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).
