LA painter Theodora Allen’s first New York solo show features medieval shields as frames for plants with medicinal or harmful uses. Here, the hallucinogenic Jimsonweed materializes on the support like a ghostly presence, pointing to the non-tangible world of experience. (On view at Paul Kasmin Gallery’s 515 West 27th Street location through March 9th.)
Medieval-looking characters converse at table in Zach Bruder’s arrestingly anachronistic painting, which pictures the Middle Ages in an abstracted or folksy 20th century painting style. Substituting detail and realism for expressive forms, Bruder cloaks a familiar-seeming scene in an alien appearance. (On view at Magenta Plains on the Lower East Side through Feb 11th).
Walton Ford is back at Chelsea’s Paul Kasmin Gallery with more of his signature large watercolors focusing on the fraught relationship throughout history between man and animal. Here, he recalls a medieval tale of a retreating poacher who scattered reflective balls to confuse a tigress. (Through June 21st).
Walton Ford, The Tigress, watercolor and gouache on paper, 60 x 120 inches, 2013.
Francis Upritchard’s medieval-looking characters ride, run, lunge and more as they engage in slightly ludicrous one-sided combat. Their expressions read as aloof, nauseous or perhaps both, which seems fitting for such convincingly-executed weedy warriors. (At Chelsea’s Anton Kern Gallery through August 9th)
Francis Upritchard, installation view at Anton Kern Gallery featuring ‘Rider,’ modeling material, wire, fabric, leather and shell buttons, 2012.
