One ambiguous figure appears to break into multiple forms in Amy Sillman’s irresistible ‘Split 3,’ shifting to the side as if to walk off the canvas. Dominant yellow, green and red colors draw the eye back into the painting’s depths but thick, dark horizontal lines of paint block the viewer’s journey. Coming and going, inviting and refusing, in motion yet static, the contradictions in the canvas reward pondering. (On view in Chelsea at Gladstone Gallery through Nov 14th.)
British artist Nigel Cooke has long blurred the line between abstraction and figuration, but recent monochromatic paintings on raw canvas at Pace Gallery convey new urgency and dynamism. By contrasting surface areas of relative calm with intersecting webs of paint receding into the distance, Cooke suggests that focus can be achieved and released, instantly altering our perspective on the environments surrounding us. (On view through Feb 29th).
In her current solo show at Chelsea’s Marianne Boesky Gallery, Austrian artist Svenja Deininger has brought out a new body of painting, literally, in canvases that evoke the human form, her own domestic environment, and the city of Milan, where she initiated her latest series. (On view through Dec 22nd).
Jackie Gendel’s almost abstract chorus line of colorful figures appears chicly modern and homespun at the same time, recalling Gino Severini’s 1912 Futurist nightclub dancers but looking as if sewn together from fabric, an attractive and disarming effect achieved by painting in oil on vinyl. (At Thomas Erben Gallery through Oct 29th).
