Do not look at the work of Tracy Miller on an empty stomach. Miller’s oils are scrumptious banquets of cakes and donuts and fruit and lobsters and sushi and – stop! Miller does not actually set up still lifes to paint from, but relies on observation or pictures form cookbooks or magazines to get the juices flowing, to the point where it feels as though the images are derived from music or memory. Apparently Miller’s paintings start out abstract and evolve into something more specific as she paints. Miller has compared her ‘real universe’ to a ‘meaty stew in need of re-heating’, but her imaginary one is more of ‘a springtime bakery full of cakes and pies’.

Artist: Tracy Miller
+ featureinc.com

Weed Choked Garden is one of Roxy Paine’s latest installations. Known for his stainless steel trees, fields of poppies and mushrooms, Paine now presents an 8 x 11 foot depiction of weeds choking tomato plants in a hand-made vegetable patch. Thirteen different types of weed impose natural chaos upon the human attempts at order. Previously, some of Paine’s work has included installations that see artificial mushrooms growing out of wooden floors or life-sized stainless steel trees amongst their natural counterparts.

Artist: Roxy Paine
+ jamescohan.com

“Art Models. Artist/Photographer (female) seeks people for portraits. No experience necessary. Leave msg.” Katy Grannan advertises in local newspapers for her subjects and then photographs them either in their surroundings (wood-paneled rec rooms, intricately patterned wallpaper, couches and curtains) or outdoors lying in the tall grass, or in the fallen leaves, or in shallow water. What the photographs have in common is an intimacy between the photographer and her subjects, who wear as little as they feel comfortable with. It is this willingness to be documented, and the gaze of the models, that allow Grannan’s work to be so touching. At the same time, such intimacy can be intimidating and in a way, the photos chosen for Art MoCo are the least private because of this.

Artist: Katy Grannan
+ katygrannan.com

Memoriam is a 2003 study of cemetery sculptures in New Orleans by Ottawa photographer Robert B. Smith, particularly poignant in the aftermath of Katrina. Angels, crosses, stone and sky are the four components of these works that are quiet but not silent. It is not difficult at all to imagine hushed tones, or the rustle of leaves on the ground. The black and white photos are also evocative of John Berendt's tale of Savannah, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Artist: Robert B. Smith
+ robertbsmith.com

Christopher Williams’ latest works are unretouched photos of a bizarre range of subjects linked together by their status as products of an industrial society. Plastic corn that is used for photo shoots, a model who has washed her hair, put it up in a towel and then hair rollers, a car ad, a sea nettle, the side view of a flower kiosk – all these and more. Sure you can mention Modernism, but better you just keep quiet and look at the pictures.

Artist: Christopher Williams
+ davidzwirner.com

Wiktor Szostalo and Agnieszka Gradzik create environmental art pieces that are literally tree huggers. Their sculptures are twigs, vines, sticks and branches woven together and entwined to create wicker people that wrap their arms around tree trunks. What could be simpler? Their projects are mainly Saint Louis-based, but their work has also taken Gradzik and Szostalo to Hebden Bridge in England. The duo’s mission is to re-discover their relationship with nature while encouraging others to think about their own attitudes to the surrounding world.

Artist: Wiktor Szostalo and Agnieszka Gradzik
+ treehuggerproject.com

Lance Letscher forages through second-hand stores and junk shops for old books and letters that provide the printed papers he uses for his collages. Being vintage is not enough to qualify for a berth in Letscher’s work though. The text is important, as are the words themselves or the font in which they are written. Handwritten documents are also rich in offerings, adding emotion to form. The carefully selected scraps are precision cut and mounted on Masonite, then compressed in a book press. The resulting abstract works draw the viewer into layers of the past, happily lost in the abstraction.

Artist: Lance Letscher
+ groverthurston.com

Some of Joe Zucker’s recent works are diptychs that also function as self-contained paintings. One half, the monochrome lid, can be fitted over the other half should the viewing be over. This half (both are edged with dowels) is subdivided further into geometric shapes that make up houses, boats and Mondrian-inspired scenery. Zucker pours paint into these compartments, creating a variety of surfaces by tilting or propping up the boxes as the paint dries. Another similar series focuses on images of furniture that is in Zucker’s studio, also in diptych format. The stools, tables and chairs are actual size, so the works in this series are quite large.

Artist: Joe Zucker
+ paulkasmingallery.com

New York-based photographer Anthony Goicolea has produced several series of his photographic work. One of them, Shelter Series, takes a look at an anonymous band of masked people, of unknown age or gender, who have taken to living rough, or off the land. It is a peek into a fictitious world several steps removed from summer camp, with overtones of Lord of the Flies. Although Goicolea’s characters represent a desire to escape the constraints of community in a more organized setting, there is clearly a sense of foreboding lurking like the gnarled roots of the trees that shelter them.

Artist: Anthony Goicolea
+ anthonygoicolea.com

After art school in Belgrade, Nikola Savic continued his studies at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design in London where he is now based. Savic’s colourful acrylics are like explosions of shapes whose movements have been frozen on the canvas. One sees these as leaves churned up by the wind and almost expects them to fall back to the ground, taking on another form. Kaleidoscopic, really.

Artist: Nikola Savic
+ rolloart.com

Kelly Tunstall’s paintings and illustrations of tall thin young women are almost like fashion design sketches. Tunstall’s heroines (based on friends, family, stylish women she sees walking down the street) are all beautiful, sexy and ladylike, to better show off their glamour dresses, ballet wear or lingerie. Yet some do sport quirks as well, maybe two heads here or a pair of antlers or bunny ears there, just to keep things interesting.

Artist: Kelly Tunstall
+ kellytunstall.com