Rebecca Morris at Bortolami Gallery

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In a recent interview, Rebecca Morris explained that color is the content of her painting.  On view through Saturday at Bortolami Gallery in Tribeca, Morris’ light pink, blue and green abstractions are easy on the eye, even when accented by attention-grabbing metallic colors.  All titled just with the date of their making, it’s up to the viewer to puzzle out how each artistic decision – the checkerboard pattern, the shape of each zone of color and the variety of pink tonal contrasts in Untitled (#04-23), for example – creates meaning and mood.  In this painting, Morris considers cultural values placed on color saying, “Gold makes pink important…Often pink is seen as pretty, and pretty gets devalued.”  In this opulent, complex and intellectually engaging painting, pink steals the show.  (On view through Nov 4th).

Rebecca Morris, Untitled (#12-23), oil and spray paint on canvas, 2023.

Scherezade Garcia at Praxis Gallery

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Scherezade Garcia’s baroque paintings at Praxis Gallery of water-borne women are part of the ‘liquid turn’ or ‘blue humanities,’ explains Lesley A. Wolff in a gallery handout, a field of study that finds inspiration in the fluidity and transformative qualities of the sea. Characterized by their ‘cinnamon skin,’ which Garcia creates by mixing primary and secondary colors, and inspired by the artist’s female relatives, figures positioned directly in the water are a metaphor for ‘layered, fluid, transformative’ identities.  Surrounded by lush flower swags, ornate scrolling forms, decorative lace and gold – from decorative tiles at the top to a duck-shaped life preserver – each character’s ornate environment speaks to a complex, self-inventing identity. (On view through Nov 4th).

Scherezade Garcia, Harvest of the Sea, acrylic, pigment, charcoal, ink on linen, 84 x 180 inches, 2023.

Ugo Rondinone at Gladstone Gallery

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Lightning strikes three times in the same spot at Gladstone Gallery’s high-ceilinged 21st Street space in the form of bronze sculpture by Swiss New Yorker Ugo Rondinone.  Trees scanned, 3-D printed and cast in bronze have been inverted to resemble day glow yellow bolts of light; at the same time, they belong to the terrestrial realm by still clearly resembling trees.  As nature upends our expectations again and again through storms, floods and extreme temperatures, Rondinone questions the natural order.  (On view in Chelsea through Nov 9th.

Ugo Rondinone, installation view of ‘bright light shining’ at Gladstone Gallery, Oct ’23.

Melissa Joseph at Margot Samel

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Raised in rural Pennsylvania with little access to museums but within easy reach of her mom’s crafting supplies, New York artist Melissa Joseph developed a textile-based practice resulting in painterly portraits of family now on view at Margot Samel in Tribeca.  Three small pieces in needle felted wool on industrial felt, mounted on found silver plates, are the size of embroidery but use material more akin to impasto painting.  Here, Joseph’s extended family piles on to a living room seat, creating a tangle of bodies as familiar and comfortable as the material depicting them.  (On view in Tribeca through Nov 22nd).

Melissa Joseph, Auntie Loretta, needle felted wool in industrial felt in found silver platter, 10” diameter, 2023.

Enoc Perez at Harper’s Books

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Based on vintage Bacardi rum ads and travel brochures, Puerto Rican artist Enoc Perez’s paintings of his home country at Harper’s Gallery feature pristine beaches, bright blue pools and abundant tropical vegetation.  Created in a painting style akin to printmaking, for which the artist rubs paint onto canvas using an oil coated sheet of paper and a pencil, the details of each supposed paradise are rendered slightly indistinct.  Titled ‘Stockholm Syndrome,’ the paintings revel in an abundance of natural beauty yet withhold a richer appreciation of it, forcing the question of how much of each image is just marketing.  (On view in Chelsea through Nov 11th).

Enoc Perez, View of San Juan, P.R., oil on linen, 2023.