Known for her masterful use of repeated materials, New York artist Tara Donovan has been busy lately with styrene cards, intuitively stacking the plastic slips in patterns that hint at the natural world, digital patterns and more. (At Pace Gallery’s 24th Street location through March 18th).
Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu’s hybrid bodies enter a new chapter in her latest solo show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery, where this bronze mermaid merges animal and human. The reference taps into E. African folktales of dugongs – a manatee-like creature – manifesting as female sirens who’d lure men into the sea. (In Chelsea on 21st Street through March 25th).
The chemical smell of ‘Stockpot’ – a Porta potty on rockers – hits immediately at Nathaniel de Large’s solo show at 247365 on the Lower East Side. This surprising sculpture opens a show inspired by de Large’s time spent camping in a Brooklyn parking lot. Further in, the artist displays a puffer jacket the size of a camper (which serves as a screening room) and freshly poured concrete ‘sidewalks’ into which friends have carved their marks. (On view through March 10th).
Johannes VanDerBeek’s thick aqua-resin paintings at new Lower East Side gallery Marinaro look like highly colored views from under the microscope. Looser than Joan Miro and freer and more abstract than Yves Tanguy, the work still channels Surrealism and early 20th century abstraction. (On view through March 19th).
Though he has focused on the female form in past, pared down representations, a large, pink-hued highlight of John Finneran’s latest solo show at 47 Canal features three kings. Resembling archaic designs and featuring universal geometries, they appear both ancient and contemporary. (On the Lower East Side through April 2nd).
