Maureen Gallace’s signature small-sized oil paintings, now on view at Gladstone Gallery, are a welcome reprieve from February in New York, her renditions of bright yellow roadside flowers, the sun rising over Long Island Sound and crashing ocean waves promising that winter will eventually end. Recent life changes find her living in a house by the beach in Connecticut where she takes account of her surroundings in paintings that isolate pleasurable impressions. (On view through March 9th).
Painter Derrick Adams has long been inspired by the sights and people of his Brooklyn neighborhood, from wig shops to the faces of his neighbors. Recent work on view at the Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea continues this interest while announcing a new direction; inspired by movies, Adams adds another layer of narrative and visual power to over a dozen new works that continue his exploration of Black leisure and joy in everyday life. One day while working on a photo shoot in a Brooklyn park, Adams observed a young Black couple installing and relaxing in a hammock. The scenario struck him as cinematic and inspired this happy ode to life’s pleasures enjoyed by the couple, a squirrel, pigeons and even a public monument. (On view through March 11th).
Inspired by moments of tenderness, Flag Art Foundation’s 35 artist summer group show explores a variety of expressions of affection, from a child asleep in a parent’s arms to a beautifully hand-stitched scene of self-care. British artist Gareth Cadwallader’s Orange Juice, a small oil painting with a lot of detail, suggests we pause to appreciate the pleasures of the natural world, from the orange that produces juice to the jumble of plant life to the left, topped by two bird-of-paradise. (On view in Chelsea through Aug 13th. Masks and social distancing required).
New York photographer Erin O’Keefe’s beguiling photographs in Paul Kasmin Gallery’s summer group show are an immediate knockout for their bold color contrasts and rich, saturated hues. They get more complex on close viewing – when viewers look at the top portion of this image, it’s unclear if we’re looking at a painting or a photo. Lower down, where the sculpted wooden block meets the surface on which it’s resting, the dimensions of this photographed space become clear. That this is a photo and not a painting or sculpture allows a delayed legibility that creates a provocative open-endedness to this image. (On view by appointment, Tues – Fri, through August 21st. Masks and social distancing required.)
New York Studio School dean Graham Nickson’s beach paintings have been described as “extreme, impenetrable, and haunting” for their isolated figures inhabiting landscapes pared down to horizontal bands of color. Here, a lone figure’s ambiguous activity (Is she shielding her face from the sun? Reading a giant book?) lends mystery and import to a leisure activity that might otherwise be overlooked. (On view in ‘Summer!’ at Betty Cuningham Gallery on the Lower East Side through August 2nd).
