Ten painting shows you should see (SLIDESHOW)

Richard Phillips, First Point, 2012

Richard Phillips
Gagosian Gallery, through Oct 20
In his latest show, Richard Phillips has graduated from appropriating imagery of models and actresses for his paintings to producing his own films, starring such luminaries as Lindsay Lohan and Sasha Grey, then using stills from them.

Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Blue Diaphan, 1965

Ernst Wilhelm Nay
Michael Werner, through Oct 27 + Mary Boone Gallery (57th Street area + Chelsea locations), through Oct 6
This three-gallery survey at Michael Werner’s and Mary Boone’s spaces, both uptown and down, focuses on German postwar abstractionist Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902–1968). As a young artist, he was influenced by the figurative Expressionism of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, but in the years following World War II, his style evolved into a purely nonobjective one, distinguished by a bold use of color.

Louise Fishman, Raft Of The Medusa, 2011

Louise Fishman
Cheim & Read, through Oct 27
Many of Fishman’s large gestural abstractions on display here were created during a studio residency in Venice, and the use of blue and piled-up brushstrokes in the compositions reflects the artist’s impressions of that storied city.

Erik Parker, Out of the Ark, 2012

Erik Parker, “Bye Bye Babylon”
Paul Kasmin Gallery, through Oct 13
On view are new paintings featuring still lifes, beach scenes and views of impossibly lush foliage, all inspired by the jungle landscapes of the 19th-century self-taught painter Henri Rousseau.

Alex Olson, Weave, 2012

“Alex Olson: Palmist and Editor”
Lisa Cooley, through Oct 14
Surface, texture and the application of marks—these are some of the issues Olson explores in her abstract paintings, which are as much catalogs as they are compositions.

Angela Dufresne, Pastoral With Prophet Boy and Lady Jockey Folk Singer, 2012

Angela DuFresne, “Parlors and Pastorals”
Monya Rowe Gallery, through Nov 10
DuFresne’s very painterly, figure-populated landscapes seem to exist somewhere near the unlikely intersection of LeRoy Neiman and Neo Rauch.

Chris Johanson, Window Painting #2, 2012

Chris Johanson
Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery, through Oct 20
This West Coast artist’s brightly colored canvases have moved in recent years from an emphasis on naive-style figuration to a kind of abstraction that, at times, resembles outsider art.

Karin Kneffel, Untitled, 2011

Karin Kneffel
Gagosian Gallery, through Oct 20
This German painter creates a kind of photorealism, in which the layering of surface effects threatens to dissolve representation into abstraction.

Monique van Genderen, Untitled, 2012

Monique van Genderen
D’Amelio Gallery, through Oct 20
This solo show is the first in New York for this L.A. abstractionist whose approach to color, composition and paint-handling is as bold as it is elegant.