Jaime Miranda-Bambaren in Foley Square and Thomas Paine Park

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Surrounded by the notable buildings of downtown Manhattan’s civic center, Jaime Miranda-Bambaren’s sculptures crafted from the roots of felled Peruvian trees add an additional historic component to the urban landscape.  Scattered around Foley Square and neighboring Thomas Paine Park and located in front of New York’s most prominent courthouses, 13 spheres sculpted from the abandoned root systems of illegally felled Peruvian trees act as witness to destruction but also offer hope.  Titled 13 Moons (Seeds), the sculptures represent the regenerative possibilities of nature.  (Join an architecture tour and see the pieces in person!  On view through June 20th in Foley Square).

Jaime Miranda-Bambaren, installation view of 13 Moons (Seeds) in April 2023 in Foley Square, Manhattan.

Cecily Brown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Cecily Brown’s energetic brushwork comes to a boil at the center of her 2006-08 painting, Memento Mori I, a highlight of her current retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.   The museum identifies the roiling mass of white, blue and pinkish tones in the foreground as a tablecloth and place settings being yanked from the table, a reference to an English poem meant to instruct young people not to tip their chairs back.  Elsewhere, a female nude dances with death (inspired by an Edvard Munch print), a tabletop still life proffers an enormous, blood red lobster claw and the heads of two children are positioned to form a skull.  Such reminders of mortality and offers of moral instruction recall highlights from the Met’s historic European painting collections, suggesting the themes’ the continued resonance.  (On view on the Upper East Side through Dec 3rd).

Cecily Brown, Memento Mori I, oil on linen, 2006-08.

David Gilbert at Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery

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Patterns of sunlight and shadow falling over arrangements of cut paper and painted canvas give LA artist David Gilbert’s new work at Klaus Gallery an ephemerality that speaks to art as a process of making.  Calling him a ‘discerning scavenger of poignant and beautiful things,’ the gallery points out how Gilbert captures moments in which something special arises from arrangements of everyday objects.  In this image, a single pink bead and isolated dots of red color at top right add balance and interest to the predicament of the dove at center, which may or may not be captured by both painted and actual netting as it attempts to fly upward into the blue.  (On view in Tribeca through May 6th).

David Gilbert, Dove, archival inkjet print, 13 x 8.6 inches, 2023

Alice Tippit at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

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Alice Tippit’s pared-down, graphically bold paintings – now on view at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery – feature clearly defined objects seen in silhouette, yet they are deliberately difficult to read.  Carefully chosen titles add to the ambiguity and to the sense that the potential meaning behind each painting is a puzzle to be cracked.  This painting’s blue/white color scheme hints at icy ocean depths alluded to in the title ‘I Sea,’ which is also reminiscent of the frosty response, ‘I see.’  Balance creates additional drama as a floating hammer supports a possibly fragile vase on which rests a cigarette that recalls a smoking gun.  (On view in Tribeca through April 29th.

Alice Tippit, I Sea, oil on canvas, 18h x 15w inches, 2022.

Arturo Kameya at GRIMM Gallery

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Titled ‘The UFOs,’ Peruvian artist Arturo Kameya’s new show at Tribeca’s GRIMM Gallery conveys an otherworldly atmosphere through dark-toned paintings (made more subdued by mixing paint with clay powder) that tell strange tales.  A man buried alive attracts the attention of news crews in one image while an ancient Peruvian mummy emerges from a cooler bag in another.  Even the everyday can seem bizarre as a roach sits up, eating from a tiny plate in one picture while in another, a shower-head/water heater dangerously mixes water and electricity.  Here, a planter cut and painted to resemble a swan seems to come to life to sip water from a leaky hose that has morphed into a fountain, blurring the lines between the real and man-made nature. (On view through May 6th).

Arturo Kameya, Swan Lake, acrylic and clay powder on canvas, 29 5/8 x 25 5/8 x 1 ½ inches, 2023.