acrylic painting – Art Spiel

December 10, 2025December 13, 2025, by Taylor Bielecki

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.

December 3, 2025December 6, 2025, by Peter Schroth

Tom McGlynn: This Here at Rick Wester Fine Art

Tom McGlynn, *This Here*, installation view, Rick Wester Fine Art, New York

Tom McGlynn continues to grow a decade-long train of thought with a new selection of paintings in This Here at Rick Wester Fine Art. Consistent with his oeuvre, he arrays a selection of color rectangles suspended within various fields of color. An acquaintanceship with the origin of this direction, accompanied by a fresh pair of eyes, will enable a viewer to put aside the parallels with Mondrian, Albers, or even Hans Hoffmann, and see these works anew.

December 1, 2025December 1, 2025, by Will Kaplan

Beamsplitter curated by David Shaw at Field of Play

Installation view of *Beamsplitter* featuring *Unnamed, Stable and True Penetrates Being with Sight in Hand*. (Gavin Wilson) and *Bleap* (Lauren Anaïs Hussey)

The artwork in Beamsplitter, a six-person show at Field of Play, functions as a series of portals. Named for a scientific device that both transmits and reflects light, Beamsplitter opens up spectrums of material, concept, and time. Using a mix of large and small works from artists across generations, curator David Shaw expands the Gowanus gallery’s 9 x 15-foot footprint into a dynamic array of gateways. The recurrence of circular forms and apertures presents a menu of windows to the artist’s interiority or world-view. Field of Play’s signature astroturf floor provides an idiosyncratic arena to home these loci.

October 21, 2025October 20, 2025, by Taylor Bielecki

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.

October 2, 2025October 3, 2025, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

Double Vision: One Artist, Two Solo Shows, Double the Stripes

Portrait of the artist, photo courtesy of Elizabeth Haynes

In early September, painter Deborah Zlotsky pulled off what few artists even attempt: two solo shows opening at once, on opposite sides of Manhattan. The Light Gets In filled McKenzie Fine Art on the Lower East Side, while Genealogies took over Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Chelsea. A double dip in one city, on one calendar page. It might sound like a scheduling accident, yet standing in front of her candy-striped canvases, the simultaneity feels deliberate. Zlotsky thrives on overlap: order brushing against disorder, geometry trembling at its edges, patterns that carry memory while stumbling into the present.

September 23, 2025September 22, 2025, by Claire Haik

Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in September 2025

Highlights

Maren Less, The Black Goat, Acrylic On Linen, image courtesy of Gross McCleaf Gallery

This autumn in the Philadelphia area, we are spotlighting three painting exhibitions which explore intricate connections between people, places, memories, and dreams. In Passing Through. at Gross McCleaf Gallery, Maren Less creates vibrant paintings that blend human and animal forms into unexpected, symbolic narratives. At Arcadia University, Hiro Sakaguchi’s Landscapes of a Restless Mind is a collection of muted neon paintings with intricate line work in which daydreams and global issues swirl together. Finally, in Los De Aqui, Henry Morales’ solo show at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Philadelphia, offers a tender look at everyday life, using unified colors, collected soil, and newspaper clippings to emphasize the deep bond between people and their places. Check out these lively shows exploring empathy and the human experience through three distinctive styles and voices.

September 17, 2025September 16, 2025, by Etty Yaniv

Magnum O-Pspsps at Cornell

In Dialogue

Curator Michael Morgan with George Boorujy’s *Dredger* (2017) in the Foundry, home to Cornell’s MFA studios. Photo courtesy of Michael Morgan

Curating an exhibition at Cornell doesn’t require waiting until after graduation or climbing a long academic ladder. The Art Department makes the process unusually accessible—for undergraduates, graduates, and faculty alike. Within the department, there are two dedicated galleries, and under the larger umbrella of the AAP College, a third gallery also accepts exhibition proposals. Each semester, a committee comes together to review applications for the following term. It was within this framework that two graduate students took on the challenge of organizing a large group exhibition. Michael Morgan, who co-curated the exhibition with Elina Ansary, tells us about the process behind the show.

September 15, 2025September 14, 2025, by Eva Zanardi

Continental Presence: Europe’s Defining Voice at The Armory Show 2025

The Armory Show 2025 – Daniel Zeller “**Inference**,” 2015, Mixed media, Approx. 95 x. , Pierogi Gallery. Photo by Eva Zanardi

September in New York is a sensory crescendo—fashion, tennis, and art converge in a city that thrives on spectacle. At the center of it all, The Armory Show 2025 returned to the Javits Center from September 4–7, hosting over 230 exhibitors from 35 countries and drawing more than 50,000 visitors. This year’s edition, the second since its acquisition by Frieze, was slightly smaller than last year’s—but no less ambitious. Dealers reported strong momentum from VIP day onward, especially for works at lower price points, while higher-priced pieces moved at a measured pace. Many noted a noticeably younger crowd—engaged, curious, and eager to discover.

August 27, 2025August 25, 2025, by Amanda Church

Mary Heilmann: Water Way at Guild Hall

Mary Heilmann, Broken Wave, 2022,Acrylic and paper mache pulp on wood and panel, 10×26.75×3-1/2 inches, photo by Dan Bradica. @Mary Heilmann. Image courtesy of the artist, 303 Gallery, New York, and Hauser & Wirth

Water Way, Mary Heilmann’s newly opened show at Guild Hall in East Hampton and her first large-scale museum show on Long Island’s East End, is a joyous celebration of 40 years of the artist’s career. The water-themed exhibition includes not only paintings and works on paper but also chairs, a small table, and ceramics, the latter either on its own or incorporated into a painting as in the 2020’s red acrylic Barrel and Tube. Heilmann is a longtime resident of Bridgehampton and her reverence for the ocean reverberates throughout, underpinned by an underground, punk rock/new wave, California surf culture ethos.

August 11, 2025August 11, 2025, by Riad Miah

Almond Zigmund: A Dance Between Structure and Disruption

In Dialogue

*Almond Zigmund, figure ground yellow, 2023, acrylic on paper, 36 x 53”*, photo credit: Jenny Gorman

Almond Zigmund’s work occupies the charged space between structure and disruption. Moving fluidly across sculpture, painting, and installation, her practice explores the intersection of geometry, architecture, and lived experience—often in subtle yet powerful ways. I have the pleasure of discussing her work at the end of her recent exhibition at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. In this interview exchange, Zigmund speaks about the formative influences that shaped her, from growing up in a creative household to navigating the distinct geographies of Brooklyn, Las Vegas, and the East End of Long Island. The conversation delves into the improvisational roots of her approach, her ongoing engagement with spatial systems, and how tension—between control and spontaneity, place and perception, the built and the organic—continues to animate her work. With references to theorists, artists, Zigmund offers a thoughtful and richly textured account of how art can be both experiential and critical, formal and deeply human.