Art Capsules

New Paintings: In Victor Payares’s paintings, abstract and figurative elements collide in whimsical, almost hallucinatory ways. Mangled cartoon trees, flaming boxcars, scooters, and pickup trucks pinwheel across a blazing sunflower yellow field. A spaceship and a skier bubble up in acid green and hot Pepto-Bismol pink swirls. Helicopter gunships battle in a fog inside a room of an old house. A piano made of bricks explodes while a family bleeds on the floor. The people, creatures, and machines in his large-scale canvases seem to defy gravity, or appear on the verge of hurtling off the world’s edge. Black Cloud, the largest work in the show and nearly the size of a garage door, is awash in tarry black paint, suggesting deep space in which cotton candy nebulas shoot lightning bolts and a toy robot hitches a ride atop a car crumpled like a beer can. The artist’s paintings vibrate with energy and narrative possibility, reflecting a remarkably inventive mind and a world where the laws of physics are twisted beyond belief. Even more impressive is the fact that the artist is only 21 years old, and half of the works on exhibit were snapped up by collectors during his solo debut. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus Through July 12. Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery, 2441 NW Second Ave., Miami; 305-573-1333, www.artnet.com/reitzel.html.