Nikki Maloof at Jack Hanley Gallery

Nikki Maloof puts her audience right in the cage with these canaries while free pigeons cavort outside.  Newspaper headlines on the pages papering the cage alternate between self-help and anxious messages while a dynamic twisting branch and electric colors of the yellow birds against a pink wall suggest pleasure and danger.  (On view at Jack Hanley Gallery on the Lower East Side through April 21st).

Nikki Maloof, Canaries, oil on canvas, 70 x 88 inches, 2018.

Nikki Maloof in ‘Don’t Look Now’ at Zach Feuer Gallery

Brooklyn painter Nikki Maloof stands out in Zach Feuer Gallery’s summer group painting exhibition with this tongue-in-cheek homage to the summer sun, which has tattooed her skin with burns and melded her blond hair with the saturated yellow sky. (In Chelsea through July 26th).

Nikki Maloof, Burn, oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches, 2013.