Ken Johnson reviews Vera Iliatova: For Now, At Once at Monya Rowe Gallery, New York, on view through April 12, 2015.

Johnson writes: "In her dreamy paintings of girls in verdant landscapes, Vera Iliatova toys with conventional associations of nature, femininity, childhood and innocence… Insofar as the artist herself identifies with her girls, they may be said to personify the life and freedom of art and imagination. This gives Ms. Iliatova’s paintings a touching personal urgency. She’s projecting her own sense of what it takes to be an artist in the modern world: You have to be some kind of outlaw."