Tag: Magenta Plains

Solo Shows

Alex Kwartler: Open to the world

Contributed by Shirley Irons / In a dream, I asked Alex Kwartler if his work was about the unreliability of images. God no, he yelled. “Off-Peak,” his current show at Magenta Plains, presents modestly scaled paintings that read across the room like music, with beats and rests, highs and lows. Their subjects include tender representation, stark pop, painterly abstraction, tin can lids, dots, drains, and shipwrecks. They echo and repeat. Their consistency lies in his assured, skillful paint handling. When you can do anything with paint, why not just do it? 

Gallery Guides NYC Gallery Guide

NYC Selected Gallery Guide, February 2026

Contributed by Sharon Butler / It’s February and my head is already spinning. I saw a few shows yesterday and recommend a trip to 15 Orient on 72 Walker Street (enter on Cortlandt Alley) to see Mitchell Kehe’s show “Bonded by the Spirit of Doubt,” in which enigmatic composition seems to affirm and concretize the pit I feel in my stomach. If narrative is more your jam, stop by LUNCH, a pop-up space downstairs from NADA headquarters at 311 East Broadway. Bill Arning has curated a show called “Ambiguous Storytellers” featuring Hannah Barrett, Tyler Brandon, Ario Elami, Matthew Gilbert, T.J. Griffin, Paula Hayes, Brian Kenny, Phil Knoll, Steven Lack, Jean Paul Mallozzi, Daniel Morowitz, Donna Moylan, Rajab Ali Sayed, and Erik Daniel White. Don’t miss Hilary Harnischfeger’s “Song for Clouds,” the artist’s fifth exhibition at Uffner & Liu. She crafts handmade objects that uncannily reflect the geological processes of tectonic pressure, sediment layering, and mineral buildup. Two Coats fave Alex Kwartler returns to Magenta Plains with “Off-Peak,” a solo show in which he presents “an inventory of passing attentions” that perfectly capture this age of distraction.

Solo Shows

Paul Gardère’s prescient eclecticism

Contributed by Adam Simon / Paul Gardère (1944–2011), whose work is now on view in “Second Nature” at Magenta Plains, is known for a unique version of combine paintings, incorporating assemblage, found objects, photography, dirt and glitter into works that critique the legacy of colonialism in Haiti and its diaspora. The problem with this narrative is that it undersells how formally innovative his work was in its time, the degree to which it stems from his own biography, and how it anticipated our current multi-screen reality.

Solo Shows

Dan Dowd and the folds of memory

Contributed by Mark Wethli / As I viewed Dan Dowd’s intimate and poetic work, now at Magenta Plains, I considered our inclination to cathect feelings and memories onto objects. Clothing in particular echoes the shapes of our bodies; touches them; connotes gender, time, and economic status; and absorbs everything from our scent to our DNA. Dowd creates small, iconic assemblages out of found materials, including fragments of inner tubes, clothing, rags, and home décor.

Solo Shows

Jane Swavely and the Bowery tradition

Contributed by Michael Brennan / Magenta Plains is located on the Bowery, just as it breaks left onto Canal Street, in Chinatown. Upon entering, viewers are immediately greeted by a washy terre verte Jane Swavely painting, OID #3 Green, hanging above the desk. It sets an organic tone and is indicative of the half-dozen paintings to follow, hanging in the first-floor main gallery. Swavely’s seven canvases are all vertical, and are mostly diptychs, internalized or externalized. They are loosely painted with a 2- to 2 ½-inch flat brush, heavy on the solvent, with some wiping away by hand. Much color mixing happens directly on the surface. Swavely favors flared, phosphorescent hues. She cleverly manipulates paint with rags to create the illusion of light emitting from the ground. Her work glows, appearing backlit.

Solo Shows

Don Dudley’s pure authenticity

Contributed by Adam Simon / Don Dudley’s minimalism has always had a West Coast flavor, more concerned with perception than objecthood. Like many artists of his generation, he has steered clear of expressionism, or anything that shifted attention from the object to the artist. His focus has been on the purely visual.

Solo Shows

Memento Vivere: Danica Lundy at Magenta Plains

Contributed by Margaret McCann / Like a strobe light gifted with consciousness, Danica Lundy lets whatever she sees point a way through a painting. The six works in �Three Hole Punch� at Magenta Plains are informed by memories of soccer practice, parties, school, and more � themes that function mainly as armatures for corporeal drama and mesmerizing painting detail.