8 Must-See Solo Gallery Shows in August

1. Kaylie Kaitschuck at Plato Gallery, New York

A Detroit-based fiber artist who intuitively works with colored yarn as though it were crayons or paint, Kaylie Kaitschuck has garnered international attention ever since graduating with an MFA in Fiber and Textile Design from Cranbrook Academy of Fine Art in 2021. Her New York solo show debut, “Miles to Go before I Sleep” (after a line from a Robert Frost poem), offers a first look at the award-winning talent’s highly inventive work.

The eye-catching show consists of a dozen circular and rectangular steam-of-consciousness compositions made with machine-embroidered yarn on felt backing and then mounted on traditional stretcher bars (with the exception of one work amusingly wrapped around a skateboard deck). In delightful Midwestern dreamscapes scribbled with yarn, collaged characters multiply organically across the surfaces of her imaginative psychedelic embroideries. Chock full of animals, musical instruments, pictograms, houses, and trees, Kaitschuck’s lively fiber art paintings take youthful doodling and folkloric imagery to exciting, new heights.

Through August 24

2. Henry Hudson at Palo Gallery, New York

Coming from a British family of artists (his father and brother are celebrated sculptors), Henry Hudson is best known for creating imaginative paintings in unconventional ways with unconventional materials, such as a painterly application of Plasticine (a putty-like modeling clay) or an inspired fusion of plaster, pigment, glue, and beeswax. Graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2005, he soon made a name for himself with satirical remakes of masterpieces by William Hogarth, Hieronymus Bosch, and Vincent Van Gogh and his dense jungle landscapes with the textured look of the impasto canvases by painters Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff.

In his “Sanctuary Room: Cave of the Mind” exhibition at the gallery, the London-based artist offers two bodies of work with psychological perspectives: his surreal, AI- and Photoshop-assisted portraits and landscapes, classically painted in oils on plasterboards with plaster scagliola frames and his serene watery scenes rendered with pigment, plaster, glue, and wax on aluminum boards. Two takes on the changing landscape of modernity, the arresting portraits become surreal, monstrous figures straight out of nightmares and his related landscapes evoke fantastical visions, while the waterscapes sublimely suggest Turneresque or Monet-like reflections on the River Thames.

Through August 24

3. Maja Ruznic at Karma, New York

A standout painter in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, New Mexico-based painter Maja Ruznic escaped the fighting in her Bosnia and Herzegovina homeland with her grandparents at age nine and later settled in California with her mother through the help of humanitarian organizations. Earning an MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2009, she began making captivating paintings and works on paper that fused abstraction with figuration while drawing upon traumatic memories of the Bosnian War and Slavic myths.

Her exhibition “The World Doesn’t End,” titled after a book of prose poetry by Serbian American poet Charles Simic, presents four large-scale oil on canvas paintings (similar to her paintings at the Whitney) in the gallery’s 22 East 2nd Street location and 35 intimate gouache on paper works at 188 East 2nd Street. The large multicolored canvases capture ghostly, alien figures, rendered in thin washes of paint, wandering through enigmatic realms, while the smaller, more densely painted pieces portray shamanistic figures and geometric abstractions, enchantingly reminiscent of the mystical works of Paul Klee and Hilma af Klint.

Through August 23

4. Della Wells at Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York

A Milwaukee-based, self-taught artist inspired by her mother’s tale of growing up in North Carolina between WWI and WWII, Della Wells used those stories to escape her mom’s mental illness and father’s uncontrollable anger before therapeutically turning the tales into subject matter for her dreamlike collages. Creating collages, paintings, and folk-art dolls for the past 30 years, she has carried on the tradition of Romare Bearden to create visual narratives from recycled magazines, which has its roots in the patch-work wallpaper from homes of the American South in earlier times, and a style of practical decorating still found in parts of Africa and the Caribbean.

The colorful collages in her “Mambo Land” exhibition portray a world in which she envisions “Black women rule.” Assembling urban houses surrounded by chickens, flowers, and flags, she depicts stylishly clad Black women and girls in idyllic domestic settings. Playfully collaging facial features, body parts, and outfits for people while filling rooms with furniture, pictures, and plants, Wells lovingly constructs the world of her American dream, where her imaginary citizens happily inhabit lively homes, work in peaceful cities, and vacation in sunny spots.

Through August 9

5. OSGEMEOS at Lehmann Maupin, New York

Identical twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo have been working together as the collaborative art duo OSGEMEOS (the twins in Portuguese) for the past 30 years, creating paintings, sculptures, videos, installations, and public art projects that reflect the impact of hip-hop on their native Brazil. While their work is often labeled as street art, they’re serious studio artists who’ve exhibited internationally since the 1990s, with a much-anticipated survey at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opening in September. For their “Cultivating Dreams” show at Lehmann Maupin, their sixth solo with the gallery since 2016, the brothers have created a series of new paintings and immersive environments that combine folklore, architecture, astronomy, and music.

The show starts with a dynamic wall of collaborative paintings with Barry McGee, who met the duo in Sao Paulo in 1993, helped introduce them to a global audience, and has an intriguing solo show in the downstairs gallery. The second room of the brothers’ show is dominated by a vibrant architectural installation—where Memphis (a dynamic Italian design group from the 1980s) meets astronomical dreams—and a trippy series of paintings of time travelers and surreal goddesses float above a mural of orange clouds. Interrupting this entrancing escapist environment is a funky corner record shop, where visitors can hang out and listen to old-school vinyl via OSGEMEOS’s curated selection of music from around the world.

Through August 16

6. Moises Salazar Tlatenchi at Mindy Solomon, Miami

A nonbinary and first-generation Mexican American artist raised by undocumented parents, Moisés Salazar Tlatenchi grew up in Chicago, where they faced an unstable lifestyle imbued with hostility. Earning a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020, Tlatenchi began employing free-spirited materials and techniques for their paintings and sculptures, including faux fur, glitter, sequins, crochet, and tufting, to celebrate their familial cultural heritage while engaging the legacy of queer craft.

Fresh off a one-person exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, which turned the gallery into a sanctuary of inclusivity and acceptance, Tlatenchi’s second solo show at Mindy Solomon, “Founding Sisters,” reimagines America’s foundational figures through a queer eye. Inspired by fashion and drag culture, the artist provides pilgrims and patriots with a fresh look. Paintings of a glittery Betsy Ross sewing a rainbow flag and a shimmering George Washington crossing the Delaware River in his uniform jacket and a thong show that the United States’ hard-fought freedoms should be shared by all its people.

Through August 31

7. Chelsea Ryoko Wong at Jessica Silverman, San Francisco

Coming from a multiracial ethnically merged family, Chelsea Ryoko Wong aims at social harmony in her colorful figurative paintings and works on paper. Trained in graphic design and illustration at New York’s Parsons School of Design before graduating with a BFA in Printmaking at California College of the Arts in 2010, the San Francisco-based artist has found an animated way to combine all of her learned skills in painting, a medium in which she is primarily self-taught. Inspired by growing up in multiracial communities and her travels in Europe, Asia, Africa, and other areas of California, she paints diverse groups of people connecting in joyful dialogue, whether through social situations in urban environments or skiing and swimming in nature.

Her second solo show at the gallery and fourteenth one-person exhibition since leaving school features eleven new paintings on canvas and four works on paper mixing watercolor and gouache, highlighting her international journeys and outdoor activities closer to home. While the swimming and skiing pictures render groups of people at a small scale, her interior scenes in bars and restaurants capture conversing characters nearer to their actual size—with most of the figures portrayed in profile, except the artist, who is slyly seen directly engaging the audience. Exploring the value of community, Wong’s persuasive paintings offer enjoyment to the viewer while simultaneously showing joyfulness from her subjects.

Through September 7

8. Kenny Scharf at Honor Fraser, Los Angeles

A Neo-pop art sensation in the 1980s and still going strong more than 40 years later, Kenny Scharf established an avant-garde presence in New York through his vibrant street art featuring characters from The Flintstones and The Jetsons even before graduating with a BFA from the city’s School of Visual Arts. Showing at the Fun Gallery in the East Village and Tony Shafrazi Gallery in SoHo, he quickly turned his energetic paintings, assemblage art sculptures, and Cosmic Cavern installations into a worldwide activity that spread into hip fashions, Scharf Schack products, and all types of brand collaborations.

Back for his sixth solo show at the gallery since 2015, the Los Angeles-born and based artist’s “GO WILD!” exhibition presents a new series of circular canvases of animated figures with expressive faces alongside paintings of his favorite cartoon characters in cosmic settings and larger-than-life hot dogs floating in outer space. Hitting multiple aspects of the prolific artist’s body of work, an immersive installation with giant planters and hanging objects blur the boundary between Scharf’s studio and L.A.’s bustling urban landscape while other parts of the show display proposals for public projects and videos documenting his wild KARBOMBZ! series of painted vehicles that transport his playful painting style further into the city.

Through August 24