A Breeze Through Art’s Crowded Field of View
Contemporary art abounds with abundant choice and contrast across a staggeringly profound depth of field.
And, if I may demonstrate, what comes up — and where does your mind go — when you gaze upon the image below?
Edward Burtynsky (b. 1957), Breezewood (2008), part of a series of photographs about the impact of oil on the planet, as seen at the International Center of Photography.
Where does it take you? What does it say about contemporary life?
How did a photograph of this town in Pennsylvania come to be a meme?
This image captures the complex choice we face in a vast art market: what do we focus on, and what story does it tell?
What Caught CT’s Eye at NYC’s Largest Art Fair?
New York’s Armory Show has is the most important general market survey of contemporary art in the U.S., second only to Art Basel Miami Beach in its breadth, size and quality.
Now under the management of global art fair giant Frieze, this month’s 2025 edition, along with a slew of satellite fairs gallery openings. reinforced the first full week in September’s spot on the calendar for prime art market spectating and activity.
What follows are several themes that Charting Transcendence highlighted to clients at the fair, illustrated with eye-catching artworks, each one of which invites deep conscious exploration.
Soft & Gentle Abstraction
As I’ve said previously, abstraction comes in many flavors, created with different materials, absorbing various art historical influences, and veering off in different directions.
Although not everyone’s cup of tea, for those with curiosity and imagination, “soft abstraction” never goes out of style.
One challenge that I relish as an advisor is understanding how people react to varieties of gentler brushstrokes and more subdued color palates, hunting for the best, most interesting examples of abstraction within a client’s budget.
Shown at Armory with London’s Victoria Miro Gallery, Spring (2025), a 20” x 16” gem of an oil-on-board painting by Flora Yukhnovich (b. 1990), currently exhibiting at the newly reopened Frick Museum on 5th Avenue. This luscious, highly-sought after style of abstraction resembles that of 18th century French Rococo painters like Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).
Profiled in the New York Times for a prolific and reclusive 50+ year practice, the abstract art of Finnish-born Iria Leino (1932-2022) has only come to market recently with Harper’s Gallery. Incredibly, Leino was making drip paintings like this in 1974, over a decade before the much more famous Pat Steir (b. 1940) began her waterfall series.
An abstract, verdant and floral oil-on-canvas painting by Ema Ri (b. 1988), a Cuban artist working in Miami that shows with the Magic City’s longstanding Fredric Snitzer Gallery.
The reputation of African-American abstract painter Patrick Alston (b. 1991) is growing as his work continues to gain popular and institutional acclaim both the U.S. and Europe. Milan’s Secci Gallery sold this painting of his on the first day of The Armory Show 2025.
Dreamlike Qualities of Life
In a world of relentless headlines, art that offers a portal to an alternate reality holds particular power and appeal.
Dreamlike genres of contemporary art trade stark reality for symbolic emotion, offering a space for solace, wonder, and personal reflection without the weight of overt narrative or politics.
These lush, psychological landscapes often feel both familiar and fantastically untethered from the everyday.
Something about the psychologically-rich portraits of men by Miami-born Hernan Bas (b. 1979) is slightly ethereal and unreal, as demonstrated by this new painting exhibited by Fred Snitzer at Armory Show, The closing minute of a “Happy-Hour” (2025).
A luscious new painting of tree by Shara Hughes (b. 1981) invites wonder and awe at David Kordansky Gallery in Chelsea, NYC.
The cotton-candy colored mythical creature in Unseated (2022-23) by Will Cotton (b. 1965), shown by Galerie Templon, is perfect for collectors who appreciate allegories about cowboys and unicorns.
Fighting for Equal Justice
Some artwork operates with a different objective: to question, to accuse, and to mobilize. It demands a confrontation with reality. It confronts the viewer with the unvarnished truths of inequality, labor, and identity.
This is art that refuses to look away. It documents struggle, challenges power structures, and amplifies voices that have been historically silenced, serving as both witness and call to action.
Jack Shainman’s new space in Tribeca is hosting a museum-quality show, entitled I AM MANY of old and new work by Hank Willis Thomas (b. 1976), one of today’s greatest African American artists. Collected by many institutions, much of the artist’s work is about the struggle for civil rights.
SoHo’s Ronald Feldman Gallery is showing photographs by Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939), a renowned for her seminal 1970s-era series Maintenance Art, a collaboration with garbagemen that elevated their overlooked labor to art that critiques institutions of social hierarchy.
Yvette Molina (b. 1972), who shows with Trotter&Sholer on the Lower East Side, has perfected the art of painting with egg tempera (a medieval and renaissance medium) onto found pieces of cardboard.
Samuel Fosso (b. 1962) is a Cameroonian photographer whose latest body of work of self-portraiture, Autoportrait, has just debuted with Yossi Milo Gallery in Chelsea.
Structure and Order
Whether figurative or abstract, art that depicts systems of structure reveals our fundamental attraction to clarity and composition.
In a world that often feels unpredictable, patterns provide a visual anchor, allowing us to admire the sheer scale of human enterprise and the quiet beauty of organized form, offering a sense of mastery that is both grounding and profoundly satisfying.
NYC Nocturne #1 (2025) by Daniel Rich (b. 1977), a painter represented by Miles McEnery Gallery who specializes in architecutral views.
Tom McKinley (b. 1955), represented by San Francisco’s Berggruen, is known for cityscapes containing glimpses into homes, many of which feature modernist works of art.
A 2009 aerial photograph of Los Angeles, revealing complex man-made traffic patterns, by Edward Burtynsky, part of his major retrospective exhibition The Great Acceleration currently showing at New York’s International Center of Photography.
Kentucky Bourbon (2025), by Patrick Wilson (b. 1970), who channels aspects of the California light and space movement in his colorful, geometrically abstract paintings.
And Last but Not Least, Some Curious Creatures
There is a reason that we make art about animals; they often serve as our spirit guides, and the stories we tell ourselves about them tap into a deep, ancient language of symbolism.
We are drawn to these creatures not just as subjects, but as mirrors, each one reflecting a specific trait, memory, or aspiration we see in ourselves. These artworks have the potential to become personal talismans, connecting us to a more intuitive world.
A painting of a YouTube video of an introverted individual inside of a patterned snail shell by Mongolian artist Uurintuya Dagvasambuu (b. 1979), who was written up in the Wall Street Journal for work shown by Sapar Contemporary at The Armory Show.
Wild Things by Fred Tomaselli (b. 1956), whose art depicts elements of nature in seductive concentric patterns and is a recent addition to a NYC subway station at 14th St. between 6th and 7th Aves in NYC.
Andrew Kreps Gallery championed the neo-surrealist sculpture by the late Canadian indigenous artist Beau Dick (1955-2017) at The Armory Show,
Andrej Dubravsky (b. 1987), The bee which stopped for a minute and started to think about all the colors and shades of pollen in the world (2025), acrylic and oil pastel on canvas, shown by the Tribeca outpost of European Gaa Gallery.
