In José de Jesús Rodríguez’s paintings, urban landscapes merge with surreal imagery to form dreamlike and otherworldly scenes. In Take me in your arms, thrill me with all of your charms, a pleasing jumble of sprawling, boxlike apartment buildings recede to the horizon: this is an elevated view of Brooklyn, where the artist lives and works. A series of ghostly, semi-transparent figures frames the scene, each one with their hands outstretched in a gesture of seeming solidarity.

The artist’s way of using human figures to structure the painting recalls the style of the Mexican Muralists, such as Diego Rivera, who used painting to promote their own social ideals (or those of the government). But instead of a single ideal, Rodríguez’s paintings, with their dreamlike ghosts and transparent visions, seem to question the very relationship between truth and appearances.