by David S. Rubin Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles Continuing through July 11, 2026 Terran Last Gun, “Gathering of Distinguished Knowledge Holders,” 2025, ink and colored pencil on antique “The Tisch-Hine Co., Grand Gapids, Mich.” Accounting ledger sheet (dated 1924); Watermark: Waverly Ledger, 1922, 16 5/8 x 13 3/4”. All images courtesy of Diane Rosenstein Gallery, Los Angeles. As an enrolled citizen of the Piikani Nation, Santa Fe-based Indigenous artist Terran Last Gun has developed a unique meditative drawing practice for exploring his spirituality, paying tribute to his heritage, and pursuing his interest in abstract art of the 1960s. Specifically, Last Gun builds upon the legacy of Native American ledger art, a process of drawing over old financial records that emerged among the Plains tribes in the mid-19th century, and which continues to this day. His father, Terrance Guardipee, is himself a well-known ledger artist who perpetuates the practice of drawing representational narratives on pages from record books once kept by traders, missionaries, soldiers, and other non-Indigenous peoples. Terran Last Gun, “Another Human Being Experience: Magnificent Cosmic Source of Life,” 2025, ink and colored pencil on antique “The Tisch-Hine Co., Grand Gapids, Mich.” Accounting ledger sheet (dated 1924); Watermark: Waverly Ledger, 1922, four sections, 16 5/8 x 13 3/4” each. While honoring his father through his own work as a ledger artist, Last Gun essentially reinvents the format by replacing figuration with abstraction. Recognizing stylistic parallels between the geometric symbols that represent landscape and celestial forms on Piikani painted lodges (also known as tipis) and the circular and triangular forms that appear in artworks by some of his favorite geometric abstract painters, Last Gun has evolved a hybrid visual language that fuses both traditions. Terran Last Gun, “Entering a Powerful Lodge,” 2026, ink and colored pencil on antique “cash” ledger sheets, dated 1913, 33 1/4 x 22 1/2”. “Celestial Observations” turns to a format that was favored among systemic artists such as Sol LeWitt or Josef Albers: organizing geometric configurations into modular grids. Whereas LeWitt would vary shape and Albers would shift colors from one unit to the next, Last Gun repeats the same image and color scheme in most of his compositions in recognition of its potential symbolism, which he considers somewhat open-ended. In “Gathering of Distinguished Knowledge Holders” (2025) he positions sixteen identical symbols into four evenly spaced rows, with each unit made up of a square divided into four squares, and which is itself set within another square. The number four has significance within the framework of Indigenous history because it can refer to the four directions, seasons, stages of life, or ceremonial cycles. Combined with the reference to Piikani traditions that is inherent to the ledger paper itself, the geometric pattern — which also brings to mind a blanket or a quilt — affirms the artist’s ties to his lineage, but with a contemporary sensibility rooted in modernist abstraction. The remaining works are presented as diptychs, triptychs, or four-module polyptychs, all of which have precedent in traditional religious art. A particularly outstanding example is “Another Human Being Experience: Magnificent Cosmic Source of Life” (2025), the only work where Last Gun alternates between two color schemes. It proves to be a tactic that yields a dynamic optical energy signifying the life source referenced in the title. Here he has appropriated two of the most familiar geometric formats from the paintings of Kenneth Noland, the chevron at the top and the target at the bottom of each section. The truncation of these configurations at the drawings’ edges suggests that they could be part of a larger, inferentially expansive universe. Additionally, the artist equates the semi-circles in the lower sections with the shape of lodge covers when they are laid flat. Terran Last Gun, “Discovering New Realms of Imagination,” 2026, ink and colored pencil on antique “cash” ledger sheets, dated 1905, 27 1/4 x 15 1/8”. In another series, where variations of circles interact with stripes our squares, Last Gun pays tribute to Leon Polk Smith, a kindred spirit in that Smith was of Cherokee ancestry. Polk Smith’s “Constellation Paintings” (1967-73), multi-panel arrangements of ovoid-shaped canvases, have recently been reinterpreted in terms of Indigenous culture. In Piikani traditions, the circle is considered a sacred form, as it is the basis for social and ceremonial activities. Last Gun’s circular drawings convey their sense of spiritual power through an intensity of color, as seen in “Entering a Powerful Lodge” (2026), where a red-and-blue four-square motif is set within a deep yellow circle, and “Discovering New Realms of Imagination” (2026), where the deep yellow contrasts strikingly with a vibrant magenta. The latter work is also animated by the diagonal positioning of its three components together with the rightward rotation of the ledger paper, so the handwritten text becomes an abstract compositional element. Philosophically, Last Gun is most closely aligned with the prewar Transcendental Painting Group, which he embraces as a major influence, as well as with artists like the Beat Generation master Bruce Conner. All of these plains and mountains experimentalists demonstrated that artmaking can be a fulfilling means to connect spiritually with the cosmos. Last Gun thus sustains a deep-rooted proto-American spirit. David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous exhibition catalogs, and his curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. For more information: www.davidsrubin.com.

by Jody Zellen Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica Continuing through July 4, 2026 Ayin Es, “Disorderly Conduct,” 2022, oil on gesso board, 16 x 20”. All images courtesy of Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica. The paintings in Ayin Es’ “Relative Strangers” exhibition highlight infrequently seen components of their work. Perhaps this signals a new aesthetic direction, but they shake things up, at least, in terms of style and media. Using vintage family photographs as a point of departure, they look beneath the surface to challenge the depicted narratives. Es is open about their transition, disability and feelings about gender politics. Through this series of works, they delve deeper into their own family-associated traumas. The images are unsettling studies of estrangement within a social dynamic. In a previous exhibition “On the Mend” (Compound Gallery, Yucca Valley), Es explored their gender-affirming surgery and struggles with mental illness through paintings and cartoon-like self-portraits with dog ears and a jagged red line across their chest, as well as hand-sewn illustrations of pill jars. They also created an 'ironic' sculpture made with smiling stuffed animals. Es's work, though generally serious and to the point, is not without humor. Ayin Es, “Young Exemplaries,” 2025, watercolor and ink on Arches paper, 16 x 20”. For Es, art and life are interconnected, that is central to the artist’s aesthetic foundation. In paintings, drawings and installations, they integrate and expound on aspects of their personal life. In the late 1990s, Es shifted from a career in music to that of full-time artist. Since making the change, they have shown their work regularly in galleries and museums in Southern California and beyond. Both their artwork and their gender identity are matters of public record. “Relative Strangers” consists of loosely rendered, realistic but not realist paintings on paper, panel and canvas. After their parents’ death, Es came upon a tattered suitcase at the back of a closet full of old family photographs. These served as source material. Es imagines what life might have been like if their 'trans' identity were represented in these decades old analog snapshots, and how a different family dynamic might have resulted. What would those images look like? To provide context, Es includes an album of the snapshots in the show. Ayin Es, “West Valley Fiction,” 2025, oil on birchwood, 24 x 24”. The painting “Disorderly Conduct” (2022) is based on a 1975 photograph depicting Ayin with their mother and grandmother. In the photograph, the young "Ayin" is depicted holding up a garment of bright red taffeta fabric, smiling as she poses for the camera. Their mother and grandmother recline on a large bed in the background, paying little attention to the antics of the little girl. Changes from the photograph include bulging eyes and clown-like smiles on the mother and grandmother, who direct their gaze at the girl. Their mother's hand is transformed into a large cartoony white glove that points at the young girl's chest to reveal a long horizontal red scar. In the watercolor “Young Exemplaries” (2025), Es uses a photograph from 1969 as a point of departure. The original depicts a family of four on a sidewalk standing in front of a large tree with a 1960’s-era car and the hint of an apartment building in the background. It is an image of a so-called 'traditional' family. Es is cradled in their mother's arms, while their father rests his hands on the older brother's shoulders. In the snapshot, the boy appears to be happy and laughing, whereas in the painted image his expression more closely resembles fear or horror. The baby Es looks out at us, rather than gazing into their mother's eyes as in the original photo. Es's painting challenges the complacency of the moment. Ayin Es, “Check the Pulse,” 2023, oil on gesso board, 16 x 16”. Many of the other paintings provide similarly emphatic alternatives to the photographs they are based upon. Es reinterprets these snapshots as they would 'like' to remember them. In works such as “Sucker” (2025), “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake” (2026) and “Check the Pulse” (2023), a younger Es has blackened eyes and a distorted mouth. “Check the Pulse” (2023) features a teenaged Es and an older woman who could be their grandmother, seated on a bed looking at official looking printed documents. Above the grandmother, who wears an expression of shock, is a cloud pouring down rain. In contrast, a rainbow emerges out of Es' head. Es is depicted post 'top' surgery, with their chest covered by a long red scar. One eye is a blur of black and their mouth is a distorted red line. “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake” (2026) is another disconcerting image. Here, thick goopy black tears cascade down from the young girl's eyes as she rests her head on her mother's shoulder. The two are seated on yellow chairs at a table in front of flowered wallpaper. Placed matter-of-factly on the table is a handgun alongside an uncut cake. Ayin Es, “A Dangerous Frisbee Cake,” 2026, oil on birchwood, 16 x 20”. Es portrays their childhood as anguished and unsettling. The innocence and joy associated with family photographs has been extracted from the images and replaced with darker scenarios that allude to Es's childhood unhappiness and discomfort. The comfort of middle-class Southern California is subverted and the figures are distorted, given multiple eyes and bleeding mouths. In the images of the young Es, they call attention to her future surgery. What injustices may have occurred are never explicitly detailed; however, Es repeatedly alludes to the fact that the moments captured within the family photos are not happy memories. Through their painting, Es extracts a history more aligned with contemporary reality. Jody Zellen is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit www.jodyzellen.com.

by Lynn Trimble Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix Continuing through June 28, 2026 Cara Romero, “The Last Indian Market,” sublimated fabric print, 94 × 321”. All images courtesy of the artist. Thirteen Indigenous artists and intellectuals sit together at a long table, as depicted in a large-scale photograph mounted high on a wall overlooking a central space at the Phoenix Art Museum. Their elevated presence counters demeaning stereotypes of Indigenous peoples promulgated through art histories, colonial narratives, and mainstream culture. Titled “The Last Indian Market” (2014), the photograph is an iconic work by Cara Romero, an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe. Originally curated by Jami C. Powell (Osage) for the Hood Museum in New Hampshire, Romero’s exhibition includes over fifty of Romero’s works spanning 2013 to 2025 — plus Chemehuevi basketry and ephemera of her creative practice. Cara Romero, “Spirits of Siwavaats, 2019, archival pigment print, 36 x 55 7/8”. “The Last Indian Market” calls to mind Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (c. 1495-1498), which is visible across a chasm when standing at the exhibition’s entrance. It signals the ways Romero centers collaboration, Indigenous diversity, and contemporary Native cultures while critiquing Eurocentrism and colonialist narratives. For “The Last Indian Market” Romero gathered Indigenous creatives working in and around Santa Fe, including Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), whose “Buffalo Man” figure sits at the table’s center. Friends and family, described by the artist as collaborators, frequently appear in Romero’s work. Some appear in natural settings such as bodies of water or desert landscapes. Others are placed in theatrical stagings devised by the artist. Romero infuses narrative fine art photography with her own lived experience and personal identity. The women and girls she photographs convey agency, which is just one way Romero counters the reductive gaze that is so prevalent throughout the history of photography and that has perpetuated the denigration of non-European peoples. Cara Romero, “Sand and Stone,” 2020, sublimated fabric print, 96 x 64”. The show is organized around five themes, each exploring a foundational element of Romero’s practice. Such an organization proves effective in guiding us through the artist’s biography as well as through the depth and breadth of her body of work. Each section — “California Desert and Mythos,” “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women,” “Environmental Racism,” “Ancestral Futures,” and “Reimagined Americana” — includes primarily photographs. But the exhibition also includes site-specific installations, which bring another dimension to Romero’s world-building. Text panels for individual artworks discuss specific collaborators and settings while also drawing on the artist’s own words to provide context and intention. Two photographs near the gallery entrance set the tone for what’s to come. “Sand and Stone” (2020) is a portrait of a woman surrounded by sand and stone that affirms deep connections between body and land. So too does the image of four Chemehuevi youth in pre-colonial dress running away from nearby towering power turbines in “Evolvers” (2019). The youths appear in several photographs, where the artist positions them as time travelers who embody the intersections of future and past. The “California Desert and Mythos” section includes a tabletop display case filled with sketches, photographic negatives, and props used in images seen elsewhere in the show. Chemehuevi baskets sit in the center of a gallery space where they anchor the “Repatriation: Empowering Indigenous Women” section. Here, portraits of women conceived as both living people and ancestral spirits counter the stereotyped objectification and exploitation of Indigenous women. What we see here instead affirms the continuity of Indigenous cultures. Cara Romero, “The Zenith, 2022, sublimated fabric print, 118 x 132 3/4”. Romero also foregrounds the harm done to Indigenous ecosystems in the “Environmental Racism” section. This is where she addresses the impacts of climate change, resource extraction, and modern development in ancestral homelands. In “Ancestral Futures,” vivid colors bring a dramatic feel to Romero’s visual interplays of ancient knowledge with contemporary technologies. “The Zenith” (2022) features an astronaut floating in space amid indigenous white corn. The image covers an entire temporary wall, where it’s accompanied by dozens of corn cobs suspended from the ceiling. Pop culture references abound in the “Reimagining Americana” section, a “what if” exercise in which the artist inserts Indigenous peoples into mainstream popular culture. One photograph, for instance, references The Beatles’ iconic “Abbey Road” album cover. Several works from Romero’s “First American Girl” series depict models standing inside life-size boxes surrounded by objects rooted in their own cultural heritage. These playfully highlight the vast diversity of Indigenous cultures and identities. Cara Romero, “Coyote Tales No. 1 Props: Hat with Ears,” hat with ears attached. At the center of this section, Romero’s site-specific installation returns us to the collaborative aspect of her art practice. In a circular configuration of vintage television sets, screens show scenes of making several of the works seen elsewhere in the show. “Panûpünüwügai (Living Light)” comes to a quiet yet dramatic close with “Coyote Appears at Muhaḍagĭ Doʼag (Greasy Mountain)” (2026), a large-scale triptych created at South Mountain Park and Preserve in Phoenix especially for the exhibition. In it, Romero’s treatment of artist Dre Nolin (San Carlos Apache, Salt River Pima-Maricopa) embodies “the human connection to Coyote and all animals.” By presenting her documented creative process and introducing us to her ever-expanding circle of collaborators, Romero fiercely challenges preconceived notions about Indigenous peoples past and present. Moreover, she invites us to join her around that long table where the dialogue is just getting started. It’s a welcoming that we want to join. Lynn Trimble is a Phoenix-based art writer whose work ranges from arts reporting to arts criticism. During a freelance writing career spanning more than two decades, over 1,000 of her articles exploring arts and culture have been published in magazine, newspaper and online formats. Follow her work on Instagram, @artmusingsaz.

by Matthew Kangas The Seattle Light Room, Seattle Continues through June 27, 2026 Ellen Sollod, “Fleurs Francaises,” altered French-Latin dictionary with photo transfers, 6 x 34” (when opened). All images courtesy of The Seattle Light Room, Seattle. Best known as a maker of artist’s books and art-in-public-places projects, Ellen Sollod’s photographs have rarely been exhibited prior to “La Flâneuse, Le Jardin et Les Fleurs.” After spending years in Lyon, France as co-director of a study abroad program for the University of Washington, Sollod has consolidated her photographs from that time into a mixture of large-scale prints. Here she presents views of public gardens printed on Japanese rice paper. One series of flowers superimposed on the pages of antique French books is complemented with an accordion-style artist’s book of reproductions of floral still lifes from the Musée des beaux arts in Lyon. Situated half-way between Paris and Provence in the south of France, Lyon is well known as the epicenter of avant-garde French cooking. But for Sollod its parks, museums, public buildings and outdoor squares provide the fodder for her highly imaginative manipulation of what might be mistaken for predictable tourist snapshots. That all are in black-and-white is the first clue that they are anything by ordinary. Ellen Sollod, “La Flâneuse (arc gallo-romain),” archival pigment print, 36 x 44”. Disposed into three categories, the exhibition offers a stroll through the artist’s mind as she inhabits the outdoor spaces surrounded by impressive public buildings such as the Hôtel de ville, a Roman amphitheater and ruined arch, and a severe topiary area within the public garden. Dubbed “La Flâneuse” (the lady stroller), “Le Jardin” (the garden), and “Les Fleurs” (the flowers, which cover the book pages and the artist’s book), the groupings are exhibited separately from one another and displayed according to scale and subject. The large-scale prints (35 by 40 inches) are sufficiently ample to convey the magnitude of the civic structures and the fountains, lawns and forested areas of the Botanical Garden. The three largest prints, “Hôtel de ville,” “Arc gallo-romain”and“Jardin topiare” are oblique self-portraits. Timing the exposure to situate herself (back to the camera) in the middle of each site, Sollod extricates herself midway to create a faint ghost-like image that joins contemplation and sight-seeing. In doing so, she inserts herself into a long tradition of literary precedents dating as far back as Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin. Each used the term “fllâneur” to describe the aimless wanderer or stroller in an urban context. All were open to novel experience derived from the observation of urban sights and types. In short, what we today call “people-watching,” often executed sitting down at sidewalk cafes and transiting between them. Women strollers were less frequently mentioned in the novels of Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf. In contemporary artist Sophie Calle’s photowork she has used the activity to trace, follow or stalk ex-boyfriends. Ellen Sollod, “L’if pleureur,” archival pigment print on Kozo Asuka 45 gsm, 11 1/4 x 9 1/2”. Sollod’s solitary figure draws our attention to the architectural and botanical subjects she witnesses and, just as integral to the process, manipulates and alters to her own imaginative ends, much as Woolf does in “Mrs. Dalloway.” Involved yet detached, Sollod’s apparition participates in areas that are otherwise absent of onlookers. Pictures of Roman ruins, such as “Lugundum” and “Arc gallo-romain,” draw our attention to the city’s (and France’s) long history, both preserved and crumbling. “Lugundum” centers on an amphitheater with the artist as the sole actor, directed by a camera but depicted as a vanishing tragedienne. The conical trees of the topiary garden and a smaller print-on-silk, “L’if pleureur,” (weeping willow) point up the differences between major French and English schools of landscape architecture. The former (think of Versailles) adheres to strict orderly layouts, geometric rows of trees and plants, and overall control of nature. The latter (which eventually themselves influenced French gardens) simulates the wildness and unplanned flow of nature. The branches of the weeping willow trees touch the pond’s edge and grasp the banks of the lawn, while the tightly trimmed cones create ornamental and sculptural aspects of nature, only tamed by French intellect and authority. Ellen Sollod, “Le chemin,” archival pigment print on Kozo Asuka 45 gsm, 9 1/2 x 13”. Among the other smaller prints-on-silk, “L’étang” (the pond) and “Le pont” (the bridge) reinforce an intimate viewing encounter. “Les deux arbres” (the two trees) and “La fontaine—sculpture” insert figurative surrogates in the form of the tall trees and the seated stone nude male figure at the fountain’s edge. These are ghosts of another sort, two about to come to life, the other degrading into posterity. The colored flowers on antique book pages (“Amour nuptial” and “Mémoires”) are less original, harking back to Sollod’s artist books, and less mesmerizing than the black-and-white photos. The accordion flip book unravels the floral still lifes from the Lyon museum in an interesting way, but lacks the sculptural grip of her other artist’s books. Encased in a glass-topped display case, it frustrates our desire to pick it up and scan it at leisure — like a flâneur might, given time and a cup of café au lait. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas.

by Matthew Kangas Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Continues through August 2, 2026 Leo Kenney, “The Inception of Magic,” 1945, egg tempera on composite board, 36 1/8 x 24 1/8”. Courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum. Photo: Elizabeth Mann. Following major surveys in 1978 and 2014, “Beyond Mysticism: the Modern Northwest” amplifies the scope of the Northwest School (including the Big Four of Guy Irving Anderson, Kenneth Callahan, Morris Graves, and Mark Tobey), appending ancillary figures like Leo Kenney, William Cumming, George Tsutakawa and Paul Horiuchi. Omitted are parallel modernist art movements being practiced at the same time in the area, chiefly by University of Washington faculty modernists Ambrose Patterson, Walter F. Isaacs, Boyer Gonzales, Paul Bonifas, and Alexander Archipenko. While drawing on the riches of the museum’s permanent collection, by now paramount in its holdings of Tobey, Callahan and Graves, curator Theresa Papanikolas has chosen not to reprise many of the masterpieces her predecessor Patricia Junker highlighted in 2014 in favor of another context: works by better-known American artists who influenced and coexisted with the Big Four and their cohort. Papanikolas has been able to bring some outstanding examples to Seattle to illustrate her viewpoint, emphasizing the connectedness of Northwest artists, rather than their legendary reclusiveness or spiritual isolation. As a result, textbook examples of Surrealists Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, and Yves Tanguy hang near works by Tobey and Graves. They also illuminate contemporaries Margaret Tomkins, Kenney, James FitzGerald and especially Malcolm M. Roberts, whose stunning “View of Aurora Bridge” at night is a stand-out. Malcolm M. Roberts, “Drift No. 2,” 1936, tempera on board 25 1/2 x 20 5/8”. Courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum. In the section titled “The City and Industry,” works by leading Japanese American realists of the 1930s — Kenjiro Nomura, Kamekichi Tokita and Takuichi Fujii — are paired with spirited urban scenes by Reginald Marsh and grain silos by Charles Sheeler and Arthur Dove. Further juxtapositions in a section focusing on Callahan, Graves and Nomura present these artists through an “eco-critical lens.” Also included are the Native American Julius Twohy and African American sculptor James W. Washington, Jr. Papanikolas has also borrowed remarkably strong works by Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley and Alexander Hogue. The Seattleites are thus seen in a national context; ironically, the big names look more quaintly regional than the locals. Of special interest are twelve Grand Coulee Dam paintings by Z. Vanessa Helder. They are nostalgic to be sure, but Helder has been overlooked and is among the strongest of the WPA artists, so her inclusion is on balance a plus. Z. Vanessa Helder, “Pool Below Kettle Falls,” 1939-41, watercolor, 19 x 22 3/4”. Courtesy of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane. Notably, Tobey icons like “Forms Follow Man” (1941-43), “Festival” (1953) and “Electric Night” (1944) are absent because they have been exhibited in the earlier iterations. In addition, Papanikolas chose the works that bolster the points she examined at length in her catalogue essays. I object to the brightly enhanced reproduction of Tobey’s “Cirque d’Hiver” (1933), a pastel on paper which has darkened badly. What with all the acknowledgments in the catalogue to the museum’s conservation department, one wonders why this work was exhibited at all given its sad condition — and why its reproduction was doctored, a practice which borders on the unethical. Kenneth Callahan, “Feller,” 1934, oil on canvas, 31 1/8 x 22”. Courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum. Callahan’s and Graves’ works here serve to strengthen their overall reputations. They look better than ever here. I’d forgotten how great the latter’s large, dark, nearly all-black paintings look, particularly Graves’ “Burial of the New Law” and “Chalice Holding the Stimson Mill” (both 1936). They make his sappy wounded birds of the 1940s and dainty floral still lifes of the 1970s pale by comparison. Graves’ transition to mimicking Asian art is the most strained and unconvincing tactic associated with the Big Four. As for Callahan, despite his constant exposure to Asian art while working as a curator, he, too, fits in better with the WPA, industrial America look. The mural commissions from Weyerhaeuser, “Loggers with Chokers” and “Weyerhaeuser Mill” (both 1944) are commanding presences (although the timber cutting patronage now registers as corporate art-washing). Callahan’s logger paintings, of which “Feller” (1934) is an example, are romantic, possibly homoerotic, reveries of robust workers with muscular posteriors and massive forearms, hacking away. The unexpectedly tender “The Accident” (1939) pairs two co-workers crouching and reclining. Only with “First Seed into the Last Harvest” (1943) and “The Seventh Day” (1952-53) did Callahan arrive at his mystical apotheosis. Morris Graves, “Burial of the New Law,” 1936, oil on canvas, 43 x 38”. Courtesy of the Seattle Art Museum. The final section, “A Pacific Perspective? Northwest Abstract Expressionism” is the most contentious. It’s important to remember that Jackson Pollock (whose 1947 “Sea Change” should have been included) only developed his celebrated “all-over” compositions after being shown Tobey’s work by Clement Greenberg in a New York gallery. I also found the omission of Tobey’s tall Abstract Expressionist masterpiece, “Parnassus” (1963), puzzling. Instead, Horiuchi is paired with Franz Kline. William Ivey, surely the most significant local Abstract Expressionist, is also missing in action. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas.

Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle by T.s. FLock Continuing through October 25, 2026 Eric-Paul Riege “ojo|-|ólǫ́” installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2026. Photo: Jueqian Fang. What still distinguishes museums from privately owned galleries is the possibility, fragile and ever-threatened, of a non-transactional encounter with objects, in which value is understood in terms of intensity of attention and depth of experience. If museums can still lay claim to any form of legitimacy beyond their being levers of aesthetic ideology and intellectual speculation, it resides in their capacity to slow down the incessant flow of produced meaning and to resist the human compulsion to transform everything first into a sign, and then into an asset. Eric-Paul Riege, “yoo’4yay,” 2018-19. Courtesy of the artist, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, and STARS, Los Angeles, CA. Photo: Jueqian Fang. Museums may also claim legitimacy as archives for research, but this assumption lacks examination of the objectivity of the archival impulse — that compulsion to collect, preserve, and catalog. Whether devoted to fine art or to natural history, the museum is a theater where history is written through the arrangement of displays, systems of classification, and especially by what is omitted. That is imperial ideology in its purest form. This critique is key to the intellectual framing of Eric Paul Riege in his show “ojo|-|ólǫ́” (pronounced oh-ho hol-ohn). But the real substance of the show is its emotional core and its sense of humor. It is a delicate tour de force that centers the human element (contact, mark-making, intimacy, and openness) while still engaging in incisive critique. Riege’s large-scale soft sculptures include finished arrangements and more modular pieces that can adapt to the setting. For instance, in one chamber you have a monumental pair of “earrings” titled “jaatłoh4Ye’iitsoh.” Earrings carry a great deal of significance in Diné culture as markers of identity, heritage and connection to other planes. In the chamber across the hall, a series of oversized Concha belts titled “ayo sis’ 8” hang in a row. These were made from abysmally bad reproductions of Concha motifs printed on shower curtains that Riege found online. Eric-Paul Riege, “yoo’4yay.” Courtesy of the artist, Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, and STARS, Los Angeles, CA. Photo: Jueqian Fang. The most salient example of Riege’s use of modularity is in a nearby chamber that is challenging to curate because it connects to the small opening room of the exhibit, a chained-off staircase to the museum’s lower levels, a hall to the rest of the exhibition space, and a door that leads to James Turrell’s skyspace, “Light Reign” via a small outdoor bridge. From the chamber’s high domed ceiling Riege has suspended a long sculpture, “yoo’4yay,” composed from many different elements of his formal vocabulary (balls, discs, cylinders). It feels very much at home there. I use those words “at home” cautiously, and somewhat ironically, because a museum is never truly a home. It is either a place of circulation or a grave. In the United States, indigenous artists bear an additional critical weight in this relationship. Their history is not merely that of a bygone past as imperial record would prefer it to be, but of a present still haunted by ongoing displacement and erasure that they continue to resist. As is necessary, strategies differ from one indigenous artist to another. Some, such as Duane Linklater, adopt a conceptual rigor, dissecting the very structures of museum-based knowledge. There are those, such as Nicholas Galanin, who choose irony, turning institutional codes back upon themselves, and those — Demian Deinéyazhi comes to mind — who strike with critical directness, refusing any form of mediation. Rare is the retort capable of combining humor, intellectual generosity, and firmness — a stance that yields neither to cynicism nor to complacency. This is the precise and beautiful balance struck by Riege in “ojo|-|ólǫ́.” Eric-Paul Riege “ojo|-|ólǫ́” installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2026. Photo: Jueqian Fang. Cultural destruction manifests in layers, in nuances, and in contradictions. Like any profound violence, it distorts the one who wields it just as much as the one who must endure it. Riege’s heart-centered approach seeks to liberate everyone in this dynamic. That precludes a hierarchical attitude in favor of humor and hospitality. Viewers are thus encouraged to touch and interact with sculptures in certain rooms. So bringing it back to the idea of an artwork “being at home,” if it feels more that way, it’s because we are also permitted to feel more at home. Deeper in the exhibition, there is a room featuring a video that becomes a pivot for these various ideas through an unlikely medium: home shopping. Riege was inspired by the appearance of QVC hostesses displaying jewelry by Navajo artisans, or at least plagiarized from them. As mentioned above, such objects are treated as ornamental rather than aesthetic, and it was macabre to see cultural symbols being hawked in a manner that was at once precious and detached. In the video, Riege is dressed in regalia referencing the Navajo deity Spider Woman, the spiritual ancestor of all weavers, as it was from her that they first learned how to weave. Riege channels Vanna White more than Spider Woman, laying objects out and then sweeping them away with theatrical gestures on a table-cum-altar. In the galleries on the opening weekend, Riege enacted a durational performance in the same attire, interacting with looms and the soft sculptures in the gallery in a much clearer embodiment of his spiritual great-great-etc-grandmother. Eric-Paul Riege “ojo|-|ólǫ́” installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2026. Photo: Jueqian Fang. Too often, the gravity of such subjects crushes any attempt at lightness. Riege’s audacity reveals humor as a way to disarm certainties, to carve out openings within the dominant discourse rather than to escape into frivolity. This apparent benevolence in no way diminishes the strength of his convictions; on the contrary, it renders them more penetrating and more difficult to dismiss. The regalia worn in the video and performance is what is first seen as we enter the exhibition. It faces a large reproduction of a weaving comb, “bee adzooí — 11 toes,” rendered in imitation leather. The title refers to a Diné myth linking extra digits to the weaving tradition. Riege comes from a long line of weavers and was also born with eleven toes. The tradition proscribes leaving one’s comb stuck in an unfinished work, and that brings us to an affecting story Riege told during the press tour. When looking through the gallery archives, Riege found an unfinished woven work with the comb still embedded in it. This is not something that would have arrived in the collection voluntarily; one need not be an animist who believes that all things contain a spirit to understand the gravity of this. Like the pathos inspired by seeing skeletons lying beside each other in Pompeii, this became an unintended funerary object, seized from its context and its creator, now assuredly long gone. This was an object of devotion turned into evidence of violence in such a banal fashion that no one had really noticed it before. Eric-Paul Riege “ojo|-|ólǫ́” installation view, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle. 2026. Photo: Jueqian Fang. So yes, our institutions transform care into symbolic capital, curiosity into posturing, and attention into an exploitable resource. The ideologies behind the institution dictate the rules of the game that curators and artists must play, no matter how sincere they may be. A radical modesty is both an appropriate and a subversive response in a world obsessed with hierarchy. It calls for a shift in the locus of authority, moving it away from the power to consecrate and toward the capacity to connect and to care without overdetermining meaning. Above all, it must emphasize belonging with over belonging to. Nothing should feel at home in a museum, but artists like Riege at least use such a platform as a stage to welcome us back home to each other and to the pure impulse to create — not archive — because we simply cannot survive without each other in a world devoid of the meanings we determine together. T.s. Flock is a writer and arts critic based in Seattle and co-founder of Vanguard Seattle.

by Jody Zellen Royale Projects, Los Angeles Continuing through June 6, 2026 Lynn Aldrich, “Grid Buster,” 1989, carpet padding, surge protectors, stereo arrangement of Gregorian Chant and vacuum cleaner noise, 10 x 17 feet. Courtesy of Royal Projects, Los Angeles. In many senses Lynn Aldrich's work is Duchampian. Her nuanced career spans more than forty years of witty and conceptually based works that ingeniously combine found materials, often including household objects, as well as common items from hardware stores. She transforms them into large scale sculptures that often become visual metaphors for the complexities of the natural world. Her expansive works are filled with visual puns, art history, and scientific inquiry. Lynn Aldrich, “All the Colors Will Bleed,” 2026, mixed media wall construction with thread-spool elements. Courtesy of Royal Projects, Los Angeles. The works included in “Romance and Reality Will Kiss One Another” are both new and old. The centerpiece of the exhibition is “Grid Buster” (1989), a room-sized installation. This multifaceted piece takes its point of departure from the German painter Matthias Grunewald's “Isenheim Altarpiece” (c. 1512-16). A small reproduction of the work hangs on the wall and is illuminated by a single tiny light which is plugged into eight interlocked surge protectors hanging below it. On the floor is a huge orange, black and green plaid carpet with the shape of Christ's body removed. The cutout rises above, centered on an adjacent wall, a silhouette mimicking the crucified body. Although created in 1989, the work feels very current as it deals with dissociation and issues of power, religion and faith. In “All I Know So Far” (also 1989) Aldrich cuts apart and horizontally stacks sections of 'flat cactus' paddles, reshaping them into rectangles. They are presented on a wooden shelf bookended by bronzed baby shoes. In this curious juxtaposition, the prickly surface of the cactus and the title “All I Know So Far” implies a potential for danger. Lynn Aldrich, “Backyard Bird Count,” 2026, mixed media construction with colored rods, wire, and framed landscape image. Courtesy of Royal Projects, Los Angeles. Alongside these older pieces are two recent works: “All the Colors Will Bleed” and “Backyard Bird Count” (both 2026). For “All the Colors Will Bleed” Aldrich created a rectangle with more than 100 small, square paint chips. Attached to each chip are like-colored threads. The individual strands move from the edge of the work to its center, where they become a chaotic interwoven pile — a massive tangle of threads — in the shape of an oval. “Backyard Bird Count” combines three sets of pointed fence pickets in varying tones of gray into a rectangle framing a section of astroturf that contains a smaller painted landscape. Attached to the surface of this combine are numerous bird swings (wires with plastic bars) in varying sizes and colors. The implication is that caged birds inhabit an artificial space that also mirrors the 'real' world. Reading the materials list for Aldrich's works provides insight as to the context and content for the pieces. “Parch” (2010), “Free Refill: Never Thirst Again” (2023) and “Desert Prophet” (2026) are made with steel downspouts — vertical conduits connected to gutters that direct water away from the foundations of buildings. Aldrich combines these generic forms, often personifying or combining them to resemble plants or animals. The titles subtly reference water or its lack to direct the reading of the works toward climate change. Lynn Aldrich, “Rose Ghost,” 2015, tulle and plastic. Courtesy of Lynn Aldrich. “Rose Ghost” (2015) is a large circular wall relief made from numerous layers of light purple, nylon tulle held in place by similarly shaped thin sheets of clear plastic. This cut out shape is inspired by the rose windows of Chartres Cathedral. Aldrich's work is simultaneously solid and ephemeral, a ghost-like presence that suggests impermanence in direct contrast with the original. Circular forms are also seen in “Cloud of Unknowing” and “Through the Oculus” (both 2026), where Aldrich collages tools for measuring, images of planets, architectural details with rounded openings, and hand-drawn or painted shapes in shades of blue. Throughout the gallery space Aldrich weaves between past and present. Always aware of the relationship between form and function, she continuously transforms the ordinary — be it garden hoses, tree branches, found postcards or wooden dowels — into something extraordinary and beyond expectation. Her human scaled pieces resonate both formally and conceptually. They are at once familiar, yet also other worldly, and offer multiple pathways for contemplation. Jody Zellen is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit www.jodyzellen.com.

by David S. Rubin Wönzimer, Los Angeles Continues through May 22, 2026 Lawrence Gipe, “In Commemoration of Gardi Sugdub (Vanishing Island),” 2024, oil on canvas, 72 x 96”. All images courtesy of Wönzimer. Art is political, it is often said, yet there are clearly artworks that are Political, with a capital ‘P’, where specific social and moral issues drive the art. Such is the case with the works of the thirteen artists in “DegreeZero: Utopia/Dystopia,” a thought-provoking exhibition curated by participating artists Lawrence Gipe and Constance Mallinson. The curators’ thesis centers on the idea that utopia and dystopia are related to one another, two sides of the same coin like yin and yang. They are interdependent and fluid, with most versions residing in the liminal areas. Topics addressed by the participants include ecological concerns, identity politics, colonialism, and surveillance. Gipe and Mallinson call attention to environmental maladies in their own large representational paintings but bring different temperaments to their respective works. Although Gipe often bases his paintings on black-and-white photos of historical places or events, the source for his “In Commemoration of Gardi Sugdub (Vanishing Island)” (2024) is a full-color aerial view of a Caribbean island that is packed border to border with architecture and currently is in danger of sinking into the sea. Due to the enlarged scale, bold colors, and thick impasto, Gipe’s painting at first appears to be an abstraction. When we scrutinize it further the image resolves into a disturbing reflection on overpopulation and the planet’s diminishing resources.= Constance Mallinson, “Gordian Knot,” 2026, oil on canvas, 48 x 48”. Mallinson’s “Gordian Knot” (2026), by contrast, joyfully conveys a sense of optimism. Set against a black background, it is a lively composition of twigs, leaves, and everyday detritus arranged to resemble a festive Christmas wreath. Rather than pushing towards despair, the work seduces us into considering that the overabundance of waste is a problem to be mitigated through such methods as recycling. Kaya & Blank, “Crude Aesthetics Heliograph #4,” 2026, heliograph plate with crude oil from the La Brea Tar Pits, 4 x 6”. Other artists examine our present-day situation by turning to history. This is exemplified in small works that pack a powerful punch by Mark Steven Greenfield and the team Kaya & Blank, who call attention to the detriments of massive oil consumption in Los Angeles. The artist duo photographed highly trafficked areas like freeway overpasses and fast-food drive-throughs and printed the images on tiny reflective metal plates using the medium’s original heliographic process to develop the images. The technique involves coating a plate with petroleum tar and processing the image in the sun. The artists cleverly tied their choice of material to their subject matter by working with oil from the La Brea Tar Pits. Greenfield also repurposes an art historical format, the Old Master gilded altarpiece. The works here combat racial stereotyping of Blacks and enlighten us about important historical figures that the Western canon has omitted. Each subject is meticulously painted within a circle surrounded by a gold leaf field. Each single figure sports a halo that conveys a saintly stature. Keith Walsh, “Socialist Workers Party U.S. and Descendents,” 2021, ink, color pencil and vinyl emulsion paint on paper, 71 x 43”. One of the most riveting works here is a history lesson in itself. Keith Walsh’s “Socialist Workers Party U.S. and Descendants” (2021) is a visually dynamic, precisely hand-painted charting of far-left activism in the United States from 1945 to the present. Whereas reading conventional historical diagrams might prove tedious, Walsh’s painting achieves the opposite effect. Rendered in black and red on white (colors associated with Russian political posters of the early 20th century) and incorporating portraits of some of the left’s key figures (such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the composition is incredibly animated. Works by Hilary Baker and Ben Jackel employ sparse visual vocabularies. The barren landscape in Baker’s “Aspen Grove Estates” (2023) serves as a haunting reminder that it has become increasingly difficult for the painting’s bewildered animals to find the food they need for sustenance. Jackel’s “Bat” (2017) is a sleek sculptural replication of a drone that quietly calls attention to threats posed by new technologies whose destructive force is only beginning to be understood. Austin Caswell and Lynn Aldrich juxtapose uncommon materials to focus on the cyclical nature of environmental growth and decay. Caswell’s sculpture “The Dressing and the Drift” (2026) is a disconcerting arrangement of a decaying tree branch and a displaced rock, a metaphoric allusion to nature itself being out of order. Aldrich’s “POST-EXTINCTION START-UP” (2019-26), constructed from fake rock pump covers, pet caves, and pools, imagines a future civilization and the possibility of rebirth. Another way to explore contemporary issues is through fictitious narratives, as exemplified by Umar Rashid’s painting of a generic battle scene where Black warriors are represented as equestrians wearing polo shirts, a symbol of social and economic status from which people of color have long been excluded. Marcos Serafim employs digital technology in his video/installation performance “semipermeable: syringe” (2024-ongoing), which examines the prevalence of selective processes in determining who would receive medical treatment for HIV/AIDS or be allowed to cross the U.S./Mexico border. At the exhibition opening the artist performed the work live, manipulating sound via computer as an audience witnessed a jarring, psychedelic vision of intermingling mostly male bodies, mostly male, alternately shown receiving medication from a syringe and kissing. Beihua Guo, “Beihua Shoots the Bomb,” 2025, stills from single-channel video, 5 min. 48 sec. Liz Cohen and Beihua Guo take a yet more performative approach by inserting themselves into their narratives. Cohen’s intriguing photographs celebrate her mixed heritage (Colombian, born to Jewish and Catholic parents) while championing female empowerment. In “Black Execution” (2010), she poses in a bikini to show off her toned body (having worked with a trainer), while standing next to a hybrid automobile that she made (having studied auto mechanics) by converting a German sedan into an American low rider. Appearing as an enthusiastic photographer in his video “Beihua Shoots the Bomb” (2025), Guo brings a welcome note of levity to the exhibition. As Dr. Strangelove reincarnated, he takes us on a hilarious journey as he documents atomic bombs exploding all around him. Let’s hope that on Earth One it doesn’t come to that. David S. Rubin is a Los Angeles-based curator, writer, and artist. As a curator, he has held positions at MOCA Cleveland, Phoenix Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, and San Antonio Museum of Art. As a writer he has contributed to Art and Cake, Art in America, Arts Magazine, Artweek, ArtScene, Fabrik, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Visual Art Source. He has published numerous exhibition catalogs, and his curatorial archives are housed in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. For more information: www.davidsrubin.com.

by Matthew Kangas Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle Continues through May 16, 2026 Norman Lundin, “Studio Floor and Wall,” 2025, oil on canvas mounted on archived panel, 19 1/2 x 30”. All images courtesy of Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle. Subjectivity of vision is one qualifier for legitimate realism, and Norman Lundin’s new paintings express that in spades. Seen in an exhibition titled “Landscapes, Mostly, Other Things Too,” Lundin’s breadth of vision and subject matter has never been more evident or elegantly expressed. To each traditional genre he explores — landscape, still lifes, figures — he brings a deeply personal, often brooding and ominous insight that obliquely reflects the darker elements of the time we inhabit, including environmental danger, strained personal relationships, and the tendency to escape into worlds just this side of fantasy. Now approaching 90, Lundin has had a lifetime of international achievements both as a painter and as an admired teacher, with numerous visiting residencies piled on top of his 40 years at the University of Washington School of Art. His tenure there was somewhat at odds with the 1920s School of Paris ties of department co-founders Ambrose Patterson and Walter Isaacs and their students’ postgraduate studies with Fernand Léger in Paris. Lundin’s closest friend on the faculty, Francis Celentano, was a pioneering Optical Perceptualist. Could their influence have had an effect on the bracingly formal compositions of their younger colleague despite his hyper-traditional training in Norway and at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Cincinnati? Norman Lundin, “Coffee Pot and Two Cups,” 2026, oil on canvas, 36 x 48”. Examining the 19 paintings on display, all done just in the past two years, the formalists’ shadow is unmistakable. Gridding up the picture plane, as in “Studio Evening,” “Studio Floor and Wall” (both 2025) and “Coffee Pot and Two Cups” (2026), Lundin’s pictorial strategies seem haunted by his late colleagues in a way that only strengthens their staying power and adds to their mysterious content. Still life and landscape elements are so separated from one another that they tempt a symbolic reading. Colors are restricted, too, as if in a Cubist palette, so that a bright red band on a paper cup sticks out and a thin white line of sunset above the ocean beach doubles as a pure horizontal line regardless of the landscape depicted. A captive of realism due to his training and teaching, Lundin has escaped tedious repetition of subject by varying each encounter with nature or the studio, averting strict identification in favor of delicately placed objects and closely observed outdoor scenes, increasingly darkened by weather, wildfire smoke, and the solitude of a studio. Norman Lundin, “Wetlands Stream,” 2026, oil on canvas, 36 x 60”. The studio window is a constant in the new interiors, often seen late in the day, prodding us to gaze out at indeterminate skylines or adjacent buildings and construction sites. In turn, these take on the role of formal organizers, pulling each painting together in ways that go beyond the mundane subjects of the scene: tables, coffee cups, water carafes and cardboard boxes. For example, in “Across the Studio” (2026) a white plastic detergent bottle sits on a table between a cropped stepladder on the right and three paintings to the left stacked against the wall with their backs facing us. Seemingly random, the composition is a perfect balance among the elements. Two smaller cardboard boxes peek out from behind the ladder. Redefining a still life, Lundin inserts objects of autobiographical significance. They render the composition a quiet tour de force and a talisman of the artist’s activity within the privacy of the studio. In “Box and Three Jars” (2025), the centered cardboard box atop a black table holds the jars above a white can against a gray background. To a modernist, the “Homages to a Square” series (1950-1976) of Bauhaus master Josef Albers are inescapable historical forerunners. With “Light Bulb and Drapery” (2025), the light bulb acts as a pun for effusive artificial light throughout, and the drapery is an oblique homage to Lundin’s old friend, stripe-painter Celentano. Norman Lundin, “Lightbulb and Drapery,” 2025, oil on canvas, 34 x 50”. The new landscapes are familiar but tinged with a gloom that is the formal result of smoky late-afternoon or evening skies and smoldering forests nearly set on fire. Together with the still lifes, they, too, offer potentially symbolic readings of nature in peril. In a crowd of younger eco-conscious landscape painters, these recent views lift Lundin beyond his realist and modernist legacies with great ease that makes for a late career triumph. Matthew Kangas writes regularly for Visual Art Source eNewsletter; Ceramics: Art & Perception (Australia); and Preview (Canada). Besides reviewing for many years at Art in America, American Craft, Art Ltd., Vanguard and Seattle Times, he is the author of numerous catalogs and monographs, the latest being the award-winning Italo Scanga 1932-2001. Four anthologies of his critical essays, reviews and interviews were issued by Midmarch Arts Press (New York) and available on Amazon at Books by Matthew Kangas.

by John Zotos Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas, Texas Continuing through May 9, 2026 Anna Membrino, “Dew,” 2026, acrylic on canvas, 65 x 65”. All images courtesy of Erin Cluley Gallery, Dallas. In Anna Membrino’s approach, landscape painting starts with photographs of the natural world. Then, with a technique involving collage and digital alterations on a computer screen, she arrives at an image worthy of the intense shifts in scale, color, and surreal mystery that has defined her output over the last ten years. The images are surreal to the degree that they depict a reality with a color scheme all their own. It’s a presence replete with memories, anxiety, bliss, and/or dreams. Her major works always require a large-scale format, which in a work like “Dew” averages around 65 by 65 inches. Anna Membrino, “Steep,” 2026, acrylic on canvas, 69 x 69”. For these new paintings, Membrino has inverted her point of view. Previously we beheld a scene as if walking onto a theatrical stage, where the vegetation and other elements form a perimeter around a clearing. Now Membrino places us among, or behind, the elements that form that visual border, obstructing the view onto a vast space beyond. By doing so, the scale of the elements closer to the surface are perceived as larger than in reality. This resembles the cinematic use of such a conceit by Raul Ruiz in his neo-surrealist film melodramas, where flowers and vegetation move around the actors, engulfing the frame and disorienting the viewer. Anna Membrino, “Drift,” 2026, acrylic on canvas, 65 x 72”. In “Steep” (2026), a vertical stalk with leaves sprouting in all directions firmly occupies the foreground in a deep, detailed, pulsating blue. It resembles a bamboo tree that has taken up most of the center left area of the canvas. After trying to peer beyond the tree, we see farther into the background. There are a series of rolling hills in a lilac-purple hue that bathes them in sunlight, surrounding a watery lagoon in blue that also reflects the rays of light. In the deep background there is a hint of light red, a sign that dawn approaches. We either delve into memories of consciousness on the shore of oblivion, like the instant we wake from a dream, or suddenly lapse into sleep. Anna Membrino, “Blaze No. 5,” 2026, acrylic on canvas, 16 x 12”. In  the largest work, “Drift” (2026), we peer through a vantage point in the center of the composition defined by long vegetative stalks capped by leaves rendered in a light turquoise. Bathed in light, the flora navigate the canvas from the left, around the top, and to the right, circumscribing the visual field and obstructing a clear view of the sky in the background. Visible below is a water feature surrounding a span of land in green. The hint of a horizon line intentionally gives “Drift” a measure of depth missing in other paintings like “Steep” and “Dew,” where obstruction and confinement complicate Membrino’s ever-changing relationship with nature. What never varies is the idea that the viewer stands in for the general human presence. There remains no evidence of the human figure in these paintings, or any suggestion of how the landscapes may have fallen prey to human agency. Unlike in the physical world, where we’re hard-pressed to find untouched nature — primarily because it only exists as something culturally identified — Membrino’s hyper-realities may offer a temporary escape from the actuality of our painful present. John Zotos  is an art critic and essayist based in Dallas.

by Jody Zellen David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, California Continuing through April 25, 2026 Elizabeth Murray, “2.B.!,” 1990, oil, matchsticks, canvas and wood, 68 1/4 x 49 x 4 1/2”. All images courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles. The surprising yet somehow inevitable pairing of Elizabeth Murray (1940 - 2007) and Betty Woodman (1930 - 2018), two artists whose beautiful, idiosyncratic works made them icons of their generation, opens up new avenues of discovery. Woodman, a ceramicist and Murray, a painter, were both exceptional colorists who created abstract works utilizing eccentric shapes and patterns to explore the relationships between composing in two- and three-dimensional spaces. They experimented with hybrid forms. Murray's canvases were hardly ever just rectangles, and Woodman's ceramics often included a painted element mounted on the wall. Both women were known for layering geometric and organic forms to build their complex, nuanced and idiosyncratic pieces.  The exhibition unfolds like a conversation or a dialectic in which we contemplate the relationships between the works. Within two modestly sized spaces are paintings and sculptures spanning the years 1982-2015. Installed to highlight formal relationships (and not chronologically), the objects prompt the eye to zig-zag across the walls, at first taking in all of Murray's bombastic painted reliefs, then scanning Woodman's more delicate, freestanding and wall-based ceramics. Eventually we hone in on where they intersect. Is it through texture? Color? Shape? Or the fracturing of surfaces? Betty Woodman, “Reaching,” 2012, glazed earthenware, epoxy resinb, lacquer, acrylic paint and canvas, 26 x 46 1/2 x 1 1/2”. Murray’s “2.B.!” (1990) hangs next to Woodman's “Reaching” (2012). “2.B.!” is a three-dimensional oil in which Murray collaged together cut-out canvases that form a backwards letter "B," a reversed number "2," and a bright pink exclamation point. The work takes its point of departure from the graffiti lettering that covered the walls and subway cars of New York in the 1970s and 80s. It also references the soliloquy in Shakespeare's “Hamlet” in which the words "to be, or not to be" are spoken. In “Reaching,” Woodman adheres flat fragments of curvilinear earthenware glazed in white, red and black to a canvas painted with an array of subtly colored concentric rectangles. The orange lines that fill the "B" echo the black lines of glaze in Woodman's ceramic shapes. Another notable relationship transpires between Woodman's “Balustrade Relief Vase: 96-20” (1996), and Murray's “Midnight Special” (2000), installed across the wall from one another. In “Balustrade Relief Vase,” Woodman breaks apart vase forms and assembles the varied pieces on the wall. The shapes appear to dance as we try to reconstruct the object. Murray's large painting shares a similar palette to Woodman's ceramic deconstruction, as well as its spirit of light-hearted composition. Murray's work is filled with intestine-like shapes that encircle her oval canvases. Elizabeth Murray, “Moonbeam,” 1995-96, oil, canvas and wood, 109 x 63 x 6”. Murray's “Moonbeam” (1995-1996) and Woodman's “Santa Barbara” (2005) use different subject matter while engaging in another compelling dialogue. In “Moonbeam,” Murray brings the outside in. Her paintings often depict abstractions of domestic interiors. This one is essentially a bed with two pillows that twist and turn in on themselves. The bedposts curve into the painting and hover over the pillows as collaged elements. A painted green-yellow line that cuts diagonally across the composition is the moonbeam of the title. Like many of Woodman's other pieces, “Santa Barbara” is a combination of painting and ceramic. In this work, she depicts a quasi-interior space. A light blue and pink painted backdrop is bisected by a washy black horizontal band. In front of this is a ceramic vessel in two parts from which emerges swirling fragments that boil to the top of the wall. Looking at Murray’s work and then at Woodman’s, one sees spectacular formal similarities, especially in both artists' use of shape and color. Betty Woodman, “Santa Barbara,” 2005, glazed earthenware, epoxy resin, lacquer, paint and canvas, 95 1/4 x 84 3/4 x 9”. At work are forces drawn from Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, as both women were interested in breaking forms apart and putting them together anew. They reimagined traditional art mediums, never denying their interest in formalism while pushing boundaries and often exploring the relationship between the artwork and its placement. The blurring of positive and negative space and traditional figure/ground relationships were key to both artists' practices. While never denying their femininity, they created large, extravagant works filled with vigor and energy, as well as an undeniable delicacy and intimacy. Both employed abstract language, delighting in visual pleasures, and were dedicated to their chosen media while rebuffing accepted aesthetic norms, opting to chart their own paths. Seeing their works together allows for a conversation that examines similarities and differences in themes and approaches pertinent to both artists. The comparison is enriching. Jody Zellen  is a LA based writer and artist who creates interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artist’s books. Zellen received a BA from Wesleyan University (1983), a MFA from CalArts (1989) and a MPS from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (2009). She has exhibited nationally and internationally since 1989. For more information please visit  www.jodyzellen.com .

by Michael Shaw Perrotin, Los Angeles, California Continuing through April 25, 2026 JR, “The Wrinkles of the City, Istanbul, Hasan Saltik Eye, Turkey,” 2015. All images courtesy of the artist and Perrotin Los Angeles. Having never previously seen JR’s work in person, taking in his mini-retrospective, titled “Horizons,” I’ve still fallen short of experiencing the quintessential JR: a large-scale black & white mural. Most typically these are photographs of an individuals’ eyes, sometimes full face, looking directly out at the viewer, ideally several of them clustered together. Made with “ wheat past[e] and gigantic mono photographs ” the media itself is about as unsophisticated as it gets, but not so the results. One of several murals reproduced here, as a now upscale framed photo, features the party-space host Jim Budman’s eyes and brow glaring out at us in the Venice neighborhood of L.A. Another is of a loving older couple resting atop a roof in downtown L.A., presumably only visible if you were in a higher rise building nearby, or in a helicopter. Both were part of his “ Wrinkles of the City ” series from 2011. As it quickly becomes clear, these murals were designed as much for reproduction — including, naturally, on social media — as for the in situ experience. JR, “Giants, Kikito, October 7th 6:40 p.m, Tecate, Border Mexico-USA,” 2017. JR had the foresight, the ambition, and even the community-engagement skills to launch his iconic cropped portraits, first in his native Paris but soon into urban landscapes around the world, with a high virality quotient. My introduction to his work (from afar) was a powerful collection of eyes, along with partial and occasional full faces, spread across a favela in Rio de Janeiro, an action he called “ Women Are Heroes ” (2008). Fast forward to “Horizon,” which samples various works from the last 15 years, and those earliest gestures of insurgency and rebellion have been diluted, even neutered, by the realities of the market and JR’s ascendency in it. Like Bansky, JR’s work compresses the divide between street art and high art, and he’s become nearly as well-known as Banksy in the process. Another quality these two artists share is their accessibility. It just isn’t possible to have that level of notoriety without being both easily digestible and inducing a degree of sympatico with a mass viewing audience. Two projects from “Horizons” stand out for comparison in their divergence: one for its use of the human figure, the other without. The former, “ Giants, Kikito ” (2017) was produced at the U.S.-Mexico border in the city of Tecate. This black-and-white photo-mural cutout is of a towering toddler peering over the border fence, his fingers appearing to rest upon it. One of the exhibition’s photos embraces this illusion, while another exposes the mural’s intervention: an aerial photo showing the thoroughly scaffolded structure Kikito was built onto, and its actual proximity a good 50-or-so feet from the border fence so as to capture that ideal scale. Additionally, there’s an eight-foot-tall ink-on-wood-fencing object, with roughly the same perspective of the 1st photo, though in this version we see a man atop the scaffolding, just to Kikito’s right. An adorable child (whom JR met with his family in Tecacte) bridging the literal and symbolic gaps of this perpetual geopolitical showdown, melts our hearts and presumably melts this arbitrary borderline along with it. Using a toddler as opposed to an adult is a far narrower tightrope to walk. JR, “Giants, “Death Valley, Billboard, March 5, 2017, 3.03 pm, California, USA,”, 2017, color photograph, matte Plexiglas, aluminum, wood, 42 15/16 x 68 1/2”. Nearby is “ Giants, Death Valley, Billboard, Mars 5, 2017, 9:46 am, California, USA ” (2017), a unique framed color photo of a black-and-white billboard of a section of mountains, which is in turn a trompe l'oeil image that mimics an actual stretch of the Death Valley mountainside behind it. The piece, rather than being an outlier in JR’s work due to the landscape subject — and which owes at least a little something to the legendary conceptual photographer Kenneth Josephson — is part of a significant subset of such projects. It came out of a collaboration with the popular band Arcade Fire for one of their albums. This is where one may be inclined to slam JR for selling out, and yet, at the same time, what big-time photographer worth their salt doesn’t manage to cash in on their commercial bankability? It’s really just a framing issue (literally and figuratively): Arcade Fire, in addition to being popular is well respected, and one could just as well say that the band is providing the artist with a creative opportunity as vice versa. At least compared with JR’s other tromp l’oeil work, and despite its conceptual backbone, “Giants” lacks the populist charm of its human-spun counterparts. JR, “Tehachapi, The Road, Anamorphosis, #1, USA,” 2022, color print, mounted on dibond, matte Plexiglas, 40 9/16 x 60 1/4”. Another notable project documented here is his work with Tehachapi, a prison a couple hours north of L.A. in Kern County, officially known as California Correctional Institution. A video screening shows JR photographing some of the inmates from above on a rolling scaffold, interspersed with individual inmates telling some of their stories, and his meeting with the inmates as a group. These portraits (only shown in the video, which is not included in the exhibition), cast the inmates as saintly and give them a wide breadth of humanity. To describe them as ‘repentant’ would be the obvious characterization, but there’s room for various interpretations. One unique photo (the fact that more than half the photos in “Horizons” are unique as opposed to editions is a noteworthy choice), “ Tehachapi, The Road, Anamorphosis, #1, USA ,” (2022), was a collaboration with the inmates, who wheat-pasted the exterior walls of the prison with an image of a road leading out of it. The actual windows of the prison become portals thanks to the easel-like armatures in the mural, a gesture that gives the prisoners a voice, if only a symbolic one. The community building and direct social contact JR (and his team) engaged in is incredibly admirable and, going back to bridging street art and high art, this is, in a sense, bridging the wealth of the high art world with the social and financial powerlessness of prisoners; not in the same place, of course, but the overlap alone is commendable. JR has long since transcended his graffiti-artist roots, and now it’s hard not to see him as suffering from a savior syndrome. It’s not to say that artists with means cannot or should not give back to the community, spread the wealth, etc. Of course not. It’s that when they do, it’s often all we can think about. And that’s the takeaway from these experiences, these activations, of “Horizons.” Their power and consequence can only be moved so far from their original context before they become shells of themselves. Michael Shaw  is a Los Angeles-based artist and activist. His work was recently included in the exhibition “ Meshuganah ” at A Very Serious Gallery in Chicago, as well as the exhibitions “ Sociality ” at LA Tate gallery in 2023, and It’s My House!  at the Porch Gallery in Ojai, CA, in 2022, and has been exhibited throughout the U.S. He is the recipient of a Culver City Arts grant in 2023, a Puffin Foundation Grant and the Rauschenberg Emergency Grant in 2022, the Center for Cultural Innovation’s Quick Grant in 2021, and the New Student Award at Hunter College, where he received his MFA. Visit Michael Shaw’s website .