ANTON KERN
532 West 20th Street
May 15–June 21 

Dan McCarthy's new paintings, currently on view at Anton Kern, depict rainbows, fish, and women on skate- and surfboards, often glimpsed through an allover patterning motif that resembles a flurry of flower petals. It's the imagery of sailors' tattoos or carnival signage or, maybe, of McCarthy's Hawaiian childhood. In Springs, 2003, a woman crouches on an outspread net while two fish suckle at her nipples and a beam of weak yellow light illuminates her from above. An air of spacious enchantment holds sway, edged with a hint of worry; you get the sense that McCarthy's tropical afternoon has grown long and stupifying. A group of paintings from the early '90s are also on display, featuring dark mountain tops, scuffed writing, rubbed-out figures, and incised doodles. These older, smaller works exude a fragmented nocturnal vibration, a humid nighttime counterpoint to the new work's watery day. 

In the rear gallery, the Melvins—the punk band from the Pacific Northwest that helped invent grunge by slowing Black Sabbath to a churning crawl—are the subject of a group homage. Curator Bob Nickas has brought together mock-Melvins album covers produced by artist-fans including Fred Tomaselli, Wayne Gonzales, Justin Lowe, and more than twenty others. The results of their efforts are playfully mixed; one standout is Tim Lokiec's Melvins Family with Haunted Parking Meter, 2003, a mottled painting on linoleum in which the meter appears as a scary figure with glowing, demonic eyes. Though the painting itself is slouchingly modest, its subtle coloration—slivers of kelly green, mustard yellow, and frosting pink over a grotty brown ground—holds the eye. It even captures something of the band's durable charm: at first glance kind of crummy but, upon closer inspection, deeply and reliably dazzling.