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    Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

    “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 84 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Harper’s, New York

    Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

    March 17, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    In the late 17th century, during Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, a particularly rotund, plain white porcelain vessel rose to popularity. Nicknamed “moon jars” for their milky glaze and spherical form, the earliest examples were finished in wood-fired kilns to add character to their minimalist surfaces. Treasured and reproduced by skilled artisans throughout the centuries, the classic style continues to influence contemporary artisans.

    For Brooklyn-based artist Sung Hwa Kim, the traditional Korean jar serves as a starting point for an ongoing series of paintings invoking decorative vessels as metaphorical containers for the past. In the context of the still-life, he conjures what he refers to as “visual haikus,” poetic evocations of the passing of time, like changing seasons and the transition from day into night.

    “Still Life with Jar, Ashtray, and Vincent van Gogh Painting” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    In Kim’s current solo exhibition, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring at Harper’s, the artist emphasizes quiet, everyday moments in domestic settings that often overlook brick buildings or the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. Some of his compositions are vibrantly monochrome, setting the scene for a vase on top of a table, containing a scene from a historic painting or faraway landscape.

    Kim often incorporates spectral, glowing insects (previously) and situates the vessels on sills or near windows. Vases contain landscapes, trees, and animals, while decor on the walls reference works by famous modernists like Vincent van Gogh, René Magritte, and Sanyu.

    Inside the pots, the flora appears ghost-like or faded, rendered in fuzzy gray marks, and objects left nearby, like a pencil and notebook or a drinking glass, suggest that someone was recently present but an unspecified time has passed since they left. The jars serve as portals to other times and places just as the windows provide views of another world. “Ultimately, Kim masterfully inhabits the role of guide, making perceptible the delicate threshold between what fades and what endures,” says a gallery statement.

    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring continues in New York through April 5. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    “Still Life with Jar, Fruits, and Incense Burner” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    “Still Life with Jar and Round Glass Top Table” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

    “Still Life with Jar, Moon Lamp, and René Magritte Postcard” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    “Still Life with Jar, Pencil, and Notebook” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

    “Still Life with Jar” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

    “Still Life with Jar and Sanyu Painting” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

    “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

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    Sparse Brushstrokes Give Rise to Thick Impasto in Jose Lerma’s Minimal Portraits

    “Leidy” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 48 x 36 inches. All images courtesy of Jose Lerma and Nino Mier Gallery, shared with permission

    Sparse Brushstrokes Give Rise to Thick Impasto in Jose Lerma’s Minimal Portraits

    March 13, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    When Jose Lerma encountered “Reception of the Grand Condé by Louis XIV” by Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, he found himself drawn to the figures tucked far behind the crowd. Known for his meticulous realism, Gérôme rendered these small characters with minimal brushstrokes, a decision that has influenced Lerma’s work for more than a decade.

    Exaggerating the sparse quality of the figures, Lerma (previously) paints portraits in wide swaths of acrylic applied with brooms and industrial tools. The new works retain the contrasts of earlier pieces as well-defined strokes sweep across the burlap to form heavy, impasto ridges.

    “Yamila” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 72 x 48 inches

    At Nino Mier Gallery in Brussels, Lerma’s new solo exhibition Bayamonesque presents the culmination of his current style. The title references his upbringing in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and how we think about resemblance. Painting both real subjects and manufactured characters, the portraits reference those who might otherwise be relegated to the background, stripping down their likeness to only what’s necessary.

    Vacillating between figurative and abstract, the compositions are what Lerma refers to as “the summary of a portrait…The abstract painter in me is, above all, drawn to certain people for specific features that can be broken down to their bare minimum as paintable elements: an expressive cowl, a striking nose, a distinctive shape of lips.”

    Bayamonesque is on view from March 14 to April 17 in Brussels. Find more from Lerma on Instagram.

    “Celimar” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Leda” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 72 x 48 inches

    “Clarisa” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Felo” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 24 x 16 inches

    “Ismaela” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Rania” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Fernanda” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 24 x 16 inches

    “Lisi” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 48 x 36 inches

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    Keita Morimoto Lingers in the Artificial Light of Urban Nights

    “Green Room” (2025),
    acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 194 x 3 centimeters. Photos by Shin Inaba, courtesy of Keita Morimoto and Almine Rech, shared with permission

    Keita Morimoto Lingers in the Artificial Light of Urban Nights

    March 12, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    Cities are constantly in flux, but Keita Morimoto (previously) invites us to linger in their transitions a little longer. The artist renders corner stores, vending machines, and lampposts that illuminate spaces that might otherwise go unnoticed. Either unoccupied or inhabited by just one or two people, Morimoto’s scenes are dimly lit but not eerie and invoke the environments most of us engage with for just a moment.

    “The anonymous, liminal spaces in my paintings echo the feeling of never fully belonging,” Morimoto says in a statement. “I’m drawn to the way emotions can transform a familiar setting into something entirely different, revealing deeper truths about the human experience.” 

    “Crossroad” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    In a new body of work titled To Nowhere and Back, the artist continues his explorations into the interplay of light and shadow. Drawing on the sights of New York City and Tokyo, he considers how we find connection in a world that’s constantly changing. He shares:

    My work reflects a lifetime of navigating conflict, loneliness, and the desire to escape within urban environments. When I moved from Osaka to Canada at 16, I experienced a profound sense of isolation, as though severed from everything familiar. Over time, some connections emerged, but it was always accompanied by subtle discomfort. Returning to Japan in 2021 brought a similar disorientation—moments when even my birthplace felt unfamiliar, as if reality itself had shifted.

    Rather than translate streets he’s wandered down directly onto the canvas, Morimoto paints with a cinematic quality. This pulls the viewer from the familiar and makes even the most ordinary sidewalk appear intriguing. Zeroing in on light sources further supports this vision, and artificial bulbs become beacons amid scenes shrouded in darkness. The artist considers how these machines create “a robotic harmony in Japanese urban life” and paints them as characters in their own right.

    To Nowhere and Back runs from March 14 to April 26 at Almine Rech in Tribeca. Find more from Morimoto on Instagram.

    “Last Call” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 116.7 x 91 x 2.8 centimeters

    “Evening Embers” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130.3 x 3 centimeters

    “Forgotten Path” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 259 x 4 centimeters. Photo by Osamu Sakamoto

    “Waiting Hour” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 116.7 x 91 x 2.8 centimeters

    “No Destination” (2025), acrylic on panel, 27.3 x 22 x 2 centimeters

    “Evening Embers” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    “Stairs to Nowhere” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    “The Way Back” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 194 x 3 centimeters

    “Missed Calls” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 145.5 x 112 x 3 centimeters

    “Gathering” (2025), acrylic on panel, 27.3 x 22 x 2 centimeters

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    Lauded Dutch Golden Age Painter Rachel Ruysch Gets Her First Major Survey in the U.S.

    “Flowers in a Glass Vase” (1704), oil on canvas, 33 × 26 3/8 inches. Image courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts. All images shared with permission

    Lauded Dutch Golden Age Painter Rachel Ruysch Gets Her First Major Survey in the U.S.

    March 11, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Many of us are familiar with titans of the Dutch Golden Age like Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and more. Yet fewer of us have probably heard of Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), renowned during her lifetime for her original style but under-acknowledged through the centuries in the canon of Western art history.

    Co-organized by the Toledo Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, the first major U.S. exhibition of the artist’s work, Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art, introduces audiences to the breadth of her remarkable paintings.

    “Posy of Flowers, with a Beetle, on a Stone Ledge” (1741), oil on canvas, 7 7/8 × 9 5/8 inches. Image courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel

    During her seven-decade career, Ruysch was the first woman admitted to the Confrerie Pictura, The Hague painters’ society, and she was appointed court painter in Düsseldorf to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. She rose to become one of the highest-paid artists of her day. In a foreword for the exhibition catalog, the directors explain that “Ruysch achieved fame across Europe in her lifetime, but her oeuvre was little studied by art historians in subsequent centuries. She has never been the subject of a major exhibition—until now.”

    Art historians consider Ruysch to be among the most talented still life artists of the era, and by the time she died at 86, she had produced hundreds of paintings. Nature into Art includes more than 90 international loans, including 48 of her most significant works.

    The artist was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, to parents with backgrounds in science and design. Her father was a professor of botany and anatomy, and her mother was the daughter of an architect. The artist began painting when she was around 15, copying flower and insect specimens from her father’s collection.

    As her artistic faculty grew, Ruysch taught her father and her sister Anna how to paint. She merged modern scientific observation with an incredible aptitude for capturing light, composition, and form, and she typically dated her paintings when she signed them, giving art historians a clear record of stylistic shifts and subject matter over time.

    “Flowers and Fruit in a Forest” (1714), oil on canvas, 38 × 48 1/2 inches. Image courtesy of Städtische Kunstsammlungen & Museen Augsburg

    Ruysch’s success during her lifetime is attributed to both her unmistakable talent and the 17th-century Dutch fondness for flowers and gardening. Still life paintings of floral arrangements and tables heaping with food highlighted the beauty of nature and the gifts of plenty. The vanitas genre also sprung from the style, interpreting memento mori, Latin for “remember you must die,” into subtle, well-versed visual cues.

    Motifs like skulls, insects, rotting fruit, or wilting flowers were symbolic reminders of the futility of pleasure, power, or wealth after death. For example, in Ruysch’s “Posy of Flowers, with a Beetle, on a Stone Ledge,” beetles and flies crawl over a spray of peonies and wildflowers that will soon wilt, and water droplets signify purity and the fleetingness of life.

    Nature into Art runs from April 12 to July 17 in Toledo, traveling on to Boston afterward, where it opens on August 23.

    “Flowers” (1715), oil on canvas, 29 2/3 × 23 3/4 inches. Photo by Photo: Nicole Wilhelms, courtesy of Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen—Alte Pinakothek Munich

    Illustration from ‘Observations of a Surinam Toad,’ graphite on paper, 8 x 11 in. Image © The Royal Society, London

    Anna Ruysch (Dutch, active from 1685, died after 1741), “A Still Life of Flowers on a Marble Table Ledge” (1685), oil on canvas, 13 × 11 3/4 inches. Photo by Erin Croxton, courtesy of a private collection and Birmingham Museum of Art

    “Flower Still Life” (about 1716-20), oil on canvas, 29 3/4 × 23 7/8 inches. Image courtesy of Toledo Museum of Art

    Rachel Ruysch and Michiel van Musscher (Dutch, 1645–1705), “Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750)” (1692), oil on canvas, 30 × 25 inches. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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    Vasilisa Romanenko’s Lush Portraits Wrap Common Birds in Decadent Patterns

    “American Crow” (2025),
    acrylic on canvas, 8 x 8 inches. All images courtesy of Vasilisa Romanenko and Arch Enemy Arts, shared with permission

    Vasilisa Romanenko’s Lush Portraits Wrap Common Birds in Decadent Patterns

    March 11, 2025

    ArtNature

    Grace Ebert

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    Beauty and nature’s resilience are at the core of Vasilisa Romanenko’s work. The Connecticut-based artist paints faithful depictions of common yet dignified birds amid clusters of fruits and flowers, exploring the power of opulence in times of upheaval.

    A stately crow poses amid rust-colored roses, a great blue heron poses amid clusters of tangerines and lilies, and a small warbler perches amid pink poppies. Referencing the defiantly decorative works of English textile designer William Morris (1834–1896), Romanenko embraces the entrancing nature of decadent patterns.

    “Great Blue Heron” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 22 x 28 inches

    “I want my work to feel like an escape from everyday life, like taking a moment to be still and appreciate nature,” she says about her solo exhibition, BIRDS & BLOOMS, at Arch Enemy Arts. Enveloped by flora at full bloom, the winged subjects exude a sense of calm and strength as they perch and prepare for their next flight.

    BIRDS & BLOOMS is on view through March 30 in Philadelphia. Find more from Romanenko on her website and Instagram.

    “Northern Mockingbird” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

    “Black-capped Chickadee” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 5 x 7 inches

    “Orange-crowned Warbler” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 5 x 7 inches

    “Dark-eyed Juncos” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 9 x 12 inches

    “Palm Warbler” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

    “Brewer’s Blackbird” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 9 x 12 inches

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    Through LEGO Compositions, Katherine Duclos Grounds Chaos in Color

    “The fairies will find us if we leave a trail.” All images © Katherine Duclos, shared with permission

    Through LEGO Compositions, Katherine Duclos Grounds Chaos in Color

    March 7, 2025

    Art

    Jackie Andres

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    Katherine Duclos begins each artwork with a color palette and no plan. Placing modular LEGO bricks one by one, the Vancouver-based artist intuitively builds each dense composition, commencing a repetitive process in which she introduces paint before rearranging again.

    Duclos’ most recent solo show, aptly titled The light and color we carry, reinforces the overarching significance of color within the artist’s practice. She created her recent collection during a great shift as she moved to a new home with her family. The neurodivergent artist held onto color as a grounding force, creating connections between the specific hues and lights she would miss in her previous home.

    Detail of “Temper your touch please” (2024)

    A statement from the Vancouver Art Gallery reads:

    Times of transition and upheaval are particularly difficult for autistic families, and Katherine’s need to order her world became more intense as her home became more chaotic and the future seemed unclear. To better prepare herself for the changes, she focused on regulatory work that enabled her to feel a sense of control and order amidst the chaos. 

    Having disabilities with spatial processing and rotating images causes Duclos to run into some obstacles with the diagrams and instructions that accompany the traditional LEGO kit. “I never enjoyed Lego until my son handed me four flat pieces stuck together when he was 5 and said, ‘I thought you’d like these colors next to each other.’ That was my light bulb moment,” she says. Made to hang at any orientation, each vibrant amalgamation encourages movement and fluctuation despite the stiff, blocky nature of the material.

    Duclos is creating work in preparation for a forthcoming solo exhibition in January next year. Keep tabs on her work via Instagram and the artist’s website.

    “Fireflies and lilacs” (2024)

    “Let your sad light be a beacon (Raincouver)” (2024)

    Detail of “I will ahead of you and scaffold the light so you can see the path forward” (2024)

    “Sometimes the asymmetry is so subtle it’s subversive” (2024)

    “You can make your own plans, the day will make itself” (2024)

    “Temper your touch please” (2024)

    “I will ahead of you and scaffold the light so you can see the path forward” (2024)

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    David Surman’s Gestural Paintings Question How We Understand Animal Emotion

    “Bathers At K’gari” (2024), oil on canvas, 100 x 120 centimeters. All images courtesy of David Surman and Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, shared with permission

    David Surman’s Gestural Paintings Question How We Understand Animal Emotion

    March 7, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    Now based in London, David Surman was raised in a small coastal village in southwest England. The bucolic scenery and access to animals left an indelible impact on the artist, who plumbs his memory and draws on a vast array of art historical references in his paintings.

    Surman’s most recent body of work is on view in his solo exhibition at Rebecca Hassock Art Gallery. In comparison to previous collections, After the Flood is less abstract but similarly gestural, as sweeping brushstrokes delineate a bull’s sinewed musculature or the curled mane of a bashful horse.

    “Clarion Call” (2024), oil on canvas, 120 x 100 centimeters

    Interested in the ways we project our experiences and ideologies onto the natural world, Surman renders recognizable subjects in a manner that reflects our tendency to ascribe human emotion and feeling to other species. “I like painting animals because they short-circuit people’s interpretive routines and get them looking at paint without the self-consciousness they might bring to abstract painting,” he said in a 2023 interview, adding:

    The creatures that I paint are caught up in our human problem, which is the separation from the world caused by consciousness. The way in which my animals look at the viewer deliberately sets up a feeling of intensity, perhaps troubled engagement, a kind of accusation or affection. But in every case, the creature possesses a trace or residue of conscious agency.

    In “Old Stew Head,” for example, viewers encounter a deeply troubled fox grasping a limp fish in its jaws. The dog in “Bathers At K’gari” is similarly anxious as it carries a young pup under a bright blue sky.

    After the Flood continues in London through March 29. Find more from the artist on his website and Instagram.

    “Old Stew Head” (2025), oil on canvas, 60 x 50 centimeters

    “Icarus And Daedalus” (2024), oil on canvas, 120 x 100 centimeters

    “Kelpie Of Loch Ailort” (2024), oil on canvas, 60 x 50 centimeters

    “The Explorers” (2025), oil on canvas, 100 x 120 centimeters

    “Leo The Lion (Art For Art’s Sake)” (2025), oil on canvas, 120 x 100 centimeters

    “Ostracon” (2025), oil on canvas, 160 x 140 centimeters

    “A Frog In An Endless Pond” (2024), oil on canvas, 60 x 50 centimeters

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    Buried for Nearly 2,000 Years, a Monumental Dionysian Fresco Sees the Light of Day in Pompeii

    Overview of a large fresco inside an excavated banquet gall in Pompeii. Image courtesy of Parco Archeologico di Pompei

    Buried for Nearly 2,000 Years, a Monumental Dionysian Fresco Sees the Light of Day in Pompeii

    March 4, 2025

    ArtHistoryScience

    Kate Mothes

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    When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., the enormous explosion buried the city of Pompeii in an astonishing 19 meters of ash and debris. (A recent study concludes that in the neighboring town of Herculaneum, the blast was so intense that it vitrified a young man’s brain.) Since excavations of the area began in 1748, discovery after discovery has revealed lavish, poignant, and complex details about what life was like nearly 2,000 years ago in the Roman port town.

    When Vesuvius buried everything, the ash provided an extraordinarily protective covering for delicate frescos and structures, like an expansive fresco recently excavated in a banquet hall that “sheds light on the mysteries of Dionysus in the classical world,” says a statement from Italy’s Ministry of Culture.

    Image courtesy of Parco Archeologico di Pompei

    The large-scale painted frieze archaeologists are calling “house of Thiasos” shows the procession of Dionysus, god of wine, along with satyrs and bacchantes—also known as maenads—who are portrayed simultaneously as dancers and hunters.

    In the center of the composition, a woman is accompanied by Silenus, an elderly companion and tutor to Dionysus, holding a torch. The woman “indicates that she is an initiand,” the Ministry of Culture says, “a mortal woman who through a nocturnal ritual is about to be initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, the god who dies and is reborn and who promises the same to his followers.”

    Spanning three walls of a building—the fourth had been open to a garden—in the so-called Regio IX district, the painting depicts a frieze known as a “megalography,” derived from the Greek for “large painting” and comprising a cycle of paintings with nearly life-size figures. Archaeologists date the fresco to around 40 to 30 B.C.E., nearly 100 years old already by the time Vesuvius erupted.

    Archaeologies typically categorize Roman and Pompeiian painting into four chronological periods or styles: incrustation (structural), architectural, ornamental, and intricate. Each style adapted elements of the previous period to generate new motifs and trends.

    Photo by Agnese Sbaffi and Emanuele Antonio Minerva, courtesy of Ministero della Cultura

    The new banquet hall example is thought to be indicative of the second style in which figures or tableaux are framed within faux architectural niches and trompe-l’œil compositions. Curiously for art historians, all of the figures are depicted on pedestals “as if they were statues,” the Ministry of Culture says, “while at the same time their movements, complexion, and clothing make them appear very alive.”

    Investigations into the Regio IX district, which covers approximately 3,200 square meters, began two years ago. So far, the excavation of the entirely buried block has revealed two atrium houses—already partially explored in the 19th century—plus two workshop houses, some residential rooms of a large domus, a black hall with scenes from the Trojan saga, and a shrine with a rare blue background. More than 50 new rooms have been identified, and there is plenty more yet to uncover.

    As archaeologists gradually chip away at the ancient pile of volcanic detritus, new finds like a food stand and a primitive pizza continue to awe and inspire our understanding of ancient Roman life. The site is open for public visits, and you can explore more on the Archaeological Park of Pompeii’s website.

    Image courtesy of Parco Archeologico di Pompei

    Photo by Agnese Sbaffi and Emanuele Antonio Minerva, courtesy of Ministero della Cultura

    Photo by Agnese Sbaffi and Emanuele Antonio Minerva, courtesy of Ministero della Cultura

    Photo by Agnese Sbaffi and Emanuele Antonio Minerva, courtesy of Ministero della Cultura

    Photo by Agnese Sbaffi and Emanuele Antonio Minerva, courtesy of Ministero della Cultura

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