Category: reviews

by John Mendelsohn

What is painting magic? How do we recognize it? What is it good for?

These questions arise from thinking about the work of Jeffery Bishop and Mason Dowling in their current two-person exhibition. Both artists employ painterly processes of their own invention, creating personal genres of image making that move us beyond wondering “How did they do that?”. Part of the fascination engendered by both artists is the slight-of-hand of seductive effects, misdirecting us while something else is transpiring, just beyond our conscious awareness.

In Bishop’s case, a silkscreened or collaged image often become a central motif, with a seemingly generative power to create a confounding visual field in turmoil around it. In the artist’s two large Fathom Compression pieces, a complex, symmetrical, silkscreened form anchors the billowing of diluted ink, a mysterious grisaille realm of liquid of pools and crevasses. The innermost form can be read as a kind of holy monster, or wizard behind the screen, whose identity is subsumed by the tempest he creates. Both the ink’s unpredictable flow, and the work’s title alert us that we have entered a realm of consciousness where sinking into its depths carries both wonders and perils.

In Bishop’s Sidewinder series, a writhing, nubile form, applied to the painting’s surface as a chine collé, moves like a spill of mercury or a dancing, cybernetic demon. This avatar rules over a small kingdom whose landscape is comprised of an archive of the artist’s favored graphic motifs. In Sidewinder #6 a snaky cadmium red shape overlays Bishop’s spears, streamings, and distressed surfaces.

Bishop’s Interval pieces are perhaps the most intimate and personal works here. In these paintings, cotton on panel act as a kind of private diary, carrying a gritty atmosphere of grayed tendrils acrylic, fragments of vibratory waves, and trapezoids with peaked studs of silver paint. In Interval #8, shards of white wings float high above the miasma that they have escaped.

Mason Dowling creates hallucinatory paintings with a deceptively simple method – cut paper affixed to a panel, squeegeed with passes of color. The result is a gorgeous field of flaring hues that appear and fade away unpredictably. Complicating matters, the cutaway shapes catch darkness within them, spilling shadows onto the surrounding surface. The effect is a kind of solarization, with negative and positive trading places within a single painting.

For all their beauty, there is a sublimated fierceness at work here, with the sharp forms cut into the surface, and the charred shadows that threatens the streaks of cerise, scarlet, and gold. There is, as well, a kind of temptation at work: we are asked against our better judgement to trade the pleasure of looking, only to find the risk that lurks as the price of the bargain.

A number of the painting feature a softened, almost blurred appearance that seems to allude to the natural world, specifically to the high desert of New Mexico, where the artist was raised. We can see in these and other paintings the weathered geology, the powerful light, and scorching heat of this environment.

Two of Dowling’s largest works are structured by an all-over field of vertical lines, perhaps off-printed from corrugated cardboard. Cutt (Trucha) combines cut forms with these deep striations, and a shimmering, almost iridescent sunset light, an evocation of the cutthroat trout, native to the American West.

Both Bishop and Dowling share a version of painting magic that allows them to conjure, through abstract, material means their own psychic dominions, into which we are induced to enter.

Jeffery Bishop Mason Dowling at McKenzie Fine Art, New York, January 28 – March 8, 2026

by D. Dominick Lombardi

Luís Almeida’s paintings have an uneasy joyfulness to them. His narratives occupy the space between pure, unfiltered emotion and wild interpretations run amok.

Almeida creates an alternate space where the act of painting churns, spews and whips around the canvas until reality is overtaken, leaving the outside world in its wake. His subjects push through the edge of representation, forming a new bio-logic based on instinct. Yet, with all his gnarly techniques and bizarre color theory, the resulting vignettes remain almost completely without judgement – a purity of thought on canvas without the fuss of overthinking one rarely sees in Contemporary Art.

Almeida is the quintessential observer/translator, reacting solely in the studio where the loaded brush meets the waiting canvas – that physical application of paint in an electrified moment beyond his initial observations to an alternative world. There is a lot of discussion by physicists today, of as many as 11 unifying forces that make up our universe. The way Almeida breaks down and reconstructs his constantly shifting and morphing subject matter surely passes through some of this extended space physics advance.

Take for instance the painting Horseman (2025). Here we see a bucking horse protesting the sword of its rider as it threatens to behead someone hanging onto the horse’s leg below. What initially draws the eye into this whirlwind of motion is the purity of the diamond-shaped white form that the rider and the horse share. This relatively ‘clean’ space promises to offer safety in an otherworldly place, but the protagonist in this drama has other ideas in mind. In the end, it’s the three areas of blue that create a classic pyramid of stability that keeps this topsy turvy composition from exploding outwardly.

Happy Family (2025) has its share of tension as well, only in this instance it is overpowered by love. Challenging this state of bliss in the background, where we have a few indications of the seedier side of life rendered in drippy washes of color. Additionally, a sinister hand creeps in through the bottom right of the composition to create more tension. Despite all the unwanted intrusions to this otherwise buoyant scene, it is the love of family signified by a new born babe that keeps the positivity afloat.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (2025) has its own, more subtle brand of bizarreness. Almeida reigns in his energy level just enough to focus the narrative to the more mundane aspects of life. We have all seen group photos of children related by some function or form. I am guessing this one is related to a sporting event where the teacher/coach and the school principal are overseeing the proceedings. Oddly, the principal, if that is who he is, with his dark sunglasses and a black suit, looks more like a security guard than an educator. What is most fascinating in School Children are the individual faces and how they all express such completely different personalities. Shy, confused, happy, lost in thought and miserable, each child commands their allotted space while their uniform dress and the similarly colored background creates a profound push/pull effect.

Luís Almeida, a painter ‘s painter who challenges himself as much as he does the viewer.

by Caldas da Rainha

Situated above a Tattoo Atelier in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, is the gallery Grupius Atelier. The current exhibition Veins of the Invisible: Mika Aono, is an enchanting exhibition of prints, collages, assemblages and fabric work that all come together to transform relatively tight quarters into a uniquely spiritual experience.

Dominating the space is a multimedia collage On the Way (A Caminho) (2025) that hangs from the ceiling, dividing the space on a subtle diagonal axis. By placing it on such an angle Aono opens up the space, increasing the visual flow for visitors to pass through the space. On the way (A Caminho) features numerous printing approaches from highly refined woodblock prints to impressions garnered from municipal manhole covers and other utilitarian street plates that are unique to Portugal. Other areas are more abstract and experimental where Aono burns through the paper with incense, while in one particular area paper is cutaway creating a partially shuttered window effect. Set up in something of a grid, the entire piece echoes back and forth within its own space creating a dialog with both the confines of the roomscape and the viewer’s thoughts.

Aside from Aono’s obvious skill as a printmaker, there are other intriguing approaches here. For instance, in Dear (Minha Querida) (2025), Aono stitches on a found flea market doily made by a local artisan the melodic South African name Lalela she heard a friend mention. The baby blue of the handiwork, the copper nails that hold the doily in place, and the wine and white color of the thread used by the artist for the name all come together to signify human connection through love and admiration. In a statement, Aono writes: “(Lalela is) a word from the Zulu language, and it really touched me. Lalela means to listen—but not “just listen.” It is an invitation to listen intently, with open presence, to allow yourself to be permeated by what is around and within you. In Zulu culture, “lalela” calls for a deep, respectful attention: to listen not only with your ears but with your whole self—with heart, mind, body, and spirit.”

Another example is Trans-it (2025), which appears at the right in the second image above. Here the artist hangs from a preexisting pipe near the ceiling of the gallery a string of tiny lights draped over thick paper discs pierced again with glowing hot incense sticks to make lines and clusters of holes. At play here are the different intensities of light and shadow, and the way this work is both grounded and ascending as it elicits an uplifting mood.

Aesthetically, the art of Aono has many aspects. Take for instance three prints; Mirror Mirror (Espelho, Espelho) (2025), Full of Tears (Cheia de Lágrimas) (2025) and Where To (2025). Through these three examples Aono moves from a very profound connection to mother earth; then to a sixties where a colorfully mesmerizing series of teardrops that loosely encircle six voids in a soft grid suggest motion; to a powerfully rendered, albeit disorderly jumble of moths clustered and casting shadows in a complex mass that reflects controlled chaos through interaction.

Veins of the Invisible: Mika Aono at Grupius Atelier in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, runs through December 4th 2025.

by Chunbum Park

Joan Bofill, a Spanish visual artist and filmmaker, engages with a mode of portraiture which he calls “Double Portrait,” to capture a meaningful trace and record of his encounters with distinguished figures. At the Angel Orensanz Foundation’s gothic synagogue, Bofill’s exhibition, “Double Portrait: Paintings In Conversation” (October 16-17), takes place in collaboration with (Director) Sozita Goudouna’s The Opening Gallery. The Angel Orensanz Foundation for the Arts, established 1992 in New York City, is an artistic and cultural space/institution open to artists, writers, thinkers and leaders, including Philip Glass and Spike Lee; Arthur Miller, Alexander McQueen, Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou and Alexander Borovsky; Elie Wiesel and Chuck Close. The current show brings together both large-scale paintings and the smaller “Double Portraits.” The “Double Portrait” project specifically involves both the filming of the encounter or interview and the artist’s drawing/painting of the figure with India ink and graphite. The series emerged from his documentary work, particularly his film about Hollywood producer Stuart Cornfeld (premiering at AFI Festival October 23). While conducting interviews for that film, Bofill began drawing his subjects simultaneously—a practice that evolved into something more deliberate.

“Double Portrait” is a synthetic process with dialogue based on mutual trust and the dynamic interplay of personalities – the artist’s and the interviewee’s. The artist envisions the “Double Portrait” as a principled endeavor – one that refuses to exploit or use people for their fame and which happens naturally and organically through a web or network of human connections. Throughout the continuation of this practice, Stuart Cornfield might introduce another filmmaker like David Lynch to the artist purely out of delight for the conversation that the artist engaged in with the person. 

The manner in which Bofill tunes into the conversation with the figures with an observant, creative, and informed mind gains the trust of the interviewees, which allows them to open up to the artist to create together a playful and friendly synthesis of ideas, not necessarily as thesis and antithesis, but as intuition embracing intuitions, and experience empathizing with experience.

All the information garnered by the artist feeds into the artist’s psyche in interpreting and digesting the subject’s persona and history, which contributes to the final image through the subconscious. 

Being heavily influenced by Surrealism, of which Spanish painters Salvador Dali and Joan Miro were key figures, the artist’s visual renderings of the subjects traverse the territories of the transient, ephemeral, spectral, and angelic. A uniquely different kind of visual qualia or style can be detected in this kind of work from the artist’s usual repertoire of figurative and abstract painting. It should be humbly assessed that Bofill’s most successful and consistent body of work to date is the “Double Portrait” not because of its ambitious and large scale but because of its narrowed down scope, clarity of purpose and originality of vision, and its historical and cultural significance in dealing with iconic figures.

The paper on which the “Double Portrait” is executed takes on a special meaning or significance because the artist often rips out a page from an old art history book or monograph without the image or the slide of the artwork, which the artist purposefully removes, leaving a blank white space for the drawing and painting. This act is akin to the making of a palimpsest, in which the artist recognizes the historical significance of the continuity of tradition, lineage, and canon over long centuries and millennia. The artist appears to suggest, in engaging with figures from the Spanish-speaking domains, the American mainstream, and African and Caribbean origins, that the “Western” history and culture has evolved into a global union of people and ideas and not strictly limited to the history and the cultures of people with a European ancestry. What remains is no longer purely Western people and society but a globalized cultural network of institutions, ideas, trade, and encounters.

A clear distinction can be observed between Bofill and the other “artists” in the streets chasing after famous people: Bofill approaches the “Double Portrait” project with sincerity and lucidity, with the goal of earning the trust of the other by maintaining his own artistic integrity and sensitivity. There is no wax or fluff in Bofill’s work; it is neither over nor underworked; it is made just about right, which is very difficult to achieve for many artists who may overshoot or undershoot from the most ideal outcome. The accidents are no longer accidents but serve as the patterns of an organic and creative process based on discovery and an earnest investigation (for the truth of what they may discuss). While Bofill may not be Picasso just yet, he is a young master in his own rights. 

Through repetition of the “Double Portrait,” Bofill slowly accumulates the structure and the voice of his unique style, which is ghostly or angelic at times, traversing into the spiritual and the metaphysical territories, perhaps because the artist is acutely aware of the passage of time and our own mortality.

Why “Double Portrait”? What is the effect of assigning a QR code to each drawing or painting, which leads to a video interview of the person depicted in the artwork? 

The answers may be obvious, but the truth requires a great deal of thought and effort to be properly excavated. The video interview may capture in real time the various facial expressions, the speech patterns, the voice, and gestures and the manners of the person. The video may be the shadow of the object, which is the drawn portrait, or it may be the object itself, with the shadow being the drawn portrait. Sometimes, the video may contain more information than the drawing or painting itself.

But art is the process or the act of curation of information. In photography, it is the cropping of the subject, filtering out the unnecessary details or noise. Similarly, the video component of the “Double Portrait” serves to provide context for the framed information and to create an ecosystem of ideas and meaning, of which only a small amount makes it into the visual rendering like the tip of the iceberg.

But, really, art should transcend this kind of curation and accumulation of information, going beyond to capture something invisible and essential, which can never be found in the recorded video of the interview.

And this is where the true test for the artist lies. Even when the artist could not communicate properly with the subject, due to the limitations or differences of language, the artist connected with the subject. And this shows in the paintings. The artist allows the subject to subconsciously alter the internal state of the artist’s own being, which makes Double Portrait in essence an interactive and collaborative project. 

“Double Portrait” is not just the words or the act of sitting down and conversing with one another, but it is the intermingling of personalities, the interaction of personal energies, and the interconnection and trust between the two – the observer and the subject. The subject opens up to the observer (who is the artist) because the observer opens up to the subject with great sincerity; the observer/artist also allows the subject to enter into the observer/artist’s psyche, just as the observer/artist is doing the same to read into the subject’s own feelings, lived experiences, and ideological stance. And what results is that the artist’s hand serves as the subject’s hand, on a psychological or subconscious level, which is consistent with the Surrealist and even Dadaist (which evolved from the Surrealist) practice and philosophy. In effect, the observer is observed, and the observed, observing.

Bofill’s portrait of David Lynch is filled with sparks of light (which metaphorically becomes the spark of ideas) that penetrate into the shadows of his face. His strong and determined depiction of Angel Orensanz keeps his identity and ideological persona as a revolutionary and advocate for the advancement of art and culture. 

In conclusion, the artist achieves something greater than the sum of its parts for the “Double Portrait” project, by the very nature of its limited focus and artistic philosophy and sensitivity that reflects highly of the artist’s own fine-tuned and intellectual nature. Bofill approaches the subject not as an object of portraiture but as a subjecthood for empathy and human connection, and this is what makes the people respond to and engage so brilliantly and meaningfully with the project.