Narratives and expressive figures in Judy Glantzman’s Playing with Dolls at P.P.O.W

Glantzman’s heroically scaled works immerse viewers in the energetic world that she creates. I really appreciate the diversity in scale of the works in this show. The smaller-sized canvases offer a snapshot, still detailed but a more compact telling of the world she is creating. Whereas the larger works allow viewers to step in and entangle themselves within the forms, narratives, symbols, and ideas that Glantzman offers. Walking into the gallery brought an immediate sense of excitement, wonder, and a need for exploration and adventure within the pieces. The paintings introduce the characters and scenes, while the ceramics are the pieces Glantzman chooses to pluck directly from the compositions and bring into 3D forms. 

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Kate Teale: Vanishing Points and New Places at Smack Mellon

The space in Smack Mellon’s back gallery welcomes you as Kate Teale’s exhibition, Vanishing Points, fills the room, bringing the history of Dumbo into the space. Teale expands space itself through her studies of edge, architecture, and place. The work is a seamless connection of drawings adhered to the walls using Tyvek, making the illusion of space and the real blur into one. The gallery is transformed into a combination of several places, and as visitors turn, they adjust to each new location, finding details offering hints of the places Teale wants us to wander into. 

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Community and Belonging: Grit of the Hearth Beyond the Brambles at Field of Play

The exhibition titled Grit of the Hearth Beyond the Brambles creates a sense of place, wonder, and belonging. The title itself invites introspection, especially after reading the poem in the press release. It offers an exhale to the stressed, a release from tension, and a bright light to those who may be unsure.

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Rachel MacFarlane’s Mystical Spaces: Afterlight at Hollis Taggart Downtown

Rachel MacFarlane

Stepping into Rachel MacFarlane’s exhibition, Afterlight, you enter an atmosphere of radiant, sweltering landscapes and venture towards an unknown future. The unpredictable future of a natural world that is vibrant, strong, and resilient, continuing to grow despite the climate changes and ecological effects that have threatened it. MacFarlane expertly situates the viewer amid a vibrantly colored atmosphere, positioning them as an active participant in the environments the paintings create. 

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Like Cotyledons Buckled with Loam: Conversations and Inspirations

Jodie Manasevit

Walking into the group exhibition, Like Cotyledons Buckled with Loam at Art Cake, curated by David Dixon, you are first greeted with a piece by Thomas Nozkowski. This piece is one of three included in the exhibition, each serving as a foundational anchor point in the show. Within the paintings, Nozkowski abstracts forms or fractions of events, allowing viewers to experience the essence and bring their own associations to the works.

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Bonesetter: Dislocations, Connections and Synergies

Walking into the space at 86 Bowery, you are greeted by a calm, welcoming exhibition, the walls warmly lit and filled with a wide array of drawings, paintings, and sculptures, featuring works by 24 artists. The exhibition title is Bonesetter, based on the idea of a bonesetter, an individual in many cultures who resets broken bones and dislocations.

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Spectral Evidence: A deeper introspection on Color, Light, and Energy

Installation view, photo courtesy of the Shirley Project Space

Walking into this show on a cold, blustery night, you are greeted by large windows illuminated out by gallery light. Inside, you are met with a collection of color, light, and energy. Each piece in the exhibition Spectral Evidence uses mainly acrylic to illuminate new spaces by dissolving edges, blending colors, and allowing gradients to calmly and smoothly envelope the space within the works. While each artist in the show has their own take on creating their own spaces, they use many conventions of painting and abstraction to create new forms and environments to experience, and each piece seems to flow well into the next. The gallery layout lends itself to a meandering space.

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Frank Lind: Time and Tide, Homage and Seascapes at Georges Berges

MLK, 2000, Seascapes and Studies, Oil on canvas. 60 x 50 in. Photo courtesy of Georges Berges Gallery

Getting to see the works of Frank Lind in person gives you an experience of a moment, the capture of a motion, and the building up of an atmosphere. Lind works “en plein air” within nature. Capturing immediate impressions and moments that captivate him, he then carries sketches to canvas. Stemming from the on-site sketches, the larger studio works take on a glow. Using traditional oil painting processes and many old master methods, both of Lind’s series displayed in this exhibition show the end result of a painter’s process.

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Johnny g mullen: Rehearsals in Movement

Installation View, (photo courtesy of Yanmei Jiang)

Walking into Peninsula gallery, an intimate space in the Two Bridges neighborhood, viewers are greeted with the energetic and punchy paintings in Johnny Mullen’s solo show- rehearsals in movement. Mullen has pinpointed his focus on layering paint, motion, and plays with both transparency and opacity in this new series. With the gallery itself being so intimate, you get a close and personal view of the works, a deeper look that proves very rewarding. Meandering from one painting to the next, each of a consistent size, you get to join mullen on his explorations within each piece. Expanding from his interest in color theory, Mullen has added an expanded investigation of layering and gesture within the pieces.

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Maya Perry with introspections within The Moon Takes Shape of an Outsider’s Light

Maya Perry, The moon takes shape of an outsiders light, 2025, Water-Soluble Graphite and Watercolor on canvas, 58 x 62 in., photo courtesy of Taylor Bielecki

Maya Perry’s solo exhibition at RAINRAIN gallery is both tender and powerful, full of tranquility and wonder. It is a conversation on humanness and existence. With the drawings, we see snapshots of thoughts, memories, feelings, and with the paintings we see narratives and longer moments of growing, returning, and becoming. This exhibition navigates the spaces where memory fractures and re-forms, dealing with the complications of the past.

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