“Continuum: A History of Impermanence” and “Passages” are two very different New York City solo exhibitions with one pivotal link. Beginning with totally unrelated approaches, aesthetics, and styles, Martin Weinstein and Christopher Hart Chambers share a similar focus on nature. Triggered by natural elements that lead to two unique takes on belonging, both interpret, filter, and forge a new way of thinking. Each in their own way uncover the mysteries and magnificence of the outside world well beyond a typical bucolic scene.

        “Continuum: A History of Impermanence,” is an important survey of the paintings of Martin Weinstein. It reveals a surprising and long-standing focus regarding the artist’s premise of inside/outside. The two works best representing this concern over a period of decades are Fribourg in Grand Street (1996) and Stormy Afternoons, July, Outside Under Inside (2023). In Fribourg, we see a picturesque Swiss country town unexpectedly transplanted inside an interior space in downtown Manhattan. Subjected to the sunlight and surrounding skyline that breaks through the large industrial-type windows, the effect is quietly surreal and clearly magical. Fribourg shares its magical beauty for all to savor, conjuring thoughts of a big budget, mid-century Hollywood film set designed for a dreamscape. The much more recent Stormy Afternoons is a continuation of the “transience of space” theme, only this time with more of a focus on creating a landscape than recording any clear architectural elements. Here, Weinstein brings the outside in with all the glory of a stormy summer afternoon that powerfully sweeps through the picture plane that is quietly interrupted by a few reflective interior surfaces barely able to hold their own against the power and beauty of looming skies.

        Conversely, in works like Blossoming Plum, Inside Over Outside (2023), Weinstein solidifies the interior space by making it the top layer of three overlapping painted surfaces. Near the center of the composition, Weistein paints white, early spring plumbush flowers shooting up and out of a vase, a detail quietly contrasted by the months-later outside plants in full bloom as they range across the middle panel. This evolving narrative is a potent nod to time, the human construct that the artist acutely commands with continuous flair and finesse. There is a similar use of this concept of marking time with nature’s bounty in Lilies, One Year Over Another, Inside Over Outside (2024), where bursts of proud red petals invade an interior space barely anchored by a row of shiny colored glass and two attentive guitars. One gem of an older work is Apartment in Vienna (1999), an early version of the layering of three clear acrylic sheets that create an alluring depth. In a strange way, this method reminds me of Rembrandt’s use of multiple glazes, where the paint comes alive in minute rippling surfaces.

        The second solo exhibition is “Passages” at Crossing Art gallery in Chelsea featuring the mesmerizing paintings of Christopher Hart Chambers—a collection of works that makes me wonder “What if the Impressionists had taken LSD?” However, labeling these works as simply psychedelic would be missing the mark as they have greater weight and more substance than something merely trippy. Chocolate Forest (2024), the first work encountered in the gallery, features a subtle, layered cascading background dominated by a foreground of large black leafy stalks partially covered with vines of tiny leaves and flowers. This combination of varying degrees of opacity and color from foreground to background pulls the viewer into an animated space where unknown consequences are countered by hints of something new and different.

        Sparkle Wood (2024) has a very different mood. Here, a lighter foreground and a more clearly sinuous background read as more calming and inviting. Clover-shaped leaves that cut across the center of the composition add a bit of caution to the narrative. This and the fact that in all of Chambers’ paintings we never see the ground, may cause this feeling. The missing ground non-element gives everything the sense of being somewhere above the ground, like a bird or climbing animal. Or are we looking out of a window during a waking dream state? Moving through the gallery to Fertile Circus (2024), we are faced with a composition that exemplifies the artist’s methodology. Order in disorder, the essence of a landscape is left to its own stunning devices where unhindered sights, sounds, and smells coalesce into one fantastical field of dreams.

         Two accomplished painters, Martin Weinstein and Christopher Hart Chambers, offer outstanding paintings at a point in their careers where it is time to take notice and celebrate. It’s all about dexterity, dedication, and vision, plus an understanding that beauty can be many different things—from the never-ending cycle of nature’s changing seasons to the aesthetics of its timeless designs–as long as it causes a palpable chill in the viewer. There is a past, present, and future in these works: links to an endless stream of thought and conjecture that we all can connect with, despite their uniqueness.

D. Dominick Lombardi is a visual artist, art writer, and curator. A 45-year retrospective of his art recently traveled to galleries at Murray State University, Kentucky in 2019; to University of Colorado, Colorado Springs in 2021; and the State University of New York at Cortland in 2022.