Matthew Fisher at Shrine Gallery

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Matthew Fisher’s graphically pared down beach scenes at Shrine Gallery are as carefully arranged as a store-front display, puffy clouds even resembling cut-out, stage-set backgrounds.  Although the paintings suggest precise arrangements by an unseen hand, Fisher’s perspective is shaped by the understanding that nature predates and will survive humanity.  Here, ‘The Subject of a Dream’ features a dark void, presumably representing the earth, in which a fish and shell have been extracted from their natural context and offered as symbols for place.  Floating in space and outlined in a white border that further sets them apart, Fisher’s apparition makes the beach and its inhabitants strange, forcing a reevaluation of their existence in time and place. (On view in Tribeca through Aug 4th).

Matthew Fisher, The Subject of a Dream, acrylic on canvas, 2023.

Woomin Kim in ‘Beach’ at Nino Meier Gallery

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Curious crustaceans, a creepy-cute sea creature in the form of a cat and plenty of sandy beach landscapes feature in Nino Meier’s two-gallery summer group show ‘Beach,’ but Woomin Kim’s textile is a standout for its texture and color, a reference to the Korean markets that inspire her fabric collage.  Places for shopping, meeting friends and, here, enjoying seafood, Kim’s market scenes celebrate a beloved institution. (On view through Aug 5th).

Woomin Kim, Shijang: SusanMul (seafood), fabric, 2022.

Kent O’Connor at Mendes Wood DM

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LA based artist Kent O’Connor’s paintings of carefully arranged objects are less still lives than just ‘objects on a table,’ explains Mendes Wood DM Gallery, where the artist is also showing portraits, landscapes from a residency in Alberta.  The fruit, animal head and bottle in ‘Zebra Between Two Objects’ are carefully chosen and arranged but difficult to connect or interpret; the painting is nevertheless eye-catching for its dramatic lighting and the sense that the zebra is in motion, rearing upward, despite being immobile. The head’s precarious balance– which we’d more likely encounter oriented vertically on a wall, not horizontally as here – along with a placid, almost peaceful expression and the bubblegum pink table frame are unexpected elements that keep the eye moving around this unusual and arresting interior scene.  (On view through Aug 5th in Tribeca).

Kent O’Connor, Zebra Between Two Objects, oil on linen, 2022-23.

Jana Euler in ‘Suncrush’ at Greene Naftali Gallery

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Known for large paintings of plug sockets, phallic sharks rearing out of the ocean depths, surreally distorted human figures, multi-horned unicorns called ‘Morecorns’ and other uncanny imagery, Frankfurt and Brussels-based painter Jana Euler addresses power, gender and sexual relations with humor.  In the group exhibition ‘Suncrush’ at GreeneNaftali Gallery in Chelsea, Euler’s ‘Closed Circuit,’ connects a washing machine and a Canon camera by a flexible, fabric lens that joins the circular forms on the front of each device.  Each of the improbably joined devices suggest viewing – through a lens or window – but while the assumption is that the camera will be trained on something interesting, the washer recalls the banality of housework.  Together, the two elements of the painting suggest the coexistence of, or perhaps battle between, a tool’s potential for excitement vs drudgery.  (On view through July 28th).

Jana Euler, Closed Circuit, oil on canvas and artist’s frame, 60 ½ x 96 inches, 2023.

Graham Anderson at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

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Like an orderly stack of oranges in the supermarket, Graham Anderson’s new paintings at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in Tribeca are both organic and curving, arranged with rigid geometry, just one contrast of many that generates visual interest and tempts exploration.  Some paintings feature a sheet of orange spheres – so orderly they appear stamped out – alongside circular forms with green leaves and shading that suggests natural citrus fruits.  Most contain areas of pointillist painting in orange, blue and white color that contrasts flat monochrome orange spheres with no shading.  In this painting, that dotted surface breaks up to reveal a background devoid of natural referents.  Christmas ornaments, planets, fruit, punctuation, billiard balls and more come to mind in a strange space ripe for invention.  (On view through July 29th).

Graham Anderson, Reflected Fortune, oil and acrylic on canvas, 26 x 18 ½ inches, 2023.

Jessie Henson at Broadway Gallery

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Jessie Henson’s sewn works on paper at Broadway Gallery’s project room are unabashedly beautiful, harnessing the allure of gold to draw viewers in.  Abstract yet evoking natural forms – earth’s strata, a horizon – Henson composes patterns with thread and her industrial sewing machine.  Waves of textured color wash across the surface of each piece, made more dynamic by the literal bending of paper loaded with thread.  Abundant use of 12, 18 and 24K gold – together with areas of day-glo orange, flecks of blue or pink – resist the suggestion of realistic representation, creating a kind of hybrid beauty derived from nature and the man-made. (On view in Tribeca through July 28th).

Jessie Henson, You are Many All on Your Own, II, 12, 18 and 24K gold with polyester and rayon thread on paper, 35.5 x 26.25 x 3 inches, 2023.

Kang Seok Ho at Tina Kim Gallery

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The short lag times between reading late artist Kang Seok Ho’s paintings at Tina Kim Gallery as abstractions and then understanding them as representations of the human body generates little thrills of discovery.  In this untitled painting, the energy of the bold floral pattern is overwhelming; a second later, two arms to either side resolve vivid leaf-like shapes into the pattern on a skirt, seen from behind.  Abstraction becomes decoration, fine art becomes fashion, and flatness turns into curving form in just seconds while reading this vibrant and monumental painting.  In selected paintings from c. 20 years at Tina Kim, radical cropping (Kang worked from photos he took or found in mass media sources) allowed the artist to zero in on bodies without faces, the better to put the focus on form over identity.  Inspired by Asian landscape painting, Kang connected his contemporary vision of life with histories of rendering the natural world, rooting observations of the now with enduring imagery from the past.  (On view through July 29th in Chelsea).

Kang Seok Ho, Untitled, oil on canvas, 92 ½ x 80 ¾ inches, 2005.

Eden Seifu at Deli Gallery

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Self-taught young Seattle-based painter Eden Seifu’s second solo show at Deli Gallery in Tribeca pits joy against terror in spiritually-oriented paintings brimming with energy.  In ‘Our Joined Hands Make a Landing Strip for Angels,’ a loving couple’s clasped hands create a pathway in the air on which tiny angels dance while ‘I Don’t Care if the Black Dog Gets Me’ pictures the horror of an attack on a young woman.  Here, the title figure in ‘The Angel of Pilgrimage’ holds a shell, a symbol for the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, reminding viewers of the pathways on which we all, with more or less awareness, tread. (On view through July 21st).

Eden Seifu, The Angel of Pilgrimage, acrylic on canvas, 28 x 22 inches, 2023.

Lee Friedlander at Luhring Augustine Gallery

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From Boston to San Diego, Lee Friedlander’s black and white photos of urban landscapes turn mundane street scenes into extraordinary coincidences of arranged forms.  In Friedlander’s hands, any vertical object in the environment can bisect a scene into separate vignettes – people standing on the sidewalk as seen through car windows seem to occupy their own separate worlds while on this highway overpass in Dallas, a guardrail divides one location into two radically different places.  45 photos from Friedlander’s 60+ year career selected by filmmaker Joel Coen, now on view at Luhring Augustine Gallery, demonstrate Friedlander’s impressive ability to reframe our view of the world.  (On view through July 28th).

Lee Friedlander, Dallas, gelatin silver print, image 8 ½ x 12 ¾ inches, 1977, printed 2023.

Elizabeth Peyton in ‘Face Values’ at 125Newbury

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Marlene Dietrich simmers with irritation in a photo by Irvin Penn, the face of Georg Baselitz’s mother is both frightful and beautiful with purple, red and yellow color, and Piet Mondrian breaks his own profile down into a robot-like assemblage of flat planes in 125 Newbury’s absorbing group exhibition ‘Face Values’ in Tribeca.  From mechanical to emotive, around twenty visages from the 20th – 21st century employ a variety of techniques – from Zhang Huan’s ash on linen to Julian Schnabel’s broken crockery – to explore the expressive quality of the human face.  Here, Elizabeth Peyton’s portrait of John Lydon portrays the 70’s Sex Pistol’s singer in a thoughtful pose at odds with the punk’s public persona.  (On view in Tribeca through July 28th).

Elizabeth Peyton, John Lydon, oil on canvas, 1994.

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Huelga at Garth Greenan

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Queens-based artist Esteban Cabeza de Baca’s parents met while working as union organizers for United Farmworkers founders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta; in Cabeza de Baca’s colorful narrative paintings at Garth Greenan Gallery in Chelsea, he pays homage to both family and labor history.  Here in ‘Huelga,’ or ‘Strike,’ Chavez and Huerta walk down a row of grapes, a reference to a nation-wide boycott of the fruit led by the duo as they fought for fair wages and decent working conditions for farm workers.  (On view through July 21st).

Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Huelga, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, 2023.

Julia Felsenthal at JDJ Gallery

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Julia Felsenthal is the first to acknowledge that many artists before her have painted the sea, while also observing that, even in her own production, each rendition is different.  The Brooklyn and Cape-Cod based writer and painter tempts viewers to stop in front of each of her small watercolor on gouache studies of sky and water at JDJ Gallery in Tribeca to appreciate the various effects of light, mist, cloud, sunrise, water depth and more.  Sublime in power yet compact in form, Felsenthal’s waterscapes speak to the endless beauty and fascination of the ocean.  (On view through July 21st).

Julia Felsenthal, Glinting Sea, watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 9 inches, 2022.

Markus Linnenbrink at Miles McEnery Gallery

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Stripes run across the walls, down the paintings and around a ball-like sculpture in Markus Linnenbrink’s explosively colorful show at Miles McEnery Gallery in Chelsea. Painted in two days, a dripping horizontal pattern across the gallery wall sets off Linnenbrink’s signature candy-colored works in epoxy resin and leads the eye back into the gallery toward a variety of work created by building up or cutting into layers of solidified epoxy resin.  In the foreground, a ball made from layers of cast resin encases discarded ephemera from everyday life gathered by friends and family of the artist, a happy emblem of experiences accumulated along life’s way. (On view in Chelsea through July 22nd).

Markus Linnenbrink, COLDWORLDGOODMANBITEBACK, epoxy resin, pigments, objects, 36 inches diameter, 2023.