For this group show at Monica De Cardenas, curator Nikola Cernetic picks five vanguard painters employing techniques of both representation and abstraction. In their works, references to reality dissolve into figurative gestures, enigmatic washes, and color patterns. Brian Fahlstrom's new series of impressionistic canvases hint at landscape painting, and Kirsten Everberg reproduces images of explosions in oil and enamel. In Elizabeth Neel's pieces, the artist fragments images downloaded from the Internet beyond recognition. Whitney Bedford accentuates dramatic subject matter, such as floating icebergs, with a fantastic palette, while Kirstine Roepstorff's collages, often conceived as social parody, reinvent baroque sensibility with handcrafted design flourishes.

-CA