Stepping into the exhibition Strata of Time at Elorea, the focus is not only on the works hanging on the walls but also the fragrances around them as well. With works placed throughout a perfume shop, Herok was given the opportunity to respond to the fragrances surrounding his works. He uses his process of layering to overlay different colors, materials, and experiences of both to mimic the processes the perfume makers used to create their products, as they mix and meld various scents. The works are nicely displayed throughout the space; some works, like Out of Field 5, Out of Field 4, and See You Again, are displayed alongside products, while other walls allow works to stand on their own. This is an interesting exhibition collaboration that grew from studying the products and interviewing store personnel, a process that generated a new body of work carrying as many small details within the surfaces as the fragrances carry within the perfumes.
Continue reading “Strata of Time: a burying and unearthing of new discoveries at Elorea “Maria Gil Lucientes: Letting the Materials Misbehave
Maria Gil Lucientes paints in the slim margin where a system starts to come undone. She begins with a constraint, a single color, a periodic screen, a piece of medical gauze, then lets the materials misbehave. In Pareidolia, gauze shifted by air becomes the suggestion of a face. A Spanish-born painter who studied mathematics, physics, and computer science before a decade in tech, Lucientes brings a system-builder’s discipline to a practice that hinges on chance. Here, she reflects on the path from science to painting, the dialogue between control and surprise in her process, and the new Moiré series taking shape in her studio.
Continue reading “Maria Gil Lucientes: Letting the Materials Misbehave”Yuyo- Julián Kreimer at the Sarah Lawrence Heimbold Visual Arts Center
Before his artist talk, Julián Kreimer set a small brown valise on the table and opened it. Inside, folders held drawings on paper, each made in response to a photographic slide from his parents’ archive. The valise was not part of the exhibition; it was the working material behind it, a private archive he had been drawing through for years. Encountering it set the terms for the room next door: Yuyo is what happens when that interior is opened out.
Continue reading “Yuyo- Julián Kreimer at the Sarah Lawrence Heimbold Visual Arts Center”When I Stopped in Feldwood: Jeff Feld at Marquee Projects
Jeff Feld’s invented, minimalist island of Feldwood transports its audience into a tropical, still space that is at once childlike and naive, holy in its fetishizing of the pathetic object and rooted in place.
Continue reading “When I Stopped in Feldwood: Jeff Feld at Marquee Projects”Learning Where There Is No Bottom: On the Thresholds of Swim Lessons
When I first learned how to swim as a child, my instructor told me to hold onto the edge of the pool and practice kicking. He counted the rhythm aloud, occasionally adjusting the angle of my body. Water kept splashing into my face, yet I could not make myself move forward. The actions had been broken down into steps: kicking, stroking, breathing, and I seemed to complete each one, but they never came together as a whole. Then, at some point, I stopped sinking. I still cannot say what exactly happened in that moment.
Continue reading “Learning Where There Is No Bottom: On the Thresholds of Swim Lessons”Eric Wolf’s Two Waters: Nature, Observation, and Exploration at Abri Mars
Eric Wolf’s works at Abri Mars take us through misty, expansive landscapes. Their ethereality and tranquility pull viewers into new places to explore and settle into. Within Two Waters, Wolf recreates the landscapes he observes directly, using a limited ink palette to bring the pieces to life. Through a combination of controlled and reactive strokes, Wolf uses hard and soft edges to render his figures of nature. While the figures are more abstract- mountains, bodies of water, trees, etc, these works are expanding on the process of plein air, bringing the environment into the works directly. With the gallery’s natural light from the front windows, the darkness of the ink becomes velvety, drawing you in, while the light of the paper glows beneath, pushing outward. This push and pull makes the work feel dynamic and lively.
Continue reading “Eric Wolf’s Two Waters: Nature, Observation, and Exploration at Abri Mars”Zhang Huan: The Ash Paintings, at 125 Newbury Gallery
It has been over ten years since the last New York exhibition of the Chinese artist Zhang Huan, known for his edgy political performance pieces documented at the exhibition. What captured me on this visit was his ash paintings, which extended across the entire front hall of the gallery. It feels entirely appropriate that this social activist artist, who later turned to Buddhism, should exhibit these works in New York at such a tense moment. Ash, as a medium, touches on absolute destruction. It carries deep meaning in Buddhist practice, but these days it also pulls toward something harder to name: the daily accumulation of impure ash on the ground of cities being destroyed.
Continue reading “Zhang Huan: The Ash Paintings, at 125 Newbury Gallery”Spirit in the Flesh at Utopia
Spirit in the Flesh is on view at UTOPIA in Kingston, the gallery, bookstore, and studio space founded in 2025 by Lucia Cote. Curated by Saul Chernick, the exhibition brings together sculpture, painting, and works on paper by Courtney Puckett, Ben Pederson, and Chernick. The show treats art as a way of being, shaped by imagery rooted in intuition and dreams and carried into physical form through sustained attention to process. In a climate of constant noise and unrest, the works lean toward beauty, curiosity, and play. Curator and artist Saul Chernick tells us more about the exhibition and the venue.
Continue reading “Spirit in the Flesh at Utopia”Artists on Coping: Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan
During the Coronavirus pandemic, Art Spiel is reaching out to artists to learn how they are coping.

Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan With Andromeda, photo credit: Rosita Czekala
Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan is a processed-based artist who works viscerally with marginalized and discarded materials to create new objects imbued with greater meaning. His work has been exhibited in the Hortt Museum, FL; Museum Of Contemporary Art, GA; Slotin Folkfest, GA; Hathaway Contemporary Gallery, GA; Life on Mars Gallery, NY; and is part of the collection in the Fulton County Arts and Culture Acquisition Program, GA.
Continue reading “Artists on Coping: Jeffrey Wilcox Paclipan”