The New York-based artist Martha Diamond has lived and worked on the Bowery since 1969, painting semi-abstract cityscapes in loose, vibrant strokes of color. Today, as then, she isn’t intent on depicting physical detail so much as capturing the essence, the raw energy, of what she sees. Describing her first childhood trip to the Big Apple, she recalls, “This is what I saw, simple things with their own magic.” In Diamond’s work, buildings in scatty layers of red, yellow, and black hang against uniform backgrounds—as imposing, dramatic, and tumultuous as the city itself. —E.C.