NEW YORK— Andrew Guenther is not afraid to take risks, or to show the dark side of humanity by representing the nebulous American dream as the American nightmare. His palette often oozes with acidic color, and he renders the human form as if it just stepped out of a George Romero zombie flick. Sometimes forgoing canvas and painting directly on the wall, he creates what looks like a funhouse seen through the lens of a heavy-metal hippie cult.

Guenther recently began showing paintings that incorporate three-dimensional objects, starting with Untitled (Coconut Painting II) (2006) at Bucket Rider Gallery in Chicago. Made of oil and coconut on panel, the work fuses the dripping, washy paint with the brown foodstuff to create a busty, phantasmal Goth queen. In his new paintings, on view at Chelsea’s Derek Eller Gallery through January 5, Guenther uses such items as Hanes underwear, T-shirts, sunglasses, a cigar, a wine glass, and plastic teeth. Like veteran painter Peter Saul, who often combines bright, abrasive hues with in-your-face content, Guenther goes for the jugular. Several of these mixed-media works resemble time capsules from a shopping mall, such as the portrait King of Skull (2007), in which a skeletal character wears a baseball cap bearing a skull and crossbones. With its wet-on-wet tie-dyed appearance and sculpted McDonald’s fries carton complete with a scattering of the greasy yellow treats, this telling depiction wouldn’t be out of place at Spencer's Gifts—a store near and dear to teenagers of the '70s and '80s for its black lights, velvet posters, and erotic gag gifts. Meanwhile, the cigar-chomping apparition of On Vision (2007) is Guenther at his most minimal, and also at his most successful. Like some of the more extreme spirit photographs of the early 20th century, Guenther’s figures are rendered with X-ray vision and a creepy ectoplasmic quality. It's a closer representation of our physical existence than we care to admit.

ARTINFO asked Guenther to recommend five current exhibitions in New York. These are his suggestions for what to see in Manhattan, before and after the New Year:

1. The Gates of Paradise: Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Renaissance Masterpiece at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, through January 13
"Three restored panels from the doors of Florence’s Baptistery have been brought over to the U.S. for what may be their only exhibition outside of Italy. In keeping with Ghiberti’s unbeatable confidence, I’ll say that a student of art history may wish to compare my panels at Derek Eller with the relief work of Ghiberti."

2. Joshua Smith: If By Whiskey at John Connelly Presents, through January 5
"There are a lot of Josh Smiths in the art world right now, so it can be difficult to distinguish them (don’t worry, I am as confused as you). Of course, it’s even trickier when you only read their names in print, which is a great reason to see this show. In his first major solo exhibition, this Joshua Smith combines disparate materials and artifacts to evoke psychological obsessions with objects of sentiment."

3. Max Schumann at Taxter & Spengemann, through January 12
"Some artists read Page Six and dream about the fabulous life in Gucci and 50,000-thread-count sheets (bought on credit), while others willingly wear uncombed burlap underwear and invite the world’s most open sores into their minds, knowing that art can still influence cultural shifts. Schumann, who is definitely in the latter camp, contrasts situations of economics and war and plays with the language that flips around these ideologies."

4. Mask at James Cohan Gallery, through January 26
"Curators Elyse Goldberg and Ginger Cofield provide an excellent survey in this show, an effort to combine artifact and contemporary art. While many of the masks shown here inspire just morbid fascination (a trend I hope will pass in the coming year), masks can also be vessels of meaning for their respective audiences. If you feel like Big Bird on the inside, no one will know unless you put on the mask."

5. Rodney Dickson at Klemens Gasser & Tanja Grunert, Inc., opens January 8
"Having seen other manifestations of Dickson’s work, from installation to works on paper, I am predicting this show will be one not to miss. The recent relocation of the gallery to an apartment house offers relief from the stale architecture in most of Chelsea, and provides a more intimate space for viewing the work."