Tag: representational

Firelei Baez at James Cohan Gallery

Flowers, hair and a voluminous white dress obscure the features of the figure reclining across this densely patterned painting by Firelei Baez at James Cohan Gallery.  The title refers to Olamina, the highly empathic fictional character imagined by sci-fi novelist Octavia Butler, but here, the figure seems unburdened by her gift or our gaze.  Printed below the paint, on the canvas itself are numbers, a grid and a timeline that suggest the maps and documents that Baez frequently adopts and obscures as she brilliantly and flamboyantly asserts her own imagery over outmoded Euro-centric presentations of information.  (On view in Tribeca through Dec 21st).

Firelei Baez, Olamina (How do we learn to love each other while we are embattled), oil and acrylic on archival printed canvas), 86 3/8 x 114 ½, 1 ½ inches, 2022.

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu at Sapar Contemporary

Even if you’re tired of Zoom meetings, you’ll be tempted to join Mongolian artist Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu’s online gathering in this painting at Sapar Contemporary, part of her New York solo show debut.  Featuring a woman in traditional dress, flower stalks composed of tiny humans an undersea woman with her pet dog and more, each painted video frame is an introduction to a fascinating earthly or mystical world.   (On view in Tribeca through April 30th.)

Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, Zoom Meeting, acrylic on canvas, 55 1/8 x 55 /18 inches, 2021.

John Mason at Albertz Benda

Like models strutting down a catwalk, a row of abstracted ceramic figures by nonagenarian LA artist John Mason exude confidence and style. Recalling Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, Brancusi’s sculpture and Lygia Clark’s bichos they combine Cubist form, Futurist dynamism with a suggestion of moveability often alien to ceramics. (On view at Albertz Benda Gallery in Chelsea through Jan 13th).

John Mason, Figure, Spring Green, ceramic, 63 x 24 x 21 inches, 2014.

Anna Conway at Fergus McCaffrey

In the corner of a cavernous space that opens to the outdoors, a man rests in his immaculate office next to a retaining wall holding back hundreds of dark cows with yellow tags in their ears. Such surreal juxtapositions are rife in Anna Conway’s meticulous imagined painted scenarios, prompting consideration of how space effects the psyche. (On view at Fergus McCaffrey through Dec 23rd).

Anna Conway, detail of Devotion, oil on canvas, 44 x 72 inches, 2015.

John Finneran at 47 Canal

Though he has focused on the female form in past, pared down representations, a large, pink-hued highlight of John Finneran’s latest solo show at 47 Canal features three kings. Resembling archaic designs and featuring universal geometries, they appear both ancient and contemporary. (On the Lower East Side through April 2nd).

John Finneran, Kings, oil and charcoal on linen, 66 x 74 inches, 2017.