Paul Henry Ramirez

Paul Henry Ramirez's "Playconics 4" 2011 via Galerie Richard

During its 21-year history Paris’ Galerie Jean-Luc & Takako Richard has been a platform for emerging and mid-career artists to blossom. Last Thursday the gallery opened its New York branch. With a shortened name, Galerie Richard's inaugural event was a well-attended opening for Paul Henry Ramirez’s first solo exhibition in four years, PLAYCONICS.

The artist describes his paintings as “biogeomorphic abstractions.” The cartoonish, geometric paintings look like a multi-colored lava lamp of sexual anatomy. They have an animated quality as the abstract innuendos morph and flow towards and away from each other. The clear and perfect lines give the impression that Ramirez is illustrating the physics of some alternate world.

Be sure to ask for gloves in order to participate in the interactive TIPSY paintings, a selection of works that are rigged up so the viewer may spin the canvasses to view different compositions of the abstractions.

PLAYCONICS is on view at Galerie Richard in Chelsea until October 15^th.

Lisa Nankivil: Lines of Inference

Lisa Nankivil, The Aerialist, 2011 via Spanierman Modern

Abstractionist Lisa Nankivil might wake up feeling green one day. She begins there, then walks away for a while, returns, and continues improvising until she completes another lush, colorful world. In her latest exhibition Lines of Inference, Nankivil creates stripes with brushes aided by blades, squeegees, planks of cardboard and wood, and a T-square on wheels. Sometimes she scrapes and smudges lines together, or drips paint and lets gravity do the work. The varied tones of paint and techniques of application produce a clear tension between surface and deep space. At the same time the consistency of lines in an innumerable rainbow of solid, blended, bright, and muted colors create a contrast of order and chaos. A completely different viewing experience emerges as the viewer steps away and fine lines become indiscernible.

See a complete gallery of works from Lines of Inference and an interview with Nankivil.

Lines of Inference is now on view at Spainerman Modern in Midtown through September 2^nd.