Michelle Rawlings at Chapter NY

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

As a teen, Michelle Rawlings used to cut out and rearrange fashion spreads from magazines; her  untitled oil on linen canvases at Chapter NY in Tribeca operate on a similar scale (this painting is a mere 12 ½ inches high) and also channel the cool, distanced mood of fashion photography.  Here, she captures a different feeling of isolation as a softly sunlit young woman engages in a solitary activity.  Set against an intensely green gallery wall that emphasizes the glimpses of nature seen outside the window and accompanied by minimal collages of ribbon and ephemeral plant-related imagery, the paintings are mediations on how meaning is constructed.  (On view in Tribeca through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Michelle Rawlings, Untitled, oil on linen, 12 ½ x 10 x 1 ¼ inches, 2021.

Sherrill Roland at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

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After serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, now-exonerated artist Sherrill Roland makes artwork that reflects on the physical limits and daily realities of prison life.  At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, his geometric sculptures trace the outline of a cinder-block cell wall and lightboxes present text of letters written to family.  Here, two acrylic glass cubes-within-cubes recall the basketball tournament Roland helped organize while incarcerated and include a hoop and three bags inside one cube containing commissary items as awards for tournament winners.  Recalling Damien Hirst’s freestanding steel and glass vitrines, Roland’s less heavy-seeming cubes bear greater psychological weight, conveying personal suffering caused by confinement. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 5th. Masks and social distancing required.)

Sherrill Roland, Home and Away, acrylic glass, steel, primer, basketball, basketball rim, basketball net, three plastic bags with commissary goods, two cubes: 97 ½ x 97 ½ x 97 ½ inches, 2021 – 22.

Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu at Jack Shainman Gallery

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Young Nigerian artist Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu amazes with her photo realist style and the pleasure she takes in painting elements of Igbo tradition.  In this piece titled ‘Umunne (Siblings)’ at Jack Shainman Gallery on 24th Street, Chiamonwu depicts two of her siblings in a moment of peaceful unity as they pose together with closed eyes.  A cowry shell bracelet symbolizing prosperity and snail shells signifying abundance speak to the family’s cultural wealth.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 19th.  Masks and social distancing required.)

Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu, Umunne (Siblings), charcoal, sepia, pastel and acrylic paints on canvas, 46 ½ x 46 inches, 2021.

Chris “Daze” Ellis at PPOW Gallery

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Chris “Daze” Ellis started painting train cars as a teen in the mid-70s and within a few years was showing his work indoors in shows at The Mudd Club and the renowned gallery Fashion Moda. Decades later, he reflects on contemporaries who’ve passed, including Cliff 3YB, Billy 167, Stan 153 and others in this recent painting in his current solo show at PPOW Gallery.  Above their names on the subway walls and cars, an expressionist composition of greens, pinks and yellow colors glows like a celestial phenomenon honoring the lives and memory of street art pioneers.  (On view through Feb 12th in Tribeca.  Masks and social distancing required).

Chris “Daze” Ellis, A Memorial, acrylic, oil, spray paint, respirator on canvas, 60 x 54 inches, 2020.

Maria Nepomuceno, Enchanted Wheel at Sikkema Jenkins

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Titled ‘Roda das encantadas,’ or ‘Enchanted Wheel,’ Maria Nepomuceno’s new solo exhibition at Sikkema Jenkins & Co delights the eye with the Brazilian artist’s signature spiraling forms crafted from straw, beads and resin.  Intended to represent a movement into our own inner depths as well as an expansion into the infinite, this assemblage of circular forms also makes more concrete allusions to the body in breast-like ceramic elements and a recurring umbilical cord reference.  (On view in Chelsea through Feb 12th.  Masks and proof of vaccination are required.)

Maria Nepomuceno, Untitled, beads, ceramic, resin, 39 3/8 x 23 5/8 x 11 ¾ inches, 2021.

Raymond Saunders at Andrew Kreps Gallery

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The hopscotch grid stands out in this painting by Raymond Saunders, now on view in the renowned Bay Area artist’s first New York solo show in 20 years at Andrew Kreps Gallery in Tribeca.  Evoking a childhood game drawn out on blacktop as well as marks on a chalkboard, references to growth, learning and play are reinforced by the work’s title, ‘Celeste Age 5 Invited Me To Tea.’  Two children’s drawings of a wayward cat and a reference to Carnegie Mellon alongside a watermelon (the artist attended Carnegie Institute of Technology) link to Saunders’ recurring themes relating to education and race.  (On view through Feb 12th).

Raymond Saunders, Celeste Age 5 Invited Me To Tea, mixed media on canvas, 104 x 83 1/8 inches, 1986.

Lucy Puls at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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Bay Area artist Lucy Puls has returned over the course of her decades-long career to the question of what society values and what it discards.  Her photos of bank-owned homes, printed on huge sheets of fabric-like paper and hung high on the walls of Nicelle Beauchene Gallery feature images of places once personally meaningful and now neglected. Weighed down by discarded household items, in this case a metal folding chair, images and objects speak to the passing of time, to change and moving on.  (On view in Tribeca through Jan 22nd).

Lucy Puls, Delapsus (Bedroom, Mirrored Closet Door, Mini Blinds, Movie Poster), pigment ink on paper, floor standing lamp, metal folding chair, DVD movie, stickers, reflective glass beads, binder, steel hardware, 130 h x 85 w x 84 d inches, 2021.

Alexander Guy at Harper’s Gallery

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Scottish painter Alexander Guy made a hit on the ‘80s London art scene with his deadpan paintings, which ranged in subject from everyday objects to celebrity images.  In a career revival, Guy is now making his New York gallery debut at Harper’s Gallery in Chelsea with oil paintings showing an abundance of processed food, including a freezer stuffed with ice cream and pizza and a carefully arranged array of pink-colored foods from Tesco supermarket.  Here, a transatlantic in-flight meal overwhelms with its number of dishes and suggests that more is not necessarily more.  (On view through Jan 15th. Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)

Alexander Guy, GLA -> JFK (In flight meal), oil on canvas, 68h x 72.25w, 2021.

Suellen Rocca, Departure at Matthew Marks Gallery

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Suellen Rocca, a founding member of the short-lived but hugely influential group of Chicago artists known as ‘Hairy Who,’ adopted imagery from magazine ads, Sears Roebucks catalogues and other American pop culture sources, but her late-career work took on more personal meanings.  Several pieces in Matthew Marks Gallery’s exhibition of the late artist’s work in Chelsea include imagery relating to fish, which came to Rocca in a dream.  Fish seem to nurse like babies, breasts morph into fish and, in this painting, fish adorn the body of a deity-like multi-armed figure, picturing female power in terms of feeding, nurture and life.  (On view through Jan 29th.  Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required.)

Suellen Rocca, Departure, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2012.

Cinga Samson at Flag Art Foundation

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South African artist Cinga Samson complicates the act of looking in paintings that are challenging to see. The muted palettes and crepuscular lighting of his individual portraits and figure groups not only disguise his subjects, but aim to create a sense of having intruded on a private scene.  Samson’s recent body of work, on view at Flag Art Foundation in Chelsea, features young men like this figure, whose remarkable eyes disrupt easy engagement and suggest moments of looking inward.  Each painting is a meditation on mortality, the flower in this piece acting as a symbol of transience.  (On view through Jan 15th.   Masks, social distancing and proof of vaccination required).

Cinga Samson, Nontshonshi 1, oil on canvas, 18 x 13 ¾ x 1 inches, 2021.

Brie Ruais at Albertz Benda Gallery

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Brie Ruais’s signature approach to art involves manipulating a 130 lb pile (equivalent to the artist’s weight) of clay into flat rings of ceramic sculpture textured with finger and footprints.  Here, she varies her usual circular form with this knot-shaped piece in her current show at Albertz Benda Gallery.  The artist has called her work ‘Earth Art that takes place in the studio;’ in this sculpture, the relationship between the body and landscape speaks to interconnectedness.  (On view in Chelsea through Jan 22nd.)

Brie Ruais, Intertwining, 130lbs times two (Thief Knot), glazed and pigmented stoneware, hardware, 62 x 124 x 6 inches, 2021.

Tyler Ballon at Deitch Projects

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Below tiny members of a celestial choir, four earthly singers raise voices in praise in Tyler Ballon’s painting at Deitch Projects in SoHo.  Identifying ‘the Black church as a place of comfort and strength,’ Ballon also pictures scenes from the life of a pastor (a job both of his parents have filled) that honor this leadership role.  Other paintings feature loving relationships between friends and family and special moments including a graduation and a commemoration of Black lives lost.   (On view in SoHo through Jan 15th.  Note holiday hours and closures.)

Tyler Ballon, Songs Flung to Heaven, oil on canvas, 98 x 107 inches, 2021.

 

Gillian Wearing: Wearing Masks at the Guggenheim Museum

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Known for bringing private lives into the public realm through projects like her iconic 1992-3 ‘Signs,’ for which strangers posed with signs sharing their personal thoughts, British conceptual artist Gillian Wearing continues to probe beyond the surface in recent work on view in her career retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum.  Based on mid-to late 19th century French artist Henri Fantin-Latour’s ‘La Lecture (The Reading),’ Wearing’s update includes herself on the left, not just listening to the reading, but gazing intently upon the reader.  Fantin-Latour’s characters famously exist in their private worlds, not always connecting with each other. Wearing, on the other hand, is absorbed by the world inhabited by her companion.  (On view on the Upper East Side through April, ’22).

Gillian Wearing, Me in History – A Conversation with the Work of Fantin-Latour, oil on canvas, 2021.