Gina Beavers at Marianne Boesky Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Gina Beavers’ tongue in cheek (or burger in eye) self-portrait at Chelsea’s Marianne Boesky Gallery pictures the artist literally becoming what she consumes online.  Inspired by the similarity of the images we look at via social media, be it enticing food or makeup tutorials, Beavers creates sculptural paintings that MoMA called ‘visceral, vexing, often grotesque…’ when she showed at the museum last year.  (On view through Oct 17th.   Masks and social distancing required and appointments recommended).

Gina Beavers, Self-Portrait with Burger Eye 2015, acrylic and linen on panel, 36 x 24 x 3 ½ inches, 2020.

Cheyenne Julien at Chapter NY

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Young Bronx-based painter Cheyenne Julien’s portrait of her father speaks powerfully to his love of music and his comfort in his own space.  Surrounded and transported by music, he appears to both meet his viewer’s gaze and look beyond and upwards.  A huge pink-toned foot at the painting’s foreground is boldly positioned, the rest of his body relaxed suggesting confident comfort.  (On view at Chapter NY on the Lower East Side through Oct 10th.  Masks and social distancing required and appointments recommended.)

Cheyenne Julien, Master of House, oil on canvas, 60 x 52 inches, 2020.

Gahee Park at Perrotin Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Lone insects, sharpened fingernails and portraits of impassive, semi-clad or nude characters lend young New York painter Gahee Park’s new paintings at Perrotin Gallery a sense of eerie calm and pervasive danger.  Innuendo ranges from the obvious to subtle, here appearing in two speared olives and the fishs’ pretty lips not to mention the long red nails pulling down the blinds.  A mini-cascade of eyes peers in past the shrimp-shaped nails to give the painting a surreal, voyeuristic charge.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 17th).

Gahee Park, Seafood Dream, 24 x 25 inches, oil on canvas, 2020.

Michele Abeles at 47 Canal

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Known for adding paint, tile or other materials to the surface of her photographs, Michele Abeles shifts gears in her current show at 47 Canal, offering a surprisingly unmanipulated selection of images reflecting on macabre Halloween traditions.  Most of the show’s pictures of ghoulish lawn decorations come across as straightforward documentation of bizarre but unsurprising phenomenon.  A few images break through to another level, however, making an inflatable demon or a casually placed, dismembered body part freshly strange.  Here, natural materials on the ground contrast sharply with the glowing white paper skeleton, creating a jarring contrast that illuminates the artificiality of the bones.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 3rd.  Appointments are encouraged and masks and social distancing are required.)

Michele Abeles, 11/1/19, 2:20PM, dye sublimation on aluminum, 31 x 21 ½ inches, 2020.

Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson at Pierogi Gallery

by Merrily KerrDon't Miss, Features & Commissions, Hottest ShowPosted on Comments are Disabled

Boxes are stacked floor to ceiling and charts dominate a claustrophobic space introduced as ‘The Truth Workshop,’ an installation by artists Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson at Pierogi Gallery.  The artists conceived this drably colored, overwhelmingly crowded room as the place where the secretive powers-that-be concoct what the public will believe to be truth.  Stacked boxes labeled ‘Fake News Homeruns,’ or ‘Classic Inside Jobs’ house the juicy details of manufactured truths while rows of books with titles like ‘Trashing the Planet’ offer instruction on nefarious activities.  (On view on the Lower East Side through Oct 11th. Appointments are not necessary.  Masks and social distancing are required.)

Ward Shelley and Douglas Paulson, installation view of ‘The Room Where it Happened,’ at Pierogi Gallery, Sept 2020.