Stephen Schirle, Clasped Hands, oil on panel, 11 x 14 in.

This is Felipe Riesco’s first time exhibiting at Arcadia Contemporary. The artist finally caught Diamant at the gallery hours before his return flight to Chile. “I showed him my work, and he liked it,” shares Riesco. “It was very exciting. It’s an honor that Steve considered me, as he has a highly developed critical eye.” Riesco will be showing work from his Chromatica series, including Hidden, which depicts a woman playfully peeking out from a swath of celestial blue cloth. “My paintings try to convey mystery, so that the viewer doesn’t know who is behind the canvases and, at the same time, they fall in love with the painting,” says Riesco. “The main focus is on the hands, accompanied by the fabrics, which are sometimes in bright colors…In some cases, the model doesn’t exist, so I steal the hair from one and combine it with the hands of others. I like to give it a contemporary and modern touch by using the same background color; it gives it a personal touch.”

Felipe Riesco, Hidden, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

Another figurative work, Clasped Hands, by Stephen Schirle also focuses on his model’s hands. “I’ve always been obsessed with the human body and the past few months I wanted to focus solely on our hands,” says Schirle. “On a surface level I’m just trying to challenge myself and capture their beauty and gesture with paint. But on another level I’d like people to sit and think in a quiet softness about how important our hands are to us.”

Elen Bezhen, The Ivy Plant, oil on canvas, 22 x 18 in.

Working in a jewel-toned palette, Elen Bezhen creates stylized paintings that often take on a timeless, allegorical quality. In The Ivy Plant, two young women sit on a bench surrounded by greenery, intent on each other, their thoughts or something out of view, an ambiguity Bezhen wanted to preserve. “This work emerged from my interest in quiet, almost imperceptible moments of human closeness—when words have not yet been spoken, but the inner dialogue between people is already charged with tension and meaning,” Bezhen says. “I was inspired by childhood memories, when communication didn’t require loud phrases—a glance, a posture, a slight movement of the hands could say so much more.”

Renato Muccillo, Greenbelt in Autumn, oil on panel, 12 x 6 in.

Renato Muccillo has spent most of his 40-year career painting the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. “The criteria for most of my work has been ‘common spaces’ within walking distance of my home, a visual diary of sorts,” he says. Greenbelt in Autumn was inspired by the diminishing backwoods behind his home. “As our community grows, our green spaces seem to be disappearing,” say Muccillo. “I’ve made it my objective over the past few years to pay homage to what remains in these ‘everyday’ common places. These places are not grandiose by any means, but I try to paint them in a fashion that would say otherwise.”

Shaun Downey, Call Back, oil on linen, 12 x 12 in.

The model for Canadian artist Shaun Downey’s Call Back is his long-time friend, actor Sugar Lynn Beard. “The painting captures a quietly charged moment: a young actress, caught at the precise instant she hears back after an audition,” explains Downey, whose work often has a cinematic feel. “By dressing the figure in vintage clothing and including a 1950s ivory-colored telephone, I intentionally blur temporal boundaries. While the scene feels specific, the era is ambiguous, inviting viewers to imagine this moment as one shared by countless actors across generations. These callbacks—fraught with emotion, hope, and uncertainty—are turning points in a performer’s life, no matter the decade.”

Brian Haberlin, And so it Goes, watercolor and wax on panel, 13 x 21 in.

Find these pieces and so many more in Arcadia’s Five & Under show, on view at the New York gallery from August 9 through September 1. —