Myth and ephemerality play a large part in this week’s gallery picks.

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1. A group show with a throughly playful vibe at Andrea Schwartz Gallery
2. Saner’s works are heavily influenced by traditional Mexican customs and folklore. ForPrimitivo, the artist created lively portraits of characters wearing Nahuale masks reminiscent of those found on the streets of Mexico and according to legend, have the power to transform human beings into animals at Jonathan Levine Gallery
3.Integrating memory, literature, art history, and contemporary culture, Heidi Howard deftly paints portraits with loose, lively, gestural brush strokes, full of color, pattern, line, and a figuration, abstract to defined, reminiscent of old masters such as Matisse, Bonnard, Vuillard, Botticelli at Nancy Margolis Gallery
4.On the theme of the artist as mythologist, in her series ‘I remember Paradise’, Lakwena Maciver uses the relationship between myth and adornment to explore the possibility that myths – expressed through films, paintings, songs, advertisements – carry ‘echoes’ of paradise, pointing to a past and a future glory which we only see glimpses of in the present at Papillion Art
5. The Making of Personal Theory: Mysticism and Metaphysics in the Work of Sara Kathryn Arledge, Charles Irvin, and Jim Shaw is a three-person exhibition that takes notions of “the mystical” as an entry point to consider daily encounters that are marked with eccentricity, the surreal, and a dream-like passage of time at Armory Center for the Arts
6. Yellena James’ ethereal ecosystems at LeQuiVivre