Come Closer to Kris Kuksi’s Macabre Baroque at Joshua Liner Gallery

I’ll say it again, Kris Kuksi’s sculptures need to be seen in person. See all the obsessive sculptural nuances by the modern Rococo master up close. Don’t just squint at the .jpgs but come and walk up to these floating islands, dripping in details, blooming with guns barrels, anachronistic soldiers, machines in decay. What is it about growing up lonely in rural Kansas in a broken home that makes one make stuff like this? Beats us. See the freshest, like the mythical-themed first three above at: Kris Kuksi, “Triumph,” Mar 8 – Apr 7, Joshua Liner Gallery, NYC

Nasty Wars, Carnal Bedlam and More on City Life From Cleon Peterson

We’re big fans of Cleon Peterson’s meticulously-constructed orgies of ultraviolence: His narrative panels are akin to graphic novels and his depressing social commentary is festively hued. Peterson’s latest series deals with wars between individuals: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Read more »

Joshua Liner Gallery presents the work of 24 artists for their summer group exhibit. Japanese folktales explode in acrylic collages, the kids that aren’t alright are lost in abstractions  and a shelly sea hybrid slowly slumps ashore. Preview the work below. Read more »

Joshua Liner Gallery presents From Kojiki to Modern Heroism, a group exhibition of New York-based Japanese artists Tat Ito and Hiro Kurata, opening this Saturday. Ito’s abstract explosions of neon and polka-dot smoke-structures float atop historical Japanese imagery, symbolizing the “oil on water” of the hovering Western viewpoint and the anxiety in mixing the two. Kurata’s allegorical narrative pits East and West against each other, with “destruction and strength of the baseball bat” and “stability and gentleness of the armrest chair” in a surrealistic death match, ka-pow. Social cartography via killer pictorials: It’s a double win, so don’t miss.

“From Kojiki to Modern Heroism,” Feb 13 – Mar 13, Joshua Liner Gallery, Manhattan

Candice Tripp Paints Kids in Crisis

Working with oil and ink, Candice Tripp renders childhood scenes, stylistically carefree but actually complex. Through these images, isolated on large white canvases, the South African artist illustrates the challenges kids grapple with, issues like self control, imagined as a pack of disruptive “skull monkeys” breaking out of a girl’s dome. “Tiny Drama,” a solo exhibition of these paintings, is on view concurrently with Kris Kuksi’s macabre sculptures at Joshua Liner Gallery.

“Tiny Drama,” November 21 – December 19, Joshua Liner Gallery, 548 West 28th, 3rd Floor

Kris Kuksi Scavenges Sinister Sculptures

Out of broken toys, mechanical parts and other detritus, artist Kris Kukis builds intriciately macabre sculptures requiring a studied look. A “scavenger of pop-cultural castoffs,” the Kansas-based artist opens an exhibition of these assemblages, which include St. Anthony, patron of lost causes, darkly pondering a small soldier in one hand and a spiked bat in the other. “Beast Anthology” opens November 21st at Joshua Liner Gallery.

“Beast Anthology,” November 21 – December 19, Joshua Liner Gallery, 548 West 28th, 3rd Floor

Illustrating the screwed-up state of our environment, artist Ryan McLennan paints wild animals struggling to survive in barren landscapes where only the bone pile grows. Over the weekend, the Virginia-based artist opened a solo exhibition at Joshua Liner Gallery featuring three-legged moose, strung up carcasses, tangled animals and other vulture food. “The Strain of Inheritance” is on view through November 14th at 548 West 28th Street, 3rd Floor.

Over the weekend, artist Evan Hecox opened “The Last Thousand Years,” an exhibition of city scenes inspired by his travels in Vietnam. Using a subdued palette inflected with nuanced splashes of color, Hecox renders “the everyday existence of average people as they traverse the detritus of the modern metropolis.” Chelsea’s Joshua Liner Gallery will keep the Denver-based painter’s work on view through October 10th at 548 West 28th Street, 3rd floor. Prints of Hecox’s “Red Banner Hang Duong Street,” measuring 24 x 30 inches, are available for $350 from a limited edition of 50.

This weekend in Chelsea, Joshua Liner Gallery opens two solo shows of fantastical and dreamlike paintings Mike Davis and Heidi Taillefer. While Taillefer imagines serpent headed women, flying cats and animals hacked with mechanical parts, Davis renders the surreal collision of classical scenes with anthropomorphic animals and objects. The two exhibitions, “An Uncanny Lineup of Serendipitous Connections” and “Stories From the Other Side of the Bridge,” open on Saturday from 6 to 9 PM through June 27th at 548 West 28th Street.