To glance at a María Berrío work is to immerse oneself in a multi-textural wonderland, a vivid colorscape where women reign eternal—with cacti around their necks, no less. Berrío’s work, which consists of dreamlike collages of Japanese paper and watercolor, retain a unique concoction of hyper-specific textures that elevate the natural world to its hallucinatory imagination.

Based in Brooklyn, María Berrio grew up in Colombia. Her large-scale works, which are meticulously crafted from layers of Japanese paper, reflect on cross-cultural connections and global migration seen through the prism of her own history.

There’s something different about Jarvis Boyland’s work. Walking the exhibition rooms of Los Angeles’ Kohn Gallery — where Boyland’s “On Hold:” exhibit is on view through Thursday, May 23 — I was arrested by his portraits of Black queer men. Though simple and straightforward, there’s a complexity in the color story, particularly in his subject’s skin tones. They were rich and nuanced and complex, both imagined and realistic, and unlike any paintings I’ve come into contact with.