Repetti Gallery, located on a sprawling industrial floor two blocks from PS-1, presents two solo exhibitions in May. The artists, Lauren McIntosh and German Tagle, will each show new paintings and site specific work.

Installed in the main gallery, McIntosh’s new gouache paintings on paper mingle compressed figurative forms and natural imagery with delicate, decorative marks. Working from a variety of inspirations, the artist says she wants, “to perpetuate the beauty in nature, the truths in life, and the goodness of being an extension of these forces.” Yet such benevolent impulses are bound by the artist’s disappointment with the current sociopolitical state, and as she says, the sense that we may be on “the verge of catastrophic global demise.”

These conflicting ideas of harmony and tragedy shed light on two parts of her show’s title, but what of the Hypnotist? Here she tells a story: “More than ninety years ago, members of the elite Skull and Bones Society from Yale University, including President Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, went on a grave robbing spree and stole the skull of Geronimo, a spiritual and military leader of the Apache Tribe. Prescott Bush and his friends installed Geronimo’s skull in their clubhouse so that it could be used in a “kissing ritual.” Many attempts to restore the remains by Geronimo’s ancestors and tribes-people have been ignored and rebuffed, denials have been issued…what’s next?”