Tomas Sanchez at Marlborough Gallery

It’s no surprise that #meditation is one of the first tags Cuban painter Tomas Sanchez uses when posting images of new paintings to Instagram.  His intensely detailed, imagined landscapes are inspired by his daily meditative practice and celebrate the sublime on both a vast and tiny scale, eliciting wonder at nature’s complexity.  Sanchez’s first show at Marlborough New York in over 15 years offers a decade of work – new and loaned from collections.  It features not only verdant scenes but a selection of paintings featuring vast fields of discarded consumer items and trash, a disturbing contrast to the boundlessness of nature in the paintings. (On view through Jan 22nd. Note holiday hours and closures.)

Tomas Sanchez, Inner Lagoon…Thought-Cloud, acrylic on canvas, 78 ¾ x 78 ½ inches, 2016.

Aaron Fowler at Totah Gallery

Peg board, orange plastic wrap, beard hair and other unexpected art materials create surprise and immediacy in Aaron Fowler’s meditative self-portrait at Totah Gallery on the LES.  Salon94 Gallery, which also showed Fowler’s work earlier this month, explains the donkey “…as a symbol of human imperfection and signifying the potential for transformation.”  (On view through Aug 26th at Totah Gallery).

Aaron Fowler, Donkey of the Lou (Self-Portrait), acrylic paint, enamel paint, sand, mirror, concrete cement, orange plastic wrap, screws, hair weave, beard hair, photo printout, plexiglass, cotton balls, LED rope lights, chains and pegboard on cubicles, 108 x 114 inches, 2018.

Lee Mullican at James Cohan Gallery

‘We were dealing with art as a way of mediation,’ explained late West Coast painter Lee Mullican of his pattern-driven, energetic work inspired by Native American art and design. (Seen here in detail.) (At James Cohan Gallery’s Chelsea location through June 18th).

Lee Mullican, (detail) Meditations on a Jazz Passage, oil on canvas, 75 x 75 inches, 1964.
Lee Mullican, (detail) Meditations on a Jazz Passage, oil on canvas, 75 x 75 inches, 1964.

Saya Woolfalk at Leslie Tonkonow Artworks & Projects

Saya Woolfalk continues to imagine life in a utopic community of culturally hybridized beings with her new series of colorful sculpture, video and collage at Chelsea’s Leslie Tonkonow Artworks & Projects. In this lush corner installation, a meditating figure in fantastical priestly garb holds minerals that supposedly release the power of greater empathy. (Through Feb 28th).

Saya Woolfalk, ChimaTEK: Virtual Reality Station, mixed media installation with video, 108 x 91 x 19 ½, 2015.

Matthew Ronay at Andrea Rosen Gallery

One of Matthew Ronay’s previous shows at Andrea Rosen Gallery involved entering a large, curtain-enclosed space filled with natural forms – trees, totems – that referred to transcendent experiences. In Rosen’s smaller Gallery II space, Ronay showcases his own journey in meditative daily drawings like this one. (In Chelsea through Aug 22nd).

Matthew Ronay, 12.16.13, gouache on 140lb arches watercolor paper, 15 x 11 inches, 2013.