Leading up to her second solo show with Charles Moffett Gallery in New York, we pay a virtual visit to the abstract painter Lily Stockman’s airy studio—a lush oasis in Joshua Tree, California, where the desert’s poetic grandeur has broadened her perspective and fine-tuned her focus.

How have you been keeping busy during the pandemic? Has quarantining impacted your creativity at all?

We rolled into lockdown with a two year old and an infant, so suddenly without daycare my studio practice went out the window. When we figured out a system so I could get back to the studio to make work for my show, I felt like a demented border collie let loose on a field of sheep. I went nuts, churned out an enormous amount of work, and worked on five paintings at a time. I have so much empathy for working parents of small children during this deal.

The paintings draw inspiration from small details: a praying mantis, a phone number jotted down. Have you always paid attention to the little things?

I imagine most painters are close-lookers, right? A love of the natural world makes a person a noticer. And a keeper of time. I recently learned that the way you can tell when your melons have the highest sugar content and are ready to be picked is when the tendril nearest the stem starts to brown. That’s a nice way to think about when a painting is done. You learn the signs to look out for, and when it’s ripe, you stop. Brushes down, don’t overpaint. Read more.

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When: Sept. 12–Dec. 19

Where: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich

What: Naturally formed stones have long been a focal point of the Swiss-born artist, from the monumental Human Nature (2013) at Rockefeller Center to Seven Magic Mountains (2016) in the Nevada desert. A new septet of ten-foot-tall sculptures continues this meditation—they reflect on how the inner self relates to the natural world while reveling in sensory experiences of color, form, and mass.

Ballooning e-commerce sales have placed shopping malls, once a backdrop bar none to suburban life and an ode to American consumption, on a fast track to failure. The pandemic is only accelerating their demise. A recent CoreSight Research report predicts that 25 percent of America’s roughly 1,000 malls will close over the next three to five years, and beleaguered retailers and real estate developers have been scrambling to figure out what’s next.

Simon Property Group, the country’s largest mall owner, has reportedly been in talks with Amazon to convert shuttered Sears and J.C. Penney department stores into fulfillment centers, but rezoning intricacies may present insurmountable hurdles that’ll ultimately leave big-box spaces sitting vacant for the foreseeable future. At least the folks over at Deadmalls.com, a trusty blog that has documented the death of retail since 2000, will have an abundance of spaces to scavenge in the meantime.

Four years ago, Bryant Nichols began a daily exercise he continues to this day: He makes one 3-D illustration from start to finish. Nichols, a 24-year-old who counts Apple, Microsoft, and Adobe among his clients, says that he typically executes the ritual without a concept in mind. But his work suggests otherwise: its tactile forms, contorted into vibrant, expressive shapes, all but burst with emotion.

Nichols’s diverse subject matter is united by a meticulous attention to detail, allowing his creations to convey a kind of beauty anyone can recognize. This inclusivity might stem from his personal history: Born in South Korea, he was adopted at age 3 and grew up in Loveland, Ohio, where few people looked like him. “My work is a way to send something out into the world without having my race be a part of that standing out,” he says.

Paul Cocksedge Studio was founded in 2004 by Paul Cocksedge and Joana Pinho. With a strong and dedicated team of collaborators, the studio has won national and international acclaim for its original and innovative design, underpinned by research into the limits of technology, materials, and manufacturing processes.

Surface Says: Paul Cocksedge injects the ordinary with a sense of wonder. Whether making an experimental installation or a smartphone speaker, his studio creates objects that draw us in.

Andrew Prokos’s inverted images reinterpret Middle Eastern metropolises.

These haunting masks empower women to communicate on their own terms.

Artemide’s latest lamp uses antiviral ultraviolet technology to sanitize rooms.

The illustrator Kamwei Fong imagines a world made entirely of fluffy cats.