“What would it be like to have reverence for an image?” artist Colleen Barry wondered aloud as we walked through her exhibition “ Iconophilia ” at Half Gallery in the East Village, which presents 14 recent paintings by the artist.

In these paintings, Barry explores ideas of motherhood, tenderness, and the complexity of image-making today. In many works, sturdy, almost sculptural nude women appear alongside children and dogs, suggesting an untamed intimacy. In Orange She-Wolf with Infants , a small painting on wood, two babes appear suckling from a dog. The rust-colored painting is Barry’s interpretation of the famed Capitoline Wolf , a centuries-old sculpture depicting Romulus and Remus, the mythical twin founders of Rome who were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned.…