Andrew Chesler in New York

NEW YORK—There is a calming effect to Andrew Chesler’s new biomorphic paintings, on view at Heskin Contemporary in Chelsea through October 27. Chesler’s parallel universe of blobs, orbs, and other speckled shapes provides a perfect respite from the luxurious grime that covers much of Manhattan—it’s as if he has turned a microscope on a series of slides, then rendered their contents as a strange world populated by glorious forms unknown to nature.

Chesler’s watercolors and acrylics on panel are not just fantastical visions, however, but rather take scientific theory as a jumping-off point. His work refers to the new book The World Without Us, in which author Alan Weisman envisions an earth absent of human life, where the infrastructure and refuse we’ve left behind decays and morphs over time into something else entirely—maybe even a new ecosystem not unlike the one Chesler’s invented.

Below are Andrew Chesler’s picks for five otherworldly exhibitions to see this weekend in New York:

1. Eddo Stern at Postmasters, through October 13
"Stern continues to make video gaming the center of his work. Postmasters’s main gallery holds kinetic shadow sculptures and 3-D computer-animation videos that include an updated take on Arcimboldo. In the second gallery stands a "portal structure" projecting a sequence of found video and computer-generated bits. It's as close as most of us will ever get to a wormhole, or, even more bizarrely, Irwin Allen's 1960s TV series, Time Tunnel." See for yourself.

2. Dan Kopp: The Optimistic Apocalypse at BravinLee programs, through October 13
"A second show with a science-fiction theme is “The Optimistic Apocalypse,” which is made up of eye-popping gouache-on-paper works. They are a meditation on a "reordered" future world in which mankind is no longer the major player. Despite the modest size and wholly unnatural acid palette, they manage to be both cinematic and strangely alluring."

3. Matthew Blackwell: Over Yonder in a Minor Key at Edward Thorp, through October 13
"Blackwell critiques contemporary society by making paintings that invoke the "This Land Is Your Land" America of a more innocent time. But the work is not as much naive or nostalgic as it is tough and confrontational. The paint handling and the message are in perfect sync—they both get to the point directly, in the same no-nonsense way in which John Wayne played his archetypical roles. Blackwell must be the kind of guy who drinks domestic beer in bars with beat-up pool tables in the back. God knows his heart is in the right place."

4. Jules de Balincourt: Unknowing Man's Nature at Zach Feuer Gallery, through October 13
"De Balincourt's work has been called faux-naive, but maybe it's just his natural touch; the paint is alluring enough to enhance compelling images without being distractingly beautiful. Although both Blackwell and de Balincourt are taking on American culture, de Balincourt is more of an outsider (he's lived much of his life abroad), and so his paintings depict a wider field of view (literally and figuratively), with landscapes that often recede into the distance. Although the work feels dense and complex, the show is punctuated with some simpler pieces, such as his take on the colors red, white, and blue."

5. D-L Alvarez: Parents' Day at Derek Eller, through October 6
"Alvarez bases a series of graphite drawings on a scene from the 1978 slasher film Halloween. While the drawings don't scare the way the movie does, they might be as disconcerting. In some, Jamie Lee Curtis is depicted in mid-scream, the space around her formed by an abstract pixelated area that evokes her terror and fear of claustrophobia. Other drawings offer no recognizable image, leaving you with just oversize "pixels" so that you can only imagine what has happened. In the gallery's north room is All Flowers Are Dead, a 2007 sculpture with a brutal presence by Jesse Bercowetz. A slumping figure with a bone for a head sits surrounded by "grass" made from jagged glass shards. Not an easy image to forget."