Close to the front entrance at NADA, Spencer Brownstone Gallery’s group presentation drew guests into its booth throughout the first day of the fair. As I walked up and down the four floors of 548 West to view the rest of the fair, I kept returning to see Szabolcs Veres’s Aria (2024). A headless portrait of a woman in a yellow dress on the edge of a bed, this expressionistic painting is rendered as if excerpted from a childhood memory, where everything in the background and foreground fades from the core image.

The painting is among three other small works by the Romanian artist. Born in 1983 in Satu Maru, the artist currently resides in Cluj-Napoca, where he earned his PhD, MFA, and BFA at the University of Art and Design. Veres has presented three solo shows at Spencer Brownstone Gallery in New York, including “The State of Mind” in 2023. Earlier this year, the gallery hosted another solo booth of the artist at Zona Maco in Mexico City.