As the magnolia start to bloom in New York this week, Thomas Woodruff’s painting of dinosaurs as the Three Graces from Botticelli’s Primavera seems perfectly timed for the season. One of several paintings in Woodruff’s solo show at Vito Schnabel Gallery that feature dinosaurs, the creatures enjoy their Edenic surroundings apparently unaware of their impending destruction. Exploding volcanos and incoming meteorites appear in most of the show’s works, announcing an extinction event designed to excite fears about our own fate as the climate changes. Coming a few years after Woodruff’s retirement from his long-term teaching career at the School of the Visual Arts, the artist explains that his subject matter also alludes to his own aging and suggests that he intends to go out with a bang. (On view through March 30th).
