Does abstract art tap into a subconscious human understanding of the order of the universe? Curator and artist, Matthew Ronay asks this question in Andrea Rosen Gallery’s summer group show. His own colorful wooden sculptures explore forms recalling (in his words) ‘alien deep sea creatures, glandular secretions, vibrating fields of energy, and tongues and protrusions on scales indeterminable.’ (In Chelsea through August 5th).
Brooklyn artist Deborah Brown reframes Picasso’s distorted, phallic-headed sculpture of Picasso’s lover Marie-Therese with wicked humor by imaging her in painted form, an innocent in traditional dress, frolicking in a garden. (At Mike Weiss Gallery in ‘School’s Out!’ through August 6th).
Simen Johan’s stunning image of sea lions (seen here in detail) has the creatures rising to the right in a digitally manipulated crescendo of activity. The composition and atmospheric background recalls Gericault’s famously dramatic 19th century shipwreck scene, ‘The Raft of the Medusa,’ though it is animals that embody intense emotion. (At Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea through Aug 10th).
Inspired by a poem that describes a shaft of sunlight that, contrary to its nature, brings darkness to mind, Barbara Gladstone Gallery’s summer group exhibition includes Nora Schultz’s enormous, ungainly window blinds, which look as if they were crafted by a giant’s child. Installed in the room furthest from the sun, their functionality is denied, their obtusely large and rough construction emphasized. (In Chelsea through July 29th).
Abstracted eyes float before a male and a female head like afterimages in strangely ethereal canvases by New York-based Brit Eve Ackroyd. Evocative of dream-states, Ackroyd’s paintings bring to mind simultaneous layers of experience, from the conscious to the unconscious, memory to the present moment. (In ‘On Painting’ at Kent Fine Art in Chelsea through July 29th).
