FOR 4-11

LUISE ROSS  AT GLADYS NISSON

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NEW YORK CITY — In her first solo exhibition in New York in 20 years, Chicago’s Gladys Nilsson provides a clinic in the art of watercolor in her current show at Luise Ross Gallery. Always recognized as an expert watercolorist, Nilsson’s use of this most difficult medium has evolved in nuance and subtlety to the point that she adds texture to the visual surface. She is a superb colorist and possesses an unerring sense of composition.

On view at the Luise Ross Gallery April 17–May 31 Nilsson also brings back with her the zany cast of figures — with their signature attitudes and elastic, elongated arms and legs — the cats, birds, creatures and small-scale figures, with which she gently caricatures and choreographs the quotidian and the mundane.

As is frequently the case in Nilsson’s narratives, the main figures in many of her recent paintings play the roles of the diva; but characterized with a subtle difference from the whimsical humor and on-target wit with which they were portrayed previously. Here these qualities are tinged with a palpable — though unsentimental — homage to all prima donnas, a wistful tribute to their steadfastness, courage and vulnerability.

The gallery is a 511 West 25th Street. For information, www.luiserossgallery.com or 212-343-2161.