Lola Montes Schnabel is an artist living in New York. These five paintings make up her show, Love Before Intimacy, currently on view at The Hole, 312 Bowery, NYC, though February 4.

Andrew Guenther is an American artist who lives in New York. Born and raised in Wheaton, Illinois, his work deals with the concepts of the evolution of the self, life and spirituality, and  the evolution of culture. Guenther’s work will appear in a group show entitled MIE: A Portrait by 35 Artists at Freight and Volume, curated by Nick Lawrence and Mie Iwatsuki. The opening will be on Saturday, January 21 from 6 – 8 p.m.

The Poetry Club Art Space is a new underground gallery in the basement of a Bed-Stuy apartment, open to all mediums of art, performance, music, and catering specifically to young and emerging artists. Curated by Melissa Godoy Nieto, in collaboration with María J. Baez and Liliana Zúñiga from Mexico City, their current exhibition, No Sombrero, focuses on the interplay between embracing Mexican culture and the pursuit of contemporary life. All the works all use a Jacob’s ladder toy, commonplace in Mexican households, as their canvas and are all functional. A selection of the 70 works on view are shown here.

As our fifth guest blogger, artist Mathew Cerletty presents the highly absorbed and abstracted paintings of Italian realist painter Domenico Gnoli. Gnoli, who passed away at age 37, was mostly overlooked before his death in 1970. Though he still remains a somewhat obscure Post-War Italian painter, a few of his paintings have trickled into the auction houses, widening the audience for his work. Both artists share a hyper-focus on seemingly banal subject matter, Mathew’s own paintings can be seen at his first solo show, Susan, on view at Algus Greenspon, 71 Morton Street, NYC, through December 17.

German painter Neo Rauch’s current show at David Zwirner titled Heilstätten,  roughly translates to “a place of healing”. At the center of the show stands a bronze Athena-like figure, arm outstretched, carrying an owl, chest eerily buldging with the heads of men. The same woman, painted as a fountain at the center of a town square, is hidden in a much larger painting,  easily overlooked in the complex mapping of ochre walls, lavender coated men collapsing, and towering trees. The woman-with-owl motif presents itself a third time in one of the show’s largest painting titled Aprilnacht or April Night, where two figures, one male, one female, both hold and examine large ominous birds. Only his is a fragment, a lone head; hers is complete. Her hand, clothed in a green sleeve, five fingers outstretched with the quiet command with which a mother would hold a baby, is placed, curiously, at the dead center of the painting. Heilstätten will be on view until December 17 at David Zwirner Gallery, 525 W. 19 St., NYC.

Brian Sensebe is an independent art-director and painter based in New York.

John McAllister’s color inflused still life paintings from his solo show Damned Sparkling Pomp, will be up at James Fuentes Gallery, 55 Delancy Street, NYC, through October 23.

Carrie Moyer’s acrylic abstractions from her show Canonical will be on view at Canada Gallery, 55 Chrystie St, NYC through October 23. All images courtesy of Canada Gallery.

Los Angeles based artist Kate Costello’s current show at Wallspace Gallery, Kiki & Me, features a suite of photographs in which models pose in front of her painted patterned back drops. Evoking Parisian model and famous muse from the 1920’s and 30’s Kiki de Montparnasse, Costello’s photographs keep you looping between the model, pattern painting, and her own gaze.

Self Reflections: The Expressionist Origins of Lisette Model opened yesterday at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, 535 W. 24 St., NYC. The show features the photographs of master portrait photographer Lisette Model alongside some of the great (and my favorite) European Expressionist such as Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, George Grosz, Jeanne Mammen, and Lyonel Feininger. The show will be on view through November 12.