Thickly textured panels by late downtown artist Robert Kobayashi at Susan Inglett Gallery look like paintings until closer inspection yields the delightful discovery that they’re made of meticulously collaged pieces of tin from old ceilings. A race car handcrafted years ago for his young daughter, a vase of flowers made of metal and actual oil on canvas paintings in a pointillist style show off Kobayashi’s range of production from the ‘70s to 2012 as he turned materials gleaned from his Little Italy neighborhood into artworks. Here, an image of an architectural fragment from a house in Honolulu channels a memory from the artist’s childhood at odds with the beauty of the decoration and the foliage behind. The setting is the home of Kobayashi’s sadistic childhood dentist, who left him with an abiding desire to protect his dental health. (On view in Chelsea through Nov 26th).
