In his recently opened exhibition hoodwinked by brand impersonators, malicious account spoofers and counterfeiters in the Roberts & Tilton Project Room in Culver City, CA, Albuquerque-based artist Jonathan Hartshorn's latest body of work references a variety of subject matter including Susan Rothenberg, Eadweard Muybridge and the boomerang. After a recent studio visit, we had the opportunity to discuss his new work and some of the other many aspects that make up his practice. – Claude Smith, Albuquerque/Santa Fe Contributor

Jonathan Hartshorn | girl 1976, girl 1979, girl 1983, girl 1988, girl 1989, 2013-2014, mixed media assemblage, 32 x 28 inches; Courtesy of the artist and Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, California

Driving to Portland from Seattle is such an easy thing to do, most of the time I find myself there on a whim, without any concrete plans, experiencing the city in a choose-your-own-adventure style, with one experience leading into the next. When I arrived in such circumstances again last week, I ended up happening upon a survey of some of the city’s stalwart artists.  While the PORTLAND2014 biennial organized by Disjecta in a selection of discreet art venues across the city helped ensure a steady selection of shows, straying off the biennial track at times also yielded the most resonant works, with exhibitions by seasoned Portland artists Ellen Lesperance (NAP #97), Jessica Jackson Hutchins and Wes Mills representing some of the most exciting pursuits at the moment and reinforcing these artists’ positions as some of the city’s strongest voices. – Erin Langner, Seattle contributor

Ellen Lesperance, Do you know that one day you lost your way, man?, installation view. Image courtesy of Upfor Gallery.

Ben Weiner’s (NAP #56, 68, 80, 98) solo show “MaximumStrengthAgeDefy” at Mark Moore Gallery is eye candy for the soul and soulful drugs for your eyes. The gallery space greets you with bright and tasty looking colors, alluring and welcoming you in. – Ellen C. Caldwell

Ben Weiner | installation view of “MaximumStrengthAgeDefy.” Image courtesy of Mark Moore Gallery.

As winter segues slowly into spring in New York City, Katia Santibañez's (NAP #104) latest suite of hypnotic investigations into the natural world instill warmth into our gray worldview and chilled bodies. Docere, Delectare, Movere, her fourth exhibition at Morgan Lehman Gallery, follows several months in Rome and a residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, imbuing this series with vitality and fearlessness in contrasting colors. — Brian Fee, Austin contributor

Katia Santibañez | Interlude, 2013-14, acrylic on panel, 16 x 12”, image courtesy the artist and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York.

Painting can be held as the grand reconciliation of time and history that it is built to be. Dennis Congdon takes this approach as a highly held belief, an admiration of sorts for what image, color and surface can offer; a meandering pile of faded thoughts and sun bleached inspiration. Congdon’s work strikes me as coming from a place that only hind sight can provide. A certain, “Hey, pal, I haven’t seen it all but I’ve seen enough to know that there’s gotta be more to all of this.” A long vision is at play here. Yes, things fall apart but only after they had come together. Congdon’s paintings border this celebration, dancing around fluorescent flames, caressing not what was lost but left behind. His work presents us with a place that we may not know but will eventually have to welcome. Like it or not. – Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor

Dennis Congdon | Visuvi, Flashe & enamel on canvas, 94”x107", 2013

Artists come and go, and so do galleries. Last week gallery owner Kristen Dodge announced that DODGEgallery, which has been in operation since 2010 in New York City’s bustling Lower East Side arts district, was closing shop. The news took a lot of people, including myself, by surprise. - Steven Zevitas, Publisher

Andrew Judd, Kristen Dodge, Patton HIndle. Photo by: Carly Gaebe

Brian Porray’s (NAP #84 & 2010 MFA Annual) second solo exhibition at Western Project is quite simply a must see and must feel.  He fills the large, open gallery space with his signature bright and bold explosions of color, movement, and energy.  In his last show, he focused on capturing the essence of his hometown Vegas and the complex power of the Luxor Hotel, and in this show, he moves to something else just as unsettling and unnerving as sin city can be to some – the ever-changing and impermanent night sky and the sci fi terrors and wonder it can bring to us mortals. – Ellen C. Caldwell

Brian Porray | installation view at Western Project, 2014. Image courtesy of Western Project.

Something about Paige Jiyoung Moon’s (NAP #109) paintings stays with you. They are colorful, inviting, and familiar – and in them Moon captures her everyday experiences and environments in a way that is playful and realistic.

It isn’t her style that is particularly naturalistic though, it is her subject matter. Her style is slightly exaggerated in perspective, as she often places viewers so that it feels as if we are hovering above the scene, looking down on it from afar.  Her paintings make me consider memories and memory-making – how we experience a day, how we remember it, and how we reconstruct it in our minds. 

On the converse of the everyday, though, Moon also creates a dreamlike quality in her work, because as we hover over images of her painted memories – of a screen printing class, or a hike through Sequoia, or a weekend hotel stay – it conjures a memory-bank full of my own recollections from such classes, hikes, and trips.  It is personal and voyeuristic, everyday and evocative, and ephemeral eye candy that leaves me wanting to spend a day in the life of (or with) Moon. – Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

Paige Jiyoung Moon | Printshop, Acrylic on wood panel, 14"x 11," 2013.

Jon Reed (NAP #109) paints objects – very ornate objects to be specific.  His paintings are bright, bold, and full of rich contrasts in their depictions of opulent material goods found at two of the most famous collectors’-homes-turned-museums in California: The Getty Villa and Hearst Castle.

Even if you didn’t know the furniture sources for some of his paintings, they immediately recall the lavish and ornamental furniture and chairs you might only find in a wealthy collector’s home or museum.  Reed takes three-dimensional furniture and various architectural spaces and captures them in time and space as flattened, two-dimensional paintings. Doing so, Reed simultaneously does something interesting to our eye and the way we read the paintings, calling our attention to both their “objectness” and their exact “non-objectness” all at once. - Ellen C. Caldwell, Los Angeles Contributor

Jon Reed | Malibu Suite II, acrylic on birch panel, 24” x 36”, 2011

Something to consider: How does Painting handle love? Or better yet, can a painting be infused with love? Raychael Stine (NAP #78) believes that a painting that comes from a place of love can serve a greater function beyond an innocuous object. Painting can be used to cope and sometimes that coping deals with issues that pertain to love. I don’t remember the last time someone used the “L” word when speaking about their practice as it may come off as trite. But at the same time are we so cynical not to believe that painting and love do not go hand in hand? Stine pushes beyond these initial queries to a place where life, and love, is reaffirmed through the act of painting. - Arthur Peña, Dallas Contributor

Raychael Stine | Vision 4, 2012. Oil and acrylic on canvas, post card, 17 x 13 in.