most of the picture’s space as if the subject is leaning in to take a look at us. Rendered indistinctly in soft tones and floating marks, faces like Bob Dylan’s (pictured here) suggest impermanence and a wistfulness conveyed by this painting’s title, ‘I Was Young When I Left Home.’ (On view through May 2nd).
Elizabeth Peyton, I Was Young When I Left Home (Bob Dylan), oil on board, 12 x 9 inches, 2024.
Though she’s inspired by flowers and plant life, Ileana Garcia Magoda’s paintings can look like underwater scenes lit by bioluminescence or unnaturally colored magical worlds punctuated by vivid splashes of color. Here, in a painting at Anat Ebgi Gallery titled ‘There’s no greater repose than this beautiful garden,’ the artist immerses viewers in a field of warm yellow and orange color that generates an immediate emotional impact. The effect links to the sunbaths Magoda takes before heading into the studio, one way of dealing with her chronic spinal pain and a means to impart “the sensations of light absorbed through the skin.” (On view in Tribeca through April 25th).
Ileana Garcia Magoda, There’s no greater repose than this beautiful garden, acrylic on canvas, 75 x 126 inches, 2026.
Quentin James McCaffrey’s surreal depictions of eerily still spaces-within-spaces at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery are restricted to canvases barely a foot high, requiring viewers to get close to each painting as if peering into a portal on the wall. Inspired by Rene Magritte’s ‘Empire of Light’ paintings – which juxtapose blue, daytime skies with night-darkened foregrounds – viewers encounter mirrors that do not reflect and interiors that abruptly give way to scenic vistas. The effect is of enchanting strangeness made richer here by a draped rug that hints at hidden opulence. (On view in Tribeca through April 18th).
Quentin James McCaffrey, Mirror with Drapery, oil on canvas over wood panel, 13 ½ x 11 inches, 2026.
Mariah Robertson’s instantly recognizable, abstract darkroom photographs are a kind of experimental art made with filters, chemicals, selective light application and multiple exposures born from her performance practice. In new work at Chart Gallery, Roberston introduces another shift in her working methods with acrylic on aluminum paintings that exactly reproduce her photograms. Explaining that people often compare her photographic work to paintings, she set out to discover what fertile ground lay in a new medium. The resulting ‘portraits,’ as they’re titled, swap out the photograms’ light-infused, ephemeral magic in favor of a grounded feeling, as if revealing two sides of one character. (On view in Tribeca through April 11th).
Mariah Robertson, 109, Unique C-Print, image: 30 x 26 inches, 2025.Mariah Robertson, Portrait of 109, acrylic on aluminum, 60 x 48 inches, 2026.
Bold lines define bowls and fruit in Holly Coulis’ brilliantly colored still life paintings at Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, though their transparency suggests a retreat from assertiveness. The shallow depth of each painting allows objects to exist in uncertain relationship to each other and to the space of the picture; in ‘Sunrise, Dish Pair,’ two bowls under the dome of a yellow sun overlap to create a third, asymmetrical bowl shape, all of which float in a field of blue. In ‘Water Line and Orange,’ a waving, liquid line extends off the surface of a vase onto a neighboring vessel, announcing a realism-defying freedom. Here, ‘Underwater Pears’ is a highlight of the show with its pleasing abundance of symmetrical curving forms crowned by a blue-toned pool of water that enhances rather than dampens the light-catching contours of the forms it encircles. (On view in Tribeca through March 28th).
Holly Coulis, Underwater Pears, oil on linen, 40 x 50 inches, 2026.
Though Kurt Kauper’s realist oil paintings are intended to be open-ended, allowing viewers to apply their own interpretations to his sometimes-surreal scenarios, the artist makes sure there’s plenty to fuel speculation. In this painting from Kauper’s series ‘Watching Men,’ part of his solo at Ortuzar Gallery that pictures men preparing themselves to face the world by brushing their teeth or combing their hair, for example, it’s tempting to consider what’s on this thoughtful man’s mind. Just as he faces the direction of the arrow in the bike lane next to him, his scarf matches the road markings and the nearby construction barriers. Though the barricades seem to symbolize impeded progress, the man appears to be at the moment of breakthrough as he emerges from shadow into light. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 28th).
Kurt Kauper, Watching Men #13, oil on dibond, 12 x 12 inches, 2025.
Apparitions materialize on the backs of paintings while art smocks reveal the imprint of saintly heads in Katelyn Ledford’s skeptically mystical works at Fredericks and Freiser Gallery. Possessed of great skill in fooling the eye, Ledford paints what look to be the verso of framed artworks, suggesting that meaning might be found in what would normally be hidden from view. Messages like, ‘Keep looking’ or ‘free’ so convincingly appear to be rendered in masking tape that identifying the actual material – acrylic and oil – comes across as a revelation. Recurring clown faces, which the artist regularly dons on her social media, suggest a performative aspect to the painterly skill that entertains and delights her audience. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 7th).
Katelyn Ledford, Free, acrylic and oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches, 2025.
Though based on the east coast, Esteban Cabeza de Baca roots his artworks in his parents’ Mexican heritage and his childhood upbringing near the California / Mexico border. In this painting in his latest solo show at Garth Greenan Gallery, the artist employs New Mexico soil along with dyes made of cochineal from insects and indigo along with acrylic and spray paint, merging contemporary and ancient materials. A Maize god featured on Mayan artifacts inspired the green, human-plant hybrid figure pictured here on a segment of a wall which has broken away and is hovering in space at the center of this painting. Accepting human figures onto its open plant-palm, the deity offers a chance to exist in communion with nature, a recurring theme of Cabeza de Baca’s work. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 21st).
Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Portals to the Lunar Maize God, New Mexico soil, acrylic, and spray paint on cochineal and indigo dyed canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2025.
Described as ‘startlingly fresh’ in her New York Times obituary last March, Marcia Marcus’ work from the 60s to the 90s – now at Olney Gleason Gallery – is immediately attractive for its flat, realist style and intense, confident engagement with the viewer. In a piece from the ‘60s, Marcus stands at a distance from her young daughters and husband as if belonging only loosely to their world; later, in 1980, we see her blond head posed behind a large sculpture of a Greek deity, as if for protection. In the painting pictured here, created as part of a print commission for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Marcus looks like a19th century literary heroine with her romantic pose before a flowery field, and is again nestled intimately with an ancient sculpture. Wearing a dress emblazoned with an ancient head, and standing before a Greek ruin, Marcus blends past and present to question contemporary attraction to and involvement in history. (On view through Feb 14th).
Marcia Marcus, Painting for Olympic Poster aka Olympic Painting (Self-portrait), oil on canvas, 1974.
Including just five major paintings and a 3-part sculpture group, Nicole Eisenman’s solo at 52 Walker is selective but powerful, presenting new work that comments on art world practice and a political climate hostile to artists. In one piece, an artist stands painting in a foxhole while a tank rolls by overhead; elsewhere, a painter in a beret has dropped enough paint on the studio floor and walls to create a bunker that isolates as much as it protects. The show’s largest work pictures an art opening crowded with generic abstract sculptures and young people, one of whom pickpockets a worshipful collector while a pig in a military uniform (echoing a sculpture at the 1920 Berlin Dada exhibition) hovers overhead. Here, a cartoonish man on the right bids on a painting of an auction scene while a mustachioed, beret-wearing artist on the left looks grimly on, a painting of a painting of a painting that questions the reality of anything we see in art market practice. (On view through Jan 10th in Tribeca).
Nicole Eisenman, The Auction, oil on canvas and linen, 105 x 137 inches, 2025.
Exploding volcanoes, mock naval battles, bullfights and more are subject matter for the delicate fans and artworks picturing fans in the Met Museum’s absorbing exhibition ‘Fanmania.’ Here, Belgian artist and friend to Degas, Eva Gonzales, Berthe Morisot, Manet and other major 19th century Parisian painters Alfred Stevens pictures a well-heeled young beauty in a bourgeois living space – the kind of subject matter that made him successful. Dressed in a Japanese kimono in a style adapted to French tastes and holding a fan, the figure demonstrates Stevens’ attraction to Japanese art and decorative objects, which he collected from the late 1850s. (On view at the Met Museum through May 12th).
Alfred Stevens, The Japanese Robe, ca 1872, oil on canvas.
Is she melancholy or momentarily thoughtful? It’s hard to think that Danielle Mckinney’s chic lady would be down for long with her vibrant yellow dress and painted nails. Sleeping, waiting, lounging, or smoking, Mckinney’s solitary, introspective characters look like they’re contemplating the next move. In this piece titled ‘Haze’ at the Met Museum, Mckinney’s recently hung canvas seems to point to an upcoming waiting period as museum-goers anticipate the museum’s new Tang Wing, scheduled for completion in 2030. (On view at the Met Museum).
In what feels like a final hurrah before the commencement of the Met Museum’s 4-year construction of the Tang Wing for Modern and Contemporary Art, newly hung contemporary paintings by Matthew Wong, Qiu Xiaofei, Cady Noland and other sought-after contemporary artists have offered an intriguing foretaste of what’s to come. Here, a large canvas by British artist and musician Issy Wood juxtaposes a watch face, clusters of bells and a car’s leather seat in an enigmatic but evocative suggestion of time, music and movement. (On view at the Met Museum).
Issy Wood, Tour management study, oil on velvet, 2023.
Regardless of the actual weather, you can always enjoy a white Christmas in 19th century Connecticut painter George Henry Durrie’s peaceful paintings of snow-decked country scenes. The Met Museum’s ‘Red School House (Country Scene) features a one-room schoolhouse that has become an epicenter of activity as kids play, men chop wood and a farmer carries produce to market. (On view at the Met Museum).
George Henry Durrie, Red School House (Country Scene), oil on canvas, 1858.George Henry Durrie, (detail) Red School House (Country Scene), oil on canvas, 1858.
Sotheby’s iconic sale last month of Leonard Lauder’s collection is now history, but the collector’s taste in Cubist masterpieces can still be appreciated in the Met Museum’s installation of works he gifted by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Leger. Here, Fernand Leger’s huge, abstracted painting features a worker dressed in red and wearing a round cap typesetting large red and white letters. Part of a display that includes a cluster of works presented as they were displayed in Lauder’s own home, the multi-gallery installation gives invaluable insights into the development of early abstraction. (On view at the Met Museum on the Upper East Side).
Fernand Leger, Composition (The Typographer), oil on canvas, 1918-19.
Hung end to end down the long wall of Anat Ebgi’s Tribeca gallery space in an enveloping plane, Swedish artist Sigrid Sandstrom’s abstract canvases are an immediate draw. Reminiscent of mid-20th century color field painting, the works are set apart by inclusion of a small sphere that changes our understanding of the space of the painting. Titled ‘Penumbra,’ after a grey area perhaps caused by an eclipse, the show’s paintings toggle between clear washes of color and cloudy forms, each offering a dynamic visual experience. (On view through Dec 20th in Tribeca).
Sigrid Sandstrom, installation view of ‘Penumbra’ at Anat Ebgi Gallery, Tribeca, Dec ’25.
Two paintings of airplanes silhouetted by the sun are the first and last images in LA painter Friedrich Kunath’s solo show at Pace Gallery, suggesting a brief layover on an ongoing journey. In between, romantic, dramatically lit landscapes include a huge breaking wave on a beach, a misty highway running through forest and a country road through fall foliage. Explaining in a video that his paintings ‘create permission to feel,’ Kunath’s pretty scenes contain short, evocative text quotes from music or other sources that speak to complicated interpersonal relationships. Behind the large breaking wave, the text ‘If it comes, let it. If it goes, let it.’ appears in purplish clouds on the horizon while here, a double exposure of a sunrise or sunset includes the phrase ‘You told that joke twice.’ (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Friedrich Kunath, You Told That Joke Twice, oil on canvas, 96 x 72 x 1 ½ inches, 2024-2025.Friedrich Kunath, (detail) You Told That Joke Twice, oil on canvas, 96 x 72 x 1 ½ inches, 2024-2025.
LA artist Lauren Satlowski’s realist painting finds the point at which banality turns into something unsettling. New work at Timothy Taylor Gallery in Tribeca features cartoon characters in office mishaps, coffee mugs placed before strange, visceral forms and everywhere, spilled coffee. In this five-foot tall piece, ‘Skiing on Acid,’ Satlowski juxtaposes two skiers – one on a ceramic coffee mug labeled ‘purgatory’ and the other on a teeth-bitten Styrofoam cup dunked in a glass of water. Symbolic of escape yet conveying confinement, the setup seems to sabotage the mental exit strategy of a trapped worker. (On view in Tribeca through Dec 13th).
Lauren Satlowski, Skiing on Acid, oil and acrylic on linen, 60 x 72 inches, 2025.
After iconic Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell moved from New York to Paris in the late ‘50s, she began flinging, pouring and brushing paint onto her canvases, centering masses of pigment in compositions alive with movement. David Zwirner Gallery’s current show of Mitchell’s paintings from 1960-1965 zeros in on this period of stylistic innovation while celebrating the centenary of her birth with a selection of work gathered from private collections, the Joan Mitchell Foundation and museums including the Met. In the early 1960s, Mitchell aimed to paint not the particulars of a landscape or space but the feeling of it. Here, the rocky coast and trees of southern France, seen from the sailboat on which she lived for several weeks each summer, inspired her energetic forms and lush palette. (On view through Dec 13th).
Joan Mitchell, Untitled, oil on canvas, 97 ¼ x 79 inches, c. 1965.
Early in his ninth decade, iconic painter Alex Katz commented that he was streamlining his schedule to channel his efforts into painting. The energy expressed by the huge, vividly colored paintings in his solo show at Gladstone Gallery suggests that the strategy continues to be effective at age 98. Ten-foot-tall paintings feature patterns of dappled light expressed in orange paint on white canvas – a recreation of the optical effects of moving from bright sun outdoors into a darkened interior. Accompanied by a video by Matthew Barney of Katz alone in his studio climbing a ladder, painting or standing in contemplation, the show demonstrates Katz’s vigor and his appreciation of the possibility of intense visual experience in the natural world. (On view through Dec 20th).
Alex Katz, installation view at Gladstone Gallery, November 2025.
From the first painting in Jennifer Packer’s solo show at Sikkema Malloy Jenkins to the final piece, the artist pictures individuals in repose. Several figures lie on couches while nearby, their intimates read, smoke or simply look on. In other works, heads fill the canvas, appearing to be sleeping peacefully, though they are rendered in visceral, red tones. Packer’s first show of new work at the gallery since the unexpected death of her partner in 2021 poignantly pictures moments of absence and presence, usually in the same painting, while continuing her signature focus on the unique beauty and value of her subjects. Here, in a piece called ‘Melt,’ a figure slumps down with a bag by her feet, as if grateful to arrive in a peaceful place of rest. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 13th).
Jennifer Packer, Melt, oil on canvas, 26 x 30 1/8 inches, 2025.
Aiming to “bring some light and warmth to New York as winter closes in,” Katherine Bradford more than makes good on her intention with a solo show at Canada Gallery that mixes vibrant and cool colors in enigmatic images that invite contemplation. Here, ‘Communal Table’ not only pictures individuals gathered around a table but merges figures into the furniture’s flat surface. Is the blue head and torso at center the subject of a meeting? Do the hands reaching out in the head’s direction, including a pair of disembodied orange hands, seek to make a connection or revive an individual? Though it’s unclear why, both people and place are assembled with purpose. (On view in Tribeca through Dec 13th).
Katherine Bradford, Communal Table, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 68 inches, 2025.
The sea is calm but overwhelming in Scherezade Garcia’s paintings at Praxis Gallery. Swells and currents represented by thick, multi-toned and almost calligraphic lines create a dynamic that competes with the opulent decoration worn by serene, even regal characters. Titles like ‘Splendor of a New World’ or ‘Map of the World’ harken to the historical arrival of Europeans in the Americas and the cultural intersections that resulted, represented in Garcia’s work by the combination of baroque forms and people with what she calls ‘cinnamon skin.’ Seeing water as a metaphor for transformation and movement, the artist’s opulent vision speaks to the beauty and possibilities of fluidity. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 1st).
Scherezade Garcia, Splendor of a New World, Gold Paints acrylic, charcoal, pastel on linen, 72 x 54 inches, 2025.Scherezade Garcia, Splendor of a New World, Gold Paints acrylic, charcoal, pastel on linen, 72 x 54 inches, 2025.
Entangled bodies dominate the dark, shallow space of Chloe Wise’s new paintings at Almine Rech Gallery, recalling dynamic figures from the late Renaissance. Titles like, ‘This Offworld Impulse’ (picturing a reclining person, youthful and slim gazing skyward) and here, ‘Wake up, mutate and ascend’ both point to experience that transcends corporality. Taking inspiration from historical paintings featuring contact between the heavenly and earthly realms (she cites El Greco’s rendition of St Francis of Assisi receiving stigmata), Wise pictures people in contemporary clothes and hairstyles alongside partially visible figures in satin gloves or red stockings. Though modeled on historical characters experiencing the divine, Wise’s figures roll their eyes a little too far heavenward while striking self-conscious poses, rooting them in the here and now. (On view through tomorrow, Oct 25th, at Almine Rech’s Tribeca gallery).
Chloe Wise, Wake up, mutate and ascend, oil on linen, 72 ¼ x 60 ¼ x 1 ¼ inches, 2025.
Titled ‘DIVAS’ and resembling Henri Matisse’s curvy cutout forms, Marina Adams’ acrylic painting at Timothy Taylor Gallery embodies the dynamism and bold tones of the late modern master while engulfing gallery visitors in over six feet of color. Inspired by textiles, Native American pottery, Hilma af Klint’s paintings and many more cultural predecessors, Adams canvases can look familiar but offer their own unique experience through their scale and vibrancy. (On view in Tribeca through Oct 25th.)
Marina Adams, DIVAS, acrylic on linen, 78 x 68 inches, 2025.
The ‘morning bathers’ in Celeste Rapone’s painting in her solo show at Marianne Boesky Gallery are nothing like the idealized figures suggested by the title. While a gargantuan bird dominates a bird-bath, a female figure struggles into wakefulness by turning the garden hose on her slumped, semi-clad body. Inside, a discarded pair of underwear on the floor accents the orange-tones of goldfish in a flower vase, a quote from Henri Matisse’s tranquil still lives. Despite the order and attempted cheer of the bright-yellow living room interior, Rapone’s main character has some reckoning to do…when she comes around. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 18th).
Celeste Rapone, Morning Bathers, 72 1/8 x 72 inches, oil on canvas, 2025.
Amid soft waves of hair and a dark, indistinct background, a face looms toward the surface of a self-portrait by Romanian artist Diana Cepleanu, arresting for its piercing eyes and a tangle of light and color across one cheek. Similarly, the artist’s seemingly abstract painting ‘Ray’ focuses on a curious manifestation of light, as if a beam was emerging from a natural environment to powerful effect. Three decades of work at Kaufmann Repetto in Tribeca introduces Cepleanu to New York as a painter who pulls the extraordinary from quotidian life. (On view in Tribeca through Oct 24th).
Diana Cepleanu, Self-portrait, oil on canvas, 15 x 15 inches, 2023.Diana Cepleanu, Ray, oil on canvas, 21.7 x 19.8 inches, 2021.
Along one wall of New York-based Columbian artist Maria Berrio’s solo show at Hauser and Wirth Gallery, she depicts three Cumbia dancers in the guise of the Fates from Greek mythology, known for spinning a thread that will start, influence and end the life of each human. What if this thread should be stolen from them, repurposed and deified, spun into banners and flags? Throughout the show Berrio follows this storyline while also foregrounding female figures who seem to counter the misuse of the thread: an oracle on a horse, a levitating female figure and this young woman who walks with a brilliantly abundant banner. Using her signature Japanese papers with watercolor painting, Berrio’s vibrant artworks offer a hopeful starting point for dreams. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 18th).
Maria Berrio, Songlines, collage with Japanese papers and watercolor paint on linen, 118 1/8 x 92 ¼ x 1 3/8 inches, 2025.Maria Berrio, Songlines, collage with Japanese papers and watercolor paint on linen, 118 1/8 x 92 ¼ x 1 3/8 inches, 2025.
Two forms lie in the foreground of this painting by Austin Martin White at Petzel Gallery, possibly representing an animal (red) and person (blue) though they’re so abstracted it’s hard to say. Loosely based on mid-century artist American Bob Thompson’s ‘La Mort des Infants,’ itself a version of French 17th century Laurent de la Hyre rendition of the same theme, the figures are perhaps too horrific to picture, referring to slain children and mothers, victims of Biblical King Herod’s murderous decree that children under two be slaughtered. Informed by the recent, 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Thompson processed contemporary events through the lens of the past; here, White’s painting continues the tradition. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 18th).
Austin Martin White, the dream of the afternoon nap (after B. Thompson), acrylic medium, pigment, rubber, spray paint, vinyl, screen mesh, paper, 120 x 150 ¼ inches, 2025.
Steve Keister’s graphically bold mixed media creations at Derek Eller Gallery came about with the discovery that Styrofoam and cardboard packaging often come in shapes recalling Mesoamerican design. Using some of these pre-formed shapes as casts, Keister developed plaster molds that would allow him to make sculpture in ceramic slip. In combination with flat and heavily geometric paintings, the sculptural face seen here in ‘Contrapposto’ is a cultural hybrid, blending influences from Latin American design, western art and Modernism. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 22nd.)
Steve Keister, Contrapposto, glazed ceramic and acrylic on wood, 30 x 24 x 4 inches.
If anything, the ocean can be thought of as old, though Emily Sundblad’s poetically titled solo show at Bortolami Gallery, ‘The Adolescent Ocean,’ offers a playful, alternative take. Sundblad’s vividly colored compositions assemble flowers, animals, and Munch-like lovers to suggest moods informed by many types of input – from the natural world to art history. In this painting, she even includes the word ‘Evocation’ at bottom right, though colorful flowers, waving palms, roiling waves and a flaming ship in the distance convey much with images alone. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 8th).
Emily Sundblad, The Adolescent Ocean, oil and pastel on linen mounted on panel, 28 x 48 inches, 2025.
Taking its title from Mark Twain’s comment about heaven and hell that he had ‘friends in both places,’ the artwork in Nicelle Beauchene Gallery’s summer group exhibition ranges from the sublime to the nightmarish in theme. Dana James’ painting ‘The Sandbox’ would seem to fall into the former category with its organic, curving forms and light palette, though darker areas and the contrast in two conjoined canvases between smoother and more gestural abstraction adds complexity to this enjoyable canvas. (On view through Aug 15th. Note summer hours.)
Dana James, The Sandbox, oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas, diptych overall 48 x 30 inches, 2025.
Before they teamed up in 1943 to famously educate a New York Times critic about developments in American modernism, writing, ‘We favor the simple expression of complex thought,’ Mark Rothko and Adolph Gottlieb worked in a style vastly different from the models of abstraction each would come to pioneer. A joint show at 125 Newbury demonstrates, however, that they were edging closer to their signature styles in paintings of their friends and surroundings in the ‘20s and ‘30s. Here, Rothko’s bathers dominate a monochrome beach with their large, flat forms and, contrary to the summer weather, convey a chill with their hunched postures and turned backs. (On view in Tribeca through July 25th).
Mark Rothko, Bathers on the beach, watercolor, graphite on watercolor paper, 11 ¼ x 15 ¼ inches, 1934.
Before settling in New York in the mid 1950s, Carmen Herrera transformed her practice from biomorphic to geometric abstraction during a five year stay in Paris (1948-1953). Work from that time at Lisson Gallery in Chelsea sees her experimenting with variations on each style not in a linear progression toward purged form but rather with a varying vocabulary of geometric and curving shapes. Seen here, the largest piece she’d made to date, Early Dynasty’ (1953), employs just two colors in a play between foreground and background shapes that creates lively spatial complexity. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 1st).
Carmen Herrera, Early Dynasty, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 x 1 ¼ inches, 1953.
Can humans live in harmony with nature? Indonesian artist Agus Putu Suyadyna’s new paintings at Sapar Contemporary featuring an astronaut in various lush, natural environments suggest that the possibility is tantalizing but unrealized. Whether holding a sunflower or embracing a chimpanzee, the astronaut’s protective gear testifies to an alienation from the natural world that is compounded by the ominous reflection of a barren landscape in the visor of their helmet. Though the title of this painting, ‘Playful Nature is the Future’ suggests sympathy with the environment and pictures fertile fields in the background, viewers are confronted with a giant bubble prompting us to ask how fantastical our thinking about nature might be. (Curated by John Silvis. On view in Tribeca through July 7th. Note holiday hours and summer hours.)
Agus Putu Suyadyna, Playful Nature is the Future, acrylic on canvas, 78 ¾ x 70 7/8 inches, 2024.
Lorna Simpson’s painting retrospective ‘Source Notes’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art starts with an alluringly strange image of a woman and her leashed cheetah swapping faces. Nearby, bullet holes resemble a constellation in the night sky and a huge meteorite hovers in the air in acrylic and screen print works that picture natural phenomenon in unexpected ways. The sense of surprise extends to monumental works that combine female heads taken from mid-century Ebony and Jet magazines with Arctic landscapes that are a deep rich blue color vs the expected white of ice. In this image titled ‘Specific Notation,’ a chic model with a penetrating gaze appears to be semi-buried in or perhaps emerging from a craggy, weathered landscape in a conflation of human and geologic time. (On view through Nov 2nd).
Lorna Simpson, Specific Notation, ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, 2019.
At over six feet high and ten feet long, this 2022 painting by German avant-garde artist Heinz Mack adds a dramatic burst of color to the cool metallic and minimal tones of the artist’s solo show at Almine Rech Gallery. Along with Otto Piene, Mack founded the artist collective ZERO to launch art into new directions post-WWII, avoiding popular expressive styles and focusing instead on light and motion. A small, monochromatic canvas from 1958 at the show’s entrance varies from heavier to lighter paint application in vertical bands, creating a vibrating effect. Around the corner, Mack amplifies the same sensation with aluminum sheet embossed into vertical grooves that reflect light and the colors of the larger, more recent paintings in the room. In a Almine Rech Gallery video, the 94-year-old Mack explains that these newer, vibrant works present color in its own space, each tone carrying its own amount of light. (On view through June 14th).
Heinz Mack, Untitled (Chromatic Constellation), acrylic on canvas, 82 x 123 ½ x 1 ¼ inches, 2022.
Summer never looked so good as in Hope Gangloff’s paintings of a vivid red barn, a spectacular lightning strike seen from a front porch and friends lounging lakeside, but the standout piece of her latest solo show at Susan Inglett Gallery is a double portrait of close-up magicians Matthew Holtzclaw and Prakash Puru. Employing a wizardry of her own in recording the texture of each man’s suit and a wide range of tones in their faces, Gangloff delivers a knock-out work whose intense colors and typically distorted proportions give the piece its distinct dynamism. (On view in Chelsea through June 7th).
Hope Gangloff, Matthew (Holtzclaw) and Prakash (Puru), acrylic on wood panel, 80 ½ x 48 inches, 2025.
Tomma Abts’ small abstract paintings at David Zwirner Gallery defy language, their dynamic forms and rich colors existing to provide stimulation to the eye. Recurring spiraling shapes evoke wheels with uneven spokes or a curving staircase. Other canvases feature angular forms emanating from a central point. All suggest centrifugal force, including the less geometric composition ‘Saske,’ pictured here. A profusion of soft feathery forms in yellow, turquoise and pink tones recall Edgar Degas’ paintings of 19th century stage performers and provocatively contrast the hard, light-catching metallic surface of a cast-bronze segment to the left. (On view in Chelsea through June 14th).
Tomma Abts, Saske, acrylic on canvas and cast bronze in two (2) parts, 18 7/8 x 15 inches, 2024.
Despite their subdued grisaille palette, Olivia Jia’s intimately-scaled paintings at Margot Samel Gallery entice with their crisp, realist renderings of artworks, artists and nature. Here, a bronze ritual vessel features on one page of an open book opposite an ornamental comb, their relationship a mystery, the pictured book a product of the artist’s imagination. Jia has explained that her upbringing in the U.S., cut off from family by distance and from the material culture of her parents’ homeland has prompted her to paint artifacts that stand in the gap. Though we know from the painting’s title that the featured photograph of the young woman is Jia’s grandmother, the picture is partially obscured and rests on a sheet of broken glass or mirror; though the significance of each item is clear, the meaning is not, allowing us to share in Jia’s desire for deeper connection. (On view through May 31st).
Olivia Jia, Night Studio (bronze ritual vessel, horn comb with painted bird, branches, two lilies, portrait of my grandmother), oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches, 2025.
Stony-faced men in paintings titled ‘Angry Dads’ or ‘Uncles’ contrast images of young men with distant looks or softly downcast gazes in Salman Toor’s tour de force character studies in the Tribeca venue of his solo debut at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s New York locations. Ever present in both shows is the uncomfortable coexistence of the artist’s traditional upbringing in Lahore, Pakistan, and the life he has made for himself in New York’s queer diasporic south Asian community. This pairing of a defiant youth with a wall of disapproving older men encapsulates the drama, frustration, and absurdity of the conflict. (On view in Chelsea and Tribeca through June 21st).
Salman Toor, ‘Boy, Dads,’ pencil, charcoal, and gouache on paper, 10 1/8 x 10 ½ inches, 2024.
Painter Lauren Portada explains that her early morning trail runs make her extra-aware of the natural world, but the sense of immediacy she conveys in her landscape paintings at Deanna Evans Projects is indebted to her technique. Using dyed, torn and tarnished scraps from her own recycled paintings, Portada creates representational outdoor scenes with pleasing trompe l’oeil effects that add interest by incorporating areas of abstraction. A snowy hillside with distinct trees has an ambiguous, patterned ground for example while a Maine sunrise shows up as a reflected orange triangle behind trees in the foreground. Here, a segment of peeling birch catches the light to reveal a multitude of colors in its white bark. (On view in Tribeca through May 24th).
Lauren Portada, Specimen, acrylic on linen over panel with painted collage cut outs, 12 x 10 inches, 2025.
Spotlit and spaciously installed on elegantly understated grey walls at James Cohan Gallery, Kennedy Yanko’s abstract sculptures delight with their formally complex compositions. Continuing her signature combination of scrap metal and sheets of dried and folded paint, Yanko’s latest sculptures are restrained in size but rich in evocative color and dynamic form. The first piece in the show incorporates a crushed metal cannister that looks as soft as a duffel bag. Another sculpture features curlicues crafted from metal fencing surrounding a twisting sheet of paint skin in colors that complement the fragments of color on the metal. Here, rusting metal compliments a deep red swathe of paint. (On view in Tribeca through May 10th).
Kennedy Yanko, Remembering the Future, paint skin, metal, 40 x 24 x 15 inches, 2025.
Raised in Japan and living in LA since the ‘70s, Takako Yamaguchi melds Japanese and Western art in richly decorative paintings that sample from kimono textiles as readily as Art Nouveau aesthetics. Large works from the ‘80s, now on view in Tribeca at Ortuzar Projects, picture landscapes that include European-derived architecture and geometric structures in isometric perspective alongside a stylized representation of the natural world. Dominating all are shapes the gallery describes as sperm-like, undulating and spreading across the surface of the artwork as if to “inseminate the past with futures then unknown.” (On view in Tribeca through May 31st).
Takako Yamaguchi, Le Temps Mele, oil and bronze leaf on paper, 48 x 83 inches, 1984.
David Kennedy Cutler’s bed, his shorts, his plants and more personal items line the walls of Derek Eller Gallery in the form of paintings that foreground the artist himself as subject. At a time when artists often conceive of and manage artwork that is actually produced by others, Kennedy Cutler’s hands-on, labor-intensive process underscores his role as maker, albeit one who uses digital tools. Starting by photographing objects in his studio, digitally altering the images, printing on canvas and cutting the surface to create a pop-up effect, then adding paint to the result, the artworks blur the line between media while also multiplying the original represented object. Alluding to the increased representation of self via social media, Kennedy Cutler represents what he identifies as, ‘a scattering or stuttering of our consciousness,’ a potentially freeing state. (On view in Tribeca through April 12th).
David Kennedy Cutler, Wild, inkjet transfer, acrylic and clear coat on canvas, armature wire, 49.5 x 35.5 x 3.5 inches, 2024.
Irving Penn’s flower photographs, featured in Vogue’s annual Christmas issues from 1967 – 1973 and published in a volume titled ‘Flowers’ in 1980, are the launching point and raison d’etre of Sharon Core’s new body of work at Yancey Richardson Gallery, ‘Facsimile.’ Meticulously shot and printed, the crisp clarity and stunning color of Penn’s images give way to freer renderings in Core’s renditions of Penn’s photos, which she painted using cyan, yellow and magenta Epson UltraChrome inks on Canson Photo Rag paper and then printed as an editioned book. In her past work, Core has grown flowers that she’s then shot for still-life photos. Other projects involved photographing her own recreations of food that has been depicted in famous artworks. Here, she also considers the life of a subject prior to being captured in an image, but now the precursor is the medium of painting itself. Since the invention of photography, its function in relation to painting has been debated; here, Core reveals in the complexities, ultimately forcing viewers to confront our own expectations. (On view in Chelsea through April 12th).
Sharon Core, installation view of ‘Facsimile’ at Yancey Richardson Gallery, March 2025.
Landscapes viewed from a car crop up regularly in 20th century art, but Linda Gottesfeld’s landscapes viewed ON a car at George Adams Gallery offer a different take on the road trip. Painted directly on the metal panels of cars, Gottesfeld’s views of highways, gas stations and verdant roadside greenery are made uncanny by the shapes of their supports. Here, an image on a wheelarch suggests that something has been cut away while three open sections at center not only disrupt the illusion of the painted sky but hint at motion with their angular shapes. (On view in Tribeca through April 5th).
Linda Gottesfeld, 17 North, oil on metal 31 x 44 inches, 2000.
Chicago artist Rebecca Shore’s paintings at Derek Eller Gallery picture rigidly controlled environments dominated by angles and sharp edges – a bedroom with perfectly unrumpled beds, a wall with geometric wallpaper and a grid of rectangular frames – yet each image subtly disrupts order. Those beds have strangely curvy headboards, and from the window of the geometrically wallpapered room are trees with barren trunks and branches that fan and curve irregularly outward. Here, a bungalow’s rectangular shape takes up most of the picture’s space, but the calligraphic designs of the fence, the random patterning of flagstones, and a curving path to a natural scene beyond suggest decorative caprice or the allure of the unknown natural world. In the window, lace curtains featuring robotic dancers under a whimsical mobile complete the rebellion against stiff geometry. (On view in Tribeca through April 12th).
Rebecca Shore, Untitled (23-12), acrylic on linen, 2023.
It’s night, and a young couple pause on a sidewalk. The man turns to say something to his petite companion, who gazes forward with a faraway look. Nestled against his back with her hand tenderly resting on his shoulder, the woman is connected to her surroundings but apart from them, her mind on something else. One of the first paintings in Aaron Gilbert’s powerful show at Gladstone Gallery, the scene introduces the artist’s typically introspective characters and the dominance of corporate logos in what might otherwise be an everyday scene. Instead of being ordinary, however, the glow of a giant AT&T graphic acts as both replacement for a sun and as a halo behind the figures suggesting their otherworldliness. Palm trees on the box in the man’s hands also point to a place distant from the shop-front behind the couple, a portal that they may have access to, if only mentally. (On view in Chelsea on 24th Street through April 19th).
Aaron Gilbert, Window, oil on linen, 18 1/8 x 24 1/8 inches, 2025.
Known for large watercolor, gouache and ink paintings that picture the animal world through the lens of human (mis)understanding, both historic and contemporary, Walton Ford’s new work at Gagosian Gallery focuses on animals in the menagerie of the wealthy early 20th century Italian heiress Luisa Casati. Here, one of her pet cheetahs gazes from the prow of a gondola on a foggy night in Venice, where Casati lived in a palazzo later owned by Peggy Guggenheim. Explaining his motivation for the show, Ford says he wanted, “…to paint pictures about the world’s fastest animals living a fast life with a wild woman in Venice.” (On view in Chelsea on 21st Street through April 19th).
Walton Ford, Forse che si forse che no, watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper, 84 x 60 inches, 2024.
Clare Woods’ lush, oil on aluminum painting of arranged flowers and potted plants at Stephen Friedman Gallery in Tribeca convey a wildness at odds with their domesticated subject matter. Mixing paints directly with her brush and employing just a handful of colors, Woods’ streamlined process involves applying the medium to the metal surface itself, the smooth sheet offering little resistance. Starting early, donning noise-canceling headphones and working alone in the studio, she doesn’t stop until she’s finished a painting. The resulting immediacy and energy of the process enlivens her traditional subjects, resulting in surprising freshness and visual pleasure. (On view in Tribeca through April 12th).
Clare Woods, The Victory Garden, oil on aluminum, 2025.
Robert Indiana is known for his iconic LOVE design, first coming to the public eye as MoMA’s 1964 Christmas card and then appearing in the form of painting, sculpture and an extremely popular US Postal Service stamp. Plagiarized in countless forms from t-shirts to posters (it was unfortunately not copyrighted by Indiana) the graphic tends to overshadow a lifetime of work. Kasmin Gallery’s current show (in advance of an upcoming exhibition at Pace Gallery) builds appreciation for Indiana’s broader contribution to mid-century art by situating his best-known piece in the context of a decade of his production from 1959 – 1969. This period (and the show) begins with paintings featuring dramatically pared down forms, including a spherical orb recalling an orange shared on a Manhattan pier by Indiana and Ellsworth Kelly when both lived on Coenties Slip. Here, Indiana records the shadow of an easel that Kelly gifted him in a painting that is both artwork and conversation between two art practices. (On view in Chelsea through March 29th).
Robert Indiana, The Gift (Easel), oil on canvas, 40 x 36 inches, 1960.
Who are the stylized female figures in Deborah Druick’s paintings at Nino Mier Gallery? With their faces hidden behind a fan, a bird, hair or even painted out, Druick not only gives nothing away but drives home the women’s anonymity. At the same time, their abundant, characterful, wig-like swooshes of hair hint at a liveliness below the surface. Similarly, Druick’s abundant patterning of the women’s dress and their backgrounds flattens the figures, making them less life-like while also suggesting agency via bold fashion statements. The contradictions entice. (On view in Tribeca through March 22nd).
Deborah Druick, Plumage, flashe paint and acrylic on linen, 24 x 18 inches, 2023.
Known since the ‘90s for paintings that question what a painting is, LA artist Laura Owens pushes the boundaries again with must-see immersive artworks at Matthew Marks Gallery. An old metal desk once installed at the gallery entrance was shipped to Owens’ LA studio, fitted with interactive elements (a moving roll of tape, a drawer that slides open on its own) and now welcomes visitors into a show of surprises. In the first room, Owens flips walls and canvas, painting trompe l’oeil wires, candy and more on the walls, while the show’s five canvases hint at patterns derived from wallpaper designs. In the back space (pictured here), patterns, floating clouds and flowers take over walls set with small panels that open and close to reveal hidden pictures. In another gallery, visitors are invited to gently handle books handmade by the artist, a reversal of the usual prohibition against touching and a trigger for our pleasure in discovery. (On view through April 19th).
Laura Owens, Untitled, oil, acrylic, silkscreened Flashe, sand and flocking on clay-coated paper mounted to aluminum panels, egg tempera on panel, video, and sound (runtime 80 minutes), 184 1/8 x 258 5/8 x 532 7/8 inches, 2025.Laura Owens, Untitled, oil, acrylic, silkscreened Flashe, sand and flocking on clay-coated paper mounted to aluminum panels, egg tempera on panel, video, and sound (runtime 80 minutes), 184 1/8 x 258 5/8 x 532 7/8 inches, 2025.Laura Owens, Untitled, oil, acrylic, silkscreened Flashe, sand and flocking on clay-coated paper mounted to aluminum panels, egg tempera on panel, video, and sound (runtime 80 minutes), 184 1/8 x 258 5/8 x 532 7/8 inches, 2025.
Sixty years after his death, Italian artist Giorgio Morandi’s enigmatic still life paintings continue to exert remarkable influence. Coming on the heels of a much-talked-about show of the artist’s work on the Upper East Side by Rome-based Galleria Mattia De Luca last fall, David Zwirner Gallery’s current Morandi survey features work from the Magnani-Rocca Foundation (located near Parma, Italy) collected by musicologist and friend of Morandi, Luigi Magnani. The gallery’s first two rooms show how Morandi rejected organic still life, portraiture and metaphysical interests (akin to Giorgio deChirco and Carlo Carra) to arrive at the still life paintings of everyday objects that would occupy him for over forty years. Here, a cluster of vessels placed precariously close to the edge of a table testify to the artist’s constant experimentations with spatial arrangements and shifting tones. (On view through Feb 22nd). Giorgio Morandi, Natura morta (Still Life), oil on canvas, 17 3/8 x 18 7/8 inches, 1948.
Four paintings of models in jeans – visible only from thigh to waist – line the wall of Jennifer J Lee’s current show of paintings at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery like products in an online store. Lee’s characteristic small-scale renditions of clothing, food, and people recall and derive from the kind of photographic images we encounter in daily digital life and even the scale of her work – the show’s largest painting is just 22 x 15 inches – operates more in keeping with the size of a screen than an expansive picture plane. Nevertheless, painted on thick jute, its weave rough enough to suggest pixelation, Lee’s painting are resolutely material, smartly engaging the phenomenon of image-saturated life one oil painting at a time. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 22nd).
Jennifer J. Lee, Lee jeans, oil on jute, 15 x 13 inches, 2024.
Contemporary renditions of Attica vases rudely merged with modern footwear (high heel pumps and a cowboy boot) by American ceramic artist Francesca DiMattio at the entrance to Stephen Friedman Gallery offer a rethink of traditional genres, as do paintings by British artist Caroline Coon in the artists’ lively, two-person show. While Coon’s stylized figures (see Adam and Eve in the background of this photo) challenge notions of idealized bodies, DiMattio continues her imperfect interpretations of the pretty fancies of 18th century Meissen porcelain. Here, the excessively textured surface of this vessel enhances the saccharine effect of a flower-decorated heart, both foils to the built-in cleaning spray bottle that hints at the labor required for comfortable domesticity or art-production. (On view in Tribeca through Feb 26th).
Francesca DiMattio, Meissen Tide, glaze and gold luster on porcelain, glaze and enamel on stoneware pedestal, 31 x 13 x 15 inches, 2025. Background: Caroline Coon, Adam and Eve in Ladbroke Grove, oil on canvas, 59 ½ x 47 5/8 inches, 2007.
Mood and atmosphere are the subjects of Na Kim’s serial paintings of an imagined young woman, now on view at Nicola Vassell Gallery in Chelsea. Gazing impassively from a dark interior, standing against an abstracted landscape so that her hair joins with the horizon line, or immersed to the shoulders in a dark pool, a solitary figure conveys subtly different emotions heavily dependent on the color and lighting of her surroundings. Idealized, planar faces sometimes recall Paula Modersohn-Becker’s self-portraits while yellow, green and red tones bring Fauve portraiture to mind, but the focus of Kim’s work is reflected light and surrounding shadow that suggest various psychological states. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).
Na Kim, Untitled: 8, oil on linen, 30 x 24 inches, 2024.
Though given ample space on Marianne Boesky Gallery’s wall, this painting by Austrian artist Svenja Deininger converses with the paintings around it like individual words work together to make up a sentence. Before the holidays, Deininger’s paintings appeared next door at the gallery’s other location; newly installed in the gallery’s single large space, they can be considered singly, in sequence or all at once. An adjoining mustard yellow monochrome canvas and another small painting featuring fan-like shapes call further attention to color and form in this untitled painting, a standout piece that evokes a large head amid architectural or design elements. Though individual pieces offer enjoyable juxtapositions, the show’s greatest pleasure in in tracking evocative and subtle connections across multiple canvases. (On view through Jan 24th).
Svenja Deininger, Untitled, oil on linen, 74 ¾ x 57 1/8 inches, 2024.
With almost no warning save for a humming sound and a sudden gust of air, Mississippi tenant farmer Ed Bush witnessed a meteorite plough into the earth one day in 1922, a terrifying and sudden event which Lorna Simpson recounts in 3-D lettering on the wall of her solo show at Hauser & Wirth Gallery. Nearby, painted and silkscreened fiberglass panels picture a surface pockmarked with bullet holes, another allusion to violence that can descend unexpectedly and without reason. In the main gallery, a series of 12-foot-tall canvases feature huge, meteor-like rocks that appear to hover in space, perhaps arrested in their descent but still exuding destructive potential that has, at least momentarily, been averted. (On view in Chelsea through Jan 11th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).
Lorna Simpson, Time Lapse, acrylic and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, 144 x 102 x 1 ¾ inches, 2024.
It’s always a pleasure to encounter British abstract painter Ian Davenport’s colorful cascades of paint, artworks that result from pouring vividly colored acrylic paint down an aluminum surface. In new work at Chelsea’s Kasmin Gallery, vertical lines give way to a looser order toward the bottom of each painting, or here, on a panel placed on the floor below. Intending to evoke natural forces including air currents and tides while pointing to the colors of Renaissance paintings by artists including Fra Angelico and Caravaggio, the paintings offer both formal and optical enjoyment. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).
Ian Davenport, Beato, acrylic on aluminum mounted onto aluminum panel, 118 1/8 x 78 ¾ x 93 ¼ inches, 2024.Ian Davenport, Beato (detail), acrylic on aluminum mounted onto aluminum panel, 118 1/8 x 78 ¾ x 93 ¼ inches, 2024.
Grenada-born British artist Denzil Forrester’s current gallery exhibitions at Andrew Kreps Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery in Tribeca showcase vibrantly colored moments from London’s dub reggae scene in past decades. A regular club visitor from the 1980s, Forrester sketched by night and painted by day, documenting legendary DJs like Jah Shaka, who he honors here in ‘Tribute to Shaka.’ Figures in the periphery of the painting seem to dissolve, as if the reverb was literally breaking apart form and altering the material realm. (On view through Dec 18th).
Denzil Forrester, Tribute to Shaka, oil on canvas, 79 7/8 x 107 7/8 inches, 2024.
Titled ‘The Generosity of Trauma,’ this painting by British artist Jade Fadojutimi is one of only two works (along with ‘Sulking is a virtue’) in her show at Gagosian Gallery with a title. Typically colorful and energetic with areas that appear to either be plants or zones of pure abstraction, the artist’s new work explores identity through color. She has said, “When I feel emotion, I see a color and that’s how my paintings come to life.’ In tune with global challenges like climate change and displacement and the artist’s personal experience with depression, Fadojutimi’s two works with oxymoronic titles suggest that pushing her practice forward through difficulty gives it its vibrant character. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 21st).
The Generosity of Trauma, acrylic, oil, oil pastel and oil bar on canvas, 98 7/16 x 68 7/8 inches, 2024.
Long inspired by Old Master painters, Cecily Brown’s latest solo show at Paula Cooper Gallery engages with the fruitful collaboration between 17th century painters Jan Brueghel the Elder’s and Peter Paul Rubens. Brown’s work on paper – etchings, drawings with watercolor and monotypes – reworks aspects of the duo’s collaborative series of paintings ‘The Five Senses’ from 1617-18, abstracting and condensing the space of interior scenes. This lush and engaging painting in the gallery’s main space takes that impulse further, proffering a recognizable plate of oysters with lobster at the center of the canvas while turning the room’s other forms into a fluid, fluctuating space from which faces and forms emerge. (On view through Dec 7th).
Cecily Brown, The Five Senses, 89 x 83 inches, oil on linen, 2023.
Known for painted portraits of family, friends, her students, fellow subway riders, and people she meets on the street in New York, Jordan Casteel pictures her subjects as they choose to be presented. In this tender portrait from a private collection in Casteel’s solo show at the Hill Art Foundation, the family pictured wanted to be in their garden, so they waited half a year to take the photo that would lead to this painting. Planted after the parents, Deon and Kym, lost their daughter Naima due to miscarriage, they planned the garden as a gift to her and a way of honoring life. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 23rd).
Jordan Casteel, Naima’s Gift (Deon, Kym and Noah), oil on canvas, 94 x 80 inches, 2023.
With their lively, textured surfaces and bold striped patterns, Martha Jackson Jarvis’ large abstract paintings have a strong presence at Chelsea’s Inglett Gallery, but it’s their relationship to the artist’s family history that is most remarkable. Inspired by research into her great-great-great-great grandfather’s service in the Revolutionary War as a free Black militiaman, Jackson Jarvis juxtaposes lines with abstraction to contrast straight paths of travel with the difficulties of navigating the landscape. Circular forms point to abundant life, waving pieces of material suggest topography and lush colors juxtaposed with darker tones speak to the rich variety of the natural world. (On view through Nov 30th).
Martha Jackson Jarvis, South of the North Star, black walnut ink, oil, acrylic, watercolor, arches cold press 300lb paper, and canvas, 99 x 44 x 3 inches, 2020.Martha Jackson Jarvis, (detail) South of the North Star, black walnut ink, oil, acrylic, watercolor, arches cold press 300lb paper, and canvas, 99 x 44 x 3 inches, 2020.
To appreciate Pieter Schoolwerth’s paintings in his current solo exhibition at Petzel Gallery, it’s advisable to first check out ‘Supporting Actor,’ the CG animation he made with artist Phil Vanderhyden. While the priority given to computer-generated content might be a surprising move for most painters, that’s not the case for Schoolwerth, who has long been interested in how the digital world has impacted the space and time of painting. Starring a digital avatar of musician Aaron Dilloway, who created the piece’s soundtrack, the animation starts with Dilloway’s transportation from art gallery (pictured here) to a bathroom to a bizarre nightclub of gyrating alien-figures. In the gallery’s main space, paintings inspired by the animation combine inkjet-printed paintings with real paint in an ever more complicated consideration of where the ‘real’ lies and which medium plays the role of ‘supporting actor’. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 26th).
Pieter Schoolwerth, still from Supporting Actor, 4K video with sound by Aaron Dilloway, 2024, installed at Petzel Gallery, Sept 2024.
It’s carnival season in Jamaica-born, Brooklyn based multi-media artist Paul Anthony Smith’s latest body of work now on view at Jack Shainman Gallery in Chelsea. Starting with photos he took during celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago, Smith manipulates the images, prints them, adds paint and employs his signature picotage technique by which he creates patterns of tiny tears in the surface of the painted photographs. Here, as in many pieces, the tear patterns take the form of fences or walls constructed of patterned concrete blocks. Placed between viewers and the celebrants, the barriers allow looking but give viewers pause to question what kind of access we have to the places and cultures pictured. (On view through Oct 26th).
Paul Anthony Smith, To be titled, unique picotage and spray paint on inkjet, print mounted on Dibond, acrylic paint, 51 ¼ x 81 x 2 ¼ inches, 2024.
Pretty, peachy-pink tones pervade Nigerian artist Nengi Omuku’s paintings on Yoruban sanyan fabric to otherworldly and calming effect in her first New York solo show at Kasmin Gallery. But while several works feature scenes of respite in a garden or enjoyment of community, others hint at troubled political times in Nigeria. Here in ‘Orange Bougainvillea,’ Omuku surrounds faintly visible individuals with flowers as if to engulf them in the beauty of the landscape. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 19th).
Nengi Omuku, Orange Bougainvillea, oil on sanyan, 86 5/8 x 87 3/8 inches, 2024.
Sky Glabush, a Canadian artist who lives and works in the countryside outside of London, Ontario, takes inspiration from nature and early modernist art. His arresting landscape paintings at Stephen Friedman Gallery in Tribeca alternate electric orange and yellow toned scenes with tranquil blues and purples, conveying a breadth of responses to an abundantly varied natural world. Marked by their geometricized orderliness, Glabush’s huge paintings of forest scenes emphasize a linear quality that’s echoed in the vertical forms of gallery visitors standing before them. Vibrant and driven by pattern and form, Glabush’s landscapes enticingly argue for the transformative and wondrous aspects of the natural world. (On view through Oct 17th).
Sky Glabush, River Through Trees, oil and sand on canvas, 96 x 72 inches, 2024.
Hilary Pecis’s still-life paintings at David Kordansy Gallery are anything but still. Vibrant colors vie for attention with bold patterns in scenes that are empty of people but feel bursting with activity. Here, a yellow tablecloth tilts at an impossible angle to show viewers a mid-meal scene from multiple perspectives at once. Though the food looks good, it’s our appetite for color and design that is whetted by this dynamic painting. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 12th).
Hilary Pecis, Lunch in Frogtown, acrylic on linen, 74 ½ x 64 x 1 5/8 inches, 2024.
Anthony Cudahy’s simultaneous gallery shows at Hales Gallery in Chelsea and GRIMM Gallery in Tribeca are titled ‘Fool’s Gold’ and ‘Fool’s Errand,’ positing the artist as quixotic figure pursuing his own vision. True to form, Cudahy’s bold colors, unharnessed to realistic representation, highlight figures or elements of an interior background. Here, he draws our attention not to his friend, Sammy, in the chair, but rather to the glow of the bookshelf and a minimal still life with lemons. Aiming to celebrate wonder in the everyday, Cudahy tilts Sammy’s head and angles his legs to guide our eye to books that might guide the mind into a world of thought and fruits which are in conversation with art history. (On view in Chelsea at Hales Gallery and in Tribeca at GRIMM Gallery through Oct 19th).
Anthony Cudahy, Sammy, oil on linen, 72 x 72 inches, 2024.
Titled ‘Comfortcore,’ and inspired by a Scandinavian concept of snug interior décor, Gina Beavers’ show of sculptural paintings at Marianne Boesky Gallery pictures chunky blankets, cheerful cushions and thick towel sets which together poke fun at the rampant marketing and consumption of coziness. Having recently moved into a home of her own, Beavers explains that online searches for furnishings led to ceaseless ads for similar products. Here, in a thick, 3-D painting she cut from foam and built up with putty and paper pulp before painting, Beavers collages together so many items with similar prints that it’s hard to tell where the products start and stop. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 5th).
Gina Beavers, Full circle in Jungle, oil, acrylic, putty, paper pulp, foam and wood stain on panel, 60 x 51 x 5 ½ inches, 2024.
Wangari Mathenga doesn’t dream the way most people do. Able to dream while awake and be awake yet dreaming, Mathenga eventually realized that her sleep patterns were atypical and, in her recent body of painting at Nicola Vassell Gallery, pictures herself between states of consciousness. Though we see her pajama’d figure lying down, the artist’s interest is in the brain in an active sleep state and her pictures emerge from data taken from the cameras she set up in her home and the dream journals she keeps. Originally intending to paint the dreams she recorded, Mathenge instead focused on her own moving figure in canvases that offer intimate insights yet picture a state of consciousness accessible only to her. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 19th).
Wangari Mathenga, I’ve Learned How to Fly (Bedimmed Boundaries), oil on canvas, 55 x 82 inches, 2024.
The title of Hillary Pecis’ current New York solo show at David Kordansky Gallery, ‘Warm Rhythm’ perfectly describes the vibrant colors and abundant patterning of her new paintings. Set in LA and often inspired by scenes she encounters in her cross-country runs or daily life in the city, her paintings both sooth and excite with their tranquil subject matter rendered in bold color. The delectable quality of a still life with half-eaten lunch or this cozy scene with cat, reading lamp and mug carries over into delight at an orange house set against lush greens of a verdant front yard or the blooms spilling out of a vividly painted flower shop. (On view in Chelsea through Oct 12th).
Hilary Pecis, Pepita, acrylic on linen, 44 x 34 x 1 ½ inches, 2024.
If figures appear at all in Praxis NY’s summer group show ‘Missapes,’ they pose in place or rarely dominate. Instead, still lives are a commanding presence, particularly Francisco’s Ratti’s large indistinct arrangements of objects that simultaneously look low-res digital and handmade. The Argentina-based artist’s practice involves drawing on a cell phone screen, then transferring his images to canvas. Here, ‘Naturaleza’ (Nature) is a pleasant, conventional arrangement of flowers, plants and food stuffs but includes a more realistic painting of a tree trunk inserted onto the larger painting’s surface. Gashed and supporting a haphazard sign warning that a property is being monitored, the tree imagery complicates what a painting can offer at one time. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 30th).
Francisco Ratti, Naturaleza, acrylic on canvas, 59 x 78 ¾ inches, 2023.Francisco Ratti, Naturaleza, acrylic on canvas, 59 x 78 ¾ inches, 2023.
Art and life meld in Paula Wilson’s engaging, pattern rich paintings and print work at 55 Walker as she depicts domestic environments and desert landscapes like those around her home in the small town of Carizozo, New Mexico. Images of rugs on canvas, attached to wooden slats and mounted on the wall, depict plants, abstractions or entangled lovers while paintings of stained-glass windows are simultaneously images of an interior, glass art and a landscape beyond. Wilson, who prints and sews her own clothing, gives this towering figure a dress created from a cinched rug painting, further connecting various creative endeavors in one fertile practice. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 30th).
Paula Wilson, Becoming, acrylic and oil on canvas, 162 x 52 inches, 2024.
Glued, punctured, protruding and sewn artworks in Chart Gallery’s summer group show ‘Facture Fracture’ focus on the active hand of the artist. Sam Branden’s contributions – combinations of hand-sewn canvas, textiles and mesh spandex – immediately grab the attention for their bold, fiery colors and improvisational feeling. Recalling materials close to the body, a la Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola’s durag fiber works, and recent pieces by Erin Mack that allow inspection of the support frames beneath fabric ‘paintings,’ Branden’s constructions balance substance with weightlessness, the grid with an unmoored and changeable surface. (On view through Aug 24th).
Sam Branden, Tulip Trapping, acrylic stain on hand-sewn canvas, textile, mesh spandex, 72 x 50 inches.
17th century Dutch painter Gerard Seghers’ painting ‘The Dream of Saint Joseph’ pictures Christ’s father asleep, whereas Brittney Leeanne Williams’s remake of the historic painting now on view at The Hole NYC, features herself in Joseph’s role, wide awake and deep in contemplation as she experiences divine visitation. Though Williams’ painting swaps out an angel with wings for a more enigmatic figure, the narrative of artistic inspiration is clear thanks to the blazing lightbulb at her side that shines light on her sketchbook and related paintings. Surreal and appearing to take place in the dark of night, Williams’ contemporary moment of illumination adds to the long trajectory of art history and blazes a new path into the future. (On view in ‘Monomythology’ at The Hole NYC through Aug 24th).
Brittney Leeanne Williams, Dream of St Joseph (after Gerard Seghers), oil on canvas, 64 x 88 inches, 2023.
Like his installation ‘Who is Queen?’ in MoMA’s towering atrium in 2021, Adam Pendleton’s current solo exhibition at Pace Gallery, titled ‘An Abstraction,’ immerses visitors in a structured installation of dynamic forms. Describing this show’s arrangement itself as an artistic decision, Pendleton designed a series of elegant, black triangular walls to support his abstractions, causing viewers to find their own paths – and interpretive experiences – through the gallery. Drawing on his ongoing elaboration on his concept of ‘Black Dada,’ for which he has assembled a reader, Pendleton’s work engages the early 20th century Dada art movement’s attempted avoidance of rational thought while considering the relationship of Blackness to European avant-garde practice. ‘An Abstraction’ foregrounds the physical experience of the viewer, offering vantage points from which to consider his language of abstraction and how we process meaning in the moment. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 16th).
Adam Pendleton, installation view of ‘An Abstraction’ at Pace Gallery.
Parallel to the panels of the folding screen to the right, the objects and people in Sally J. Han’s painting ‘Grandma’s Color Television’ (a standout in the summer group show ‘The Selves,’ at Nicola Vassell Gallery) lead the eye back into private, domestic space that suggests insights into the artist’s life. A glass dish in the foreground brings viewers to a young woman in a traditional Korean robe (Han was born in China and raised in Korea before moving to the US at age 17) and beyond to her grandmother, dozing in front of the TV. On the room’s back wall is a painting of a celestial body that recurs in Han’s work, in one earlier work hovering over the protagonist as she lies in bed. Children’s drawings on the wall nearby speak to creative production over time. Spare and tranquil, the environment suggests reflection; gorgeously colored clothing, a brightly lit space and ripe fruit on the screen and in the young woman’s hand speaks to the pleasure of the senses. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 9th).
Sally J Han, Grandma’s Color Television, acrylic paint on paper mounted on wood panel, 60 x 48 inches, 2024.Sally J Han, Grandma’s Color Television, acrylic paint on paper mounted on wood panel, 60 x 48 inches, 2024.
Known for fashioning sheets of oil paint into sculptural forms or collaging oil skins into 2-D works, Leslie Wayne turns her medium in a new direction with curiously-shaped canvases at Jack Shainman Gallery. Tall, narrow panels 7 feet high and less than 2 feet wide with names like ‘Rush,’ ‘Summer Slope’ and ‘Low Tide,’ at times suggest core samples of the earth and are accompanied by another series of realist paintings featuring aerial views of the landscape set in special frames that mimic airplane windows. Titled ‘This Land’ after Woody Guthrie’s classic folk song, the show was inspired by Wayne’s 2021 flight across the Western US and offers views of the landscape, distant or abstracted, that step away from divisions and conflict represented by place. (On view in Chelsea through August 2nd).
Leslie Wayne, Summer Slope, oil on wood, 84 x 16 ¾ x 3 ½ inches, 2023.Leslie Wayne, (detail of) Summer Slope, oil on wood, 84 x 16 ¾ x 3 ½ inches, 2023.
It’s always a perfect day in Isca Greenfield-Sanders’ landscape paintings, now on view at Miles McEnery Gallery in Chelsea. The sky is blue, the road is open and the wildflowers are abundant in scenes of the natural world rendered in soft and pleasing tones. Based on found vintage photographs, each image was originally meant to epitomize the beauty of a landscape and remind the photographer of an ideal moment. (On view through July 3rd).
Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Wildflower Hill, mixed media oil on canvas, 34 x 34 inches, 2023.
Though the skies directly ahead are dark in this small painting by Brazilian painter Lucas Arruda at David Zwirner Gallery, light shines out from behind the clouds, ready to transform the scene. Light conditions and colors vary greatly in Arruda’s signature seascapes and jungle-scenes in response to time of day and atmospheric conditions yet each painting draws viewers in to appreciate the particular, fleeting circumstances presented. Titled ‘Assum Preto’ after a Brazilian bird whose song alters in response to light, this show’s sensitivity to time and place is so subtle and calming as to be therapeutic. (On view through June 15th in Chelsea).
Lucas Arruda, Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), oil on canvas, 9 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2022.
Disaffected nudes, a lurking skeletal figure and an embracing couple titled after Symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler’s macabre painting ‘The Night’ channel the expressive qualities of late 19th century painting in Sahara Longe’s show of new paintings at Timothy Taylor Gallery in Tribeca. Here, ‘Liar,’ features a painted frame of cloudy red, white and green colored areas that recall the wispiness of Edvard Munch’s skies in ‘The Scream.’ A white-clad individual on his knees with hands in a prayerful position in the foreground contrasts with a shadowy figure behind…possibly a second self or the ‘liar’ referred to in the title? (On view through June 15th).
Water, chickens, talismans and chairs are some of the goods on sale in vibrant and lively paintings of tradesmen and women in Lubaina Himid’s show of new paintings and prints at Greene Naftali Gallery in Chelsea. Accompanying each merchant is a signboard touting the seller’s wares in phenetic spellings that encouraging visitors to sound out each sales slogan. Here, a woman selling baskets leans into a breeze while the world behind her manifests as a sturdy woven framework. Her signboard touts the tight weave of her baskets; on the verso appear the seller’s private thoughts – in this case, an invitation, ‘feel them with your fingertips.’ (On view through June 15th).
Lubaina Himid, Basket Seller, acrylic on canvas, 96 x 72 inches, 2023.Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, Baskets Tightly Woven, unique screenprint acrylic paint, and Charbonnel etching ink on Somerset Tub Sized 600 gsm paper (double-sided), 36 5/8 x 29 7/8 inches, 2024.Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska, Baskets Tightly Woven (verso), 2024.
Ernie Barnes’ ‘Room Ful’A Sistahs’ at Ortuzar Projects is a painting conveying a moment of joy, a highlight of the artist’s current solo exhibition featuring work from 1966 to 2000. After a brief career in pro-football, the artist served as the AFL’s official artist and artist of the ’84 Olympic Games while creating iconic artworks like ‘Sugar Shack,’ which appeared as an album cover for Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Want You.’ Sports, dance, church and everyday life provide subject matter for dynamic paintings populated by lithe figures that move through the world with grace and beauty. (On view in Tribeca through June 15th).
Ernie Barnes, Room Ful’A Sistahs, acrylic on canvas, 25 7/8 x 37 ¾ inches, acrylic on canvas, 1994.
Lucas Arruda’s meditative paintings at David Zwirner Gallery fall into the rough categories of seascapes, jungle landscapes and monochromes with hovering rectangles of color. Though ostensibly representational, landscapes like this untitled painting from the artist’s ongoing Deserto-Modelo series feature fields of hazy form that can bring to mind clouds, mist, fog, or other atmospheric conditions. This canvas reverses the color arrangement in several of the show’s other paintings, positioning light colors toward the bottom of the composition, as if we’re glimpsing bright skies ahead whilst still under the dark of night or storm. Peaceful and contemplative, Arruda’s paintings are a tonic for over-stimulated eyes. (On view through June 15th).
Lucas Arruda, Untitled (from the Deserto-Modelo series), oil on canvas, 9 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2022.
Once small-scale and resolutely abstract, New York painter Lumin Wakoa’s latest paintings at Harper’s Gallery have grown explosively in size and dynamic allusion to the natural world. Branching forms appear in many works, supporting abundant blossoms or snaking between zones of color that suggest the blinding sun, bright flowers or cool, blue oases. Here, intense yellow and orange flowers dematerialize into a mass of pleasurable tones while the work’s title, ‘Briefly Brilliant,’ suggests that there is a time limit on this glorious display. (On view in Chelsea through May 5th).
Lumin Wakoa, Briefly Brilliant, oil on linen, 82 x 70 inches, 2023.
In the late 60s, abstract artist Philip Guston stopped painting, then restarted his practice by building a new, figurative artistic vocabulary. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly installed mezzanine gallery features solitary painted objects – a lightbulb, a shoe – on small canvases that demonstrate how the artist weighed up the meaning and import of everyday objects that he would later repeat. This untitled painting shows a partial view of the artist himself, apparently painted over and covering another image. Wide-eyed and looking straight at the viewer, Guston is only partially visible, but his wary stare speaks volumes about his desire to communicate. (On view on the Upper East Side in the Met’s ‘Philip Guston: The Panel Paintings, 1968-72 which includes work from Musa Guston Mayer’s promised gift.)
Abstract painter Barbara Takenaga stakes out new territory in recent works at DC Moore Gallery in Chelsea, introducing compositions dominated by curvy organic shapes (recalling bodies by Gladys Nilsson) and bordered by bright red contour lines. The 12 foot long ‘Two for Bontecou’ features a fragmented circular object with a void at center a la sculptor Lee Bontecou, and appears to combine deliberately rendered forms with Takenaga’s signature change-driven mark-making. Here, in ‘Red Turnout,’ a multi-colored form snakes up from below while a signature explosion of white marks covers the canvas, contributing to this painting’s dynamic impact. (On view through April 27th in Chelsea).
Barbara Takenaga, Red Turnout, acrylic on linen, 70 x 60 inches, 2024.
Barbara Hepworth’s pierced organic abstractions, Henry Moore’s curvilinear reclining figures and the undulating forms of Chinese scholar stones come to mind when viewing Sarah Crowner’s attractive new bronze sculptures at Luhring Augustine Gallery’s Tribeca space. Reflecting Crowner’s vibrant paintings, which have fittingly vivid titles like ‘Red Oranges Over Orange with Curve,’ or ‘Violets Over Reds,’ the sculptures are enhanced by and enhance their environment. (On view through May 4th).
Sarah Crowner, installation view of ‘Hot Light, Hard Light,’ at Luhring Augustine Gallery, Tribeca, March 2024.
