The Best Female Art Exhibitions to See This Fall

In Kyle Staver's large-scale paintings and small sculptural reliefs, majestic radiant light falls on elastic, almost cartoonish figures set in mythological scenes. The sensuality of Staver's figures, the lightness of touch, her superb handling of the paint, and ability to deftly infuse each scene with radiant light draw us into her newly imagined world of old gods and heroes. Staver's potent and heroic retelling of pagan myths infuses the paintings with renewed relevance, opening up the viewer's imaginative possibilities.

Julie Heffernan's show at PPOW feature a number of fierce, richly painted self-portraits with a baroque like sensibility in their insistence on detail. In these paintings, the accumulation of details is integral to how the figures are to be read. The women in these paintings speak through the many images and objects that surround them. In a number of the paintings on view, a nude figure holds or unravels an enormous scroll of images in a grand hall filled with paintings. These women are storytellers, carriers and bearers of a shared cultural history, as well image-makers.

Hunter Gatherer, September 6–October 6, 535 West 22 St, NY 19911

Natasha Wright’s Les Biches features large scale oil paintings that merge figuration and abstraction exploring gender, power and sexuality. In Wright’s paintings fragments of the figure are excavated out of the gesture. Vulnerability and power, the political and the personal, seduction and aggression, these dichotomies create the dynamics of Wright’s paintings that are alive and questioning. The movement in the paintings feels immediate and fast while individual passages are more meditated and slow. Wright’s women are boundless spirits, carefully balancing the grotesque and beautiful. They are aware of the male subjectivity and complicated history they inherit, claiming their space with strength and navigating the world on their own terms. Natasha Wright’s work will also be on view during Bushwick Open Studios, 28-30th September, 177 Grattan St, Studio 412. Open 11-7pm daily. Natashawrightstudio.com for more info.