New York
January is an odd month in the art world, as it rouses itself from its holiday slumber but struggles to shake off the sleepiness of the past month. The end-of-year fairs are in the rearview and the next major events lay a month or so on the horizon; last year’s shows are closing and the first offerings for 2026 are being installed. It can feel like a liminal space, but the work of a critic never stops, and a stroll through Chelsea offers views, laudable and not, of how galleries navigate this transitional period.
At Albertz Benda, a show of Larissa de Souza’s magical paintings is a refreshing break from the cold outside. These highly autobiographical works draw on her AfroBrazilian heritage, radiate with mysticism and focus on womanhood. There’s a folksy, faux-naïveté to her art, as im “Revelation,” a striking vertical panel in which an ancestor of the artist hides a treasure, then comes to her in a dream to reveal its location. Adorned with shimmering squares of fabric, it echoes quilting traditions while reinventing the traditional women’s work of sewing. Performance and illusion are recurring themes: A woman is sawed in half in a depiction of classic stagecraft; elsewhere a juggler manipulates ovoids that each contain an everyday vignette. The humor here tempers the seriousness of Ms. De Souza’s message—a nude staring into a mirror that reflects the Venus of Willendorf is a celebration of femininity
and a commentary on body image—without diminishing the overall impact.
These paintings are more polished and more detailed than the artist’s earlier work, and this refinement ramps up their emotional power. Most moving: “Baby’s Layette,” which was painted on a baby blanket and tells the story of the artist’s mother and her own birth. Scenes of the pregnant woman riding the bus to the hospital and the hardships she faced in life are juxtaposed with other images of the artist’s own personal successes—a narrative many will recognize of parents struggling so that their children can chase their dreams.
