Opening Tuesday with a reception on Thursday, this show of Alix Bailey’s new paintings represents a departure for her in terms of openness and scale, changes that are perhaps explained by her move to a new studio within her Manhattan apartment, one blessed with increased sunlight and an intricately ornate marble fireplace that has become almost a persona within this group. Working directly from observation but clearly suffused with a classical sensibility, Bailey manages both to channel and to contrast with the wholly invented, steely automata of her father, William Bailey. They share a cool stillness, but distinct in the younger artist is a tender voluptuousness of flesh tones and a creamy, painterly touch that conspire to imply a sense of presentness. The unforced credibility of a sitter inhabiting her own gravity, meanwhile, and the feeling of total compatibility between fullness and ease speak to the empathy of one woman regarding another. DAVID COHEN
Pictured here: Natasha Reclining 1, 2016. Oil on canvas, 40 x 54 inches.
January 30 to February 24, at 547 West 27th Street # 500, New York City, thepaintingcenter.org
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