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I was fortunate to get to know Vivian when she was Associate Curator of Asian Art and Global Contemporary Art at the Worcester Museum of Art, just west of Boston. Since joining the DMA in 2019, she has continued to do extraordinary work. We have traditionally selected our jurors from the region in which our current review is focused. Getting the perspective of a relatively recent transplant was an exciting opportunity, and has resulted in a particularly diverse and strong issue of New American Paintings.

Since my professional involvement in the art world began, it seems as if every seven to eight years some form of crisis emerges. Most often, this is triggered by macroeconomic events that affect us all in a variety of ways. The art world is a fragile place, and it does not take much outside disturbance for the cracks to appear. I was pleasantly surprised to see how resilient the ecosystem was in the midst of COVID-19, but now, as the pandemic fades into the distance, economic uncertainty and political upheaval are beginning to take their toll. As I write this, several well regarded New York City galleries have shuttered their doors and, by all accounts, the river of money that flowed into the art world over the past decade has drastically slowed.

As is always the case, it is the little guy who always gets hurt the most. In this current moment, the little guys are emerging artists and the often times small galleries…

Since the country’s inception, the landscape of the West has served as a wellspring for American myths and imagination. The expansive, rugged frontier and the figure of the resilient Marlborough-man cowboy have stood as enduring symbols. Yet these age-old emblems are now being examined by artists hailing from the region. These emerging artists reject the passive inheritance of these narratives, breathing fresh vitality into old stories while creating new ones of their own.

While Grace Kennison pays homage to the legendary cowboy motif by employing its recognizable symbols, she softens the colors of the harsh terrain and introduces into this romanticized space a languid female nude avatar––seductress or worshipper. Ron Linn’s art, similarly influenced by the Western landscape, unravels the vastness and mystique of the region in overlaid line and color grids. In at least one example, the canvas sags under the weight of a found rock, reflecting a sense of humor, regret, and nostalgia toward place.

The modernist grid figures too in Sarah McKenzie’s immaculate and austere paintings. In her recent depictions of correctional facility interiors, particularly in Colorado, the artist considers the nuances of national myths. Although the images are devoid of figures, she expresses her concern with human experience in the repetitive physical structures and layout of prisons. From the intrusion of light through barred windows to the presence of institutional furniture, McKenzie asserts the tacit human subject inherent in these overwhelming complexes of confinement, surveillance, and control.

In contrast to McKenzie’s paintings of cool, calculated architecture,…