Contributed by Clare Gemima / In Erica Mao’s paintings, presented in “Reach Through the Veil” at Rachel Uffner Gallery, figures flee from danger. Yet the artist does not allow her characters access to refuge, or any guarantee that safety has ever been in reach. Mao has thrashed paint, then re-painted, and then thrashed paint again to create compositions of furious journeying, beating rhythmic anxiety into her characters’ faces. Somewhat cruelly, Mao locks her figures in unwarrantedly self-assured moments, knowingly rendered short by liquified cliffs, exotic swamps, ominous caves, and sulking tree trunks.