Joanne Mattera Art Blog: Five Shows in Chelsea (Four Are Still Up)

Thomas Nozkowski
Pace Gallery, 16 x 20, January 19-February 17

Exhibitions in New York City are never long enough. I caught Thomas Nozkowski's show on the penultimate day of its run, even though I thought for sure it had weeks more to go. The other exhibitions I'm showing you here are still up.

Installation view of Thomas Nozkowski at Pace, from the front looking toward the back All the works are untitled, oil on panel, 16 x 20 inches

Below: The first painting you see in the photo above

View from the back looking toward the front

Above: This painting is on the middle-ground wall of the photo above

Below: This, on the foreground wall left

While all the same size--the 16 x 20 of the show's title--the paintings span four decades, from the Seventies to the early 2000s. Here's what the press materials says about the size: "By focusing himself on a small canvas, he deliberately constrained the possibility of the gesture and drew himself closer to the painting's surface."

Sorry, I don't have dates for these, but I love the mix of biomorphic and geometric

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Peter Plagens

Nancy Hoffman Gallery, through March 10

Installation view

Plagens's exhibition took place in three gallery rooms. This view is of the second room looking into the third. I like these paintings, with their mysterious, six-color shapes--which sometimes read as dimensional forms--afloat on a chromatic space that reads both flat and of indeterminiate depth. That's a lot of visual ambiguity, a pleasurable way to lose yourself in figuring out what's what.

Untitled (to J,W,R, Dunne), 2017, mixed media on canvas, 84 x 78 inches

Quinella, 2017, mixed media on canvas, 72 x 66 inches

An Ear for Everyday Speech, 2017, mixed media on canvas, 84 x 78 inches

This painting was in the first gallery, which I couldn't shoot because the gallery was full of visitors coming and going (good for the show, not great for photographing)

Below: a detail of the expressionist markings under the flat turquoise field

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Joanne Freeman

My Generation, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, through March 24

Installation view

Freeman's paintings are a tantalizing combination of geometry and the suggestion of biomorphic form. The lines are crisp, but those rounded edges are luscious. Up close her surfaces are built up of color that's richer than a wash but not opaque. The painting on the far wall above, for instance, features a slightly lavender ground rich with brushstrokes. These dualities are endlessly engaging. I also like their very human scale.

Space 17 Summer 4, 2017, oil on linen, 40 x 36 inches

Installation view opposite wall

My Generation refers to Freeman's formative years, the culture of the Sixties and Seventies. There is something of the graphics quality of that era, as well as a nod to Matissean shapes, but these are very much contemporary paintings that engage with a figure-ground relationship.

Below: Memory Train, 2018, oil on linen

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Carrie Moyer

Pagan's Rapture, DC Moore Gallery, through March 22

Installation view (from the gallery website)

These are feel-good paintings, offering visual sustenance with color, materiality (yes, glitter), and the suggestion of life overflowing. A balm for bad times. This is a major moment for Moyer, what with this solo, a concurrent show at Mary Boone (through April 22), her participation in the recent Whitney Biennial, and a ton of red dots.

Spider Swag, 2018, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 84 x 72 inches

Arch, 2017, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 96 x 78 inches

Detail below

Martha Graham's Candy Stripers, 2017, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 96 x 78 inches

View into the side gallery

Brainiac, 2017, acrylic and glitter on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

Detail below

. . . . .

Brett Baker

New Paintings, Elizabeth Harris Gallery, through March 24

Installation view

The painting on the far wall, also shown below, is the largest I've seen of Baker's work. He constructs each painting with thin strips of color, the width of a narrow brush, which he paints over and over with a final palette of blue and a range of secondary hues. It may take a year or more to complete even the small paintings. The result is an intensely physical surface with a deep visual reward.