Ruby Sky Stiler at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

If Ruby Sky Stiler’s latest sculptures at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery seem less curvy than usual, it’s because her latest work departs from the powerful, sometimes monumental female figures she’s known for, zeroing in on dads and kids instead.  The subject of men with their children is so rare in contemporary art that it’s initially hard to grasp that the bigger figures aren’t women.  Odder still is each group’s repose – wouldn’t these kids be playing soccer with dad or at least a card game?  Stiler shatters stereotypical gender roles with aplomb. (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 7th.)

Ruby Sky Stiler, installation view of ‘Fathers’ at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, September 2018.

Daniel Heidkamp in ‘Bathers’ at Morgan Lehman Gallery

Is this vacationer’s vacant stare an expression of total relaxation or haunting anxiety?  Sketchy hands and underdeveloped legs put the focus on this man’s shadowy head and torso in ‘Another Side of Bad Blake,’ a drama wrapped in a portrait by Brooklyn painter Daniel Heidkamp.  (At Chelsea’s Morgan Lehman Gallery through Aug 23rd.)  

Daniel Heidkamp, ‘Another Side of Bad Blake,’ oil on canvas, 2012.