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E.E. Smith, “From the Series: Street Watch #2,” 2007, unique oil print, 24 by 18 inches. Courtesy Kim Foster Gallery, New York City.

Jenna Gribbon, “Room #5 (honey),” oil on canvas, 12 by 12 inches.

MUST RUN 5/23

NATIONAL ACADEMY MUSEUM AND SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS 183RD ANNUAL CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ART EXHIBITION w/3 cuts

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NEW YORK CITY — The National Academy Museum and School’s “183rd Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art” offers a wide range of compelling styles, mediums, scale and points of view by 130 contemporary American artists from across the country. This nonmember biennial exhibition comprises architectural renderings, collages, drawings, installations, paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture and watercolors by emerging, midcareer, and well-established artists.

Selections were made from more than 400 recommended artists submitted for consideration by National Academicians and chosen by a curatorial committee. The show will be on view May 29–September 7.

Striking examples of some fresh and innovative artistic explorations can be seen in the electrifying room-sized optical floor piece by emerging installation artist Lisha Bai, the intimate miniature wall sculpture of Matthew Northridge and the shadowy fragments of projected geometric forms in the installation of Soo Sunny Park.

The illuminated small sculptures of James O. Clark uses light to underscore the linear movement of his crushed metal shapes, while the minimalist-based work of Jean Fienberg uses a found wood ledge affixed to the wall with 11 small panels of muted color placed across it.

Sculptor Maria Elena Gonzalez offers a house set atop a tall tapering stand. Ceramicist Betty Woodman blurs the boundary between fine art and craft in her exuberantly colored and patterned vessels.

Brazilian-born sculptor Stain Clair Cemin references the heavily breasted fertility figures of prehistory combined with the playfulness of children’s building toys in his highly polished, bulbous-shaped floor sculpture.

Painting is well-represented, as seen in the rigorous geometric works of Ben La Rocco and Don Voisine, the sensuous abstractions of Loretta Dunkelman, the heightened color and rich brushwork of Eve Olitski and the small-scale works by Nancy Brett.

Also, Sean Scully creates stripes and bricklike forms that reference ancient walls; and Jose Bedia’s large-scale painting offers an iconic African power figure. A two-sided painting construction by Ken Weathersby offers subtle changes in form.

Best known for his monumental installation of charred cotton bales, Leonardo Drew shows a 25-panel work of “rust” prints of schematic building types, each set within a grid that uses corrosion as its medium. The figure is also represented in the paintings of Jenna Gribbon, who uses isolated figures and objects in interiors to relay a sense of alienation.

Contemporary architects Steven Holl and James Wines are represented by their watercolor renderings of structures recently built.

Photographic work is seen in the unique oil prints of E.E. Smith’s series of surveillance photographs. Black and white photographs done by Latoya Ruby Frazier show personal experience in the confines of her home and family; Cynthia Lin’s extreme closeup drawing of a mouth becomes abstract in this context, as does Jeffrey Fichera’s trompe l’oeil drawing of an elevator door and, conversely, in the exacting superrealism of Leonard Stokes’ digital collage.

The museum is at 1083 Fifth Avenue. For information, www.nationalacademy.org or 212-369-4880.