We were putting this issue together as publisher Kaveh Mojtabai and national correspondent Nancy Nesvet were preparing to return to Switzerland for Art Basel 2018, where once again, Artscope has been selected to have its latest issue (the one you’re holding) available at the Collective Booth in the Magazines Sector. We always take pride in bringing the best of the season’s exhibitions and artists from the New England region to the penultimate art fair.

We’re also proud to be continuing to circulate our magazine to over 700 distribution points throughout the region, free of charge. At a time many people are re-evaluating their relationship with Facebook due to security concerns, we’re renewing our focus on the print version of our product while working to expand the number of people who subscribe to the magazine both digitally and by mail. Please tell any of your art-loving friends outside the New England region that they can easily purchase us online on mobile devices through tablet.artscopemagazine.com.

We continue to complement our magazine coverage through our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds, as well as on our artscopemagazine.com zine, where you can find more timely art, theater and music reviews. If you’re an artist who’s been considering expanding your social media efforts — or feeling there’s something you’re just not doing right to attract new audiences and customers — you’ll want to read

Gina Fraone’s dos and don’ts on making social media an important part of your overall marketing plan.

More than ever, we aim to have our exhibition coverage reflect the issues and world around us.

In discussing our coverage of Providence’s recently-opened Skye Gallery, Suzanne Volmer wondered whether painfully honest works exploring some of humanity’s darkest sides was too dark for an issue we traditionally use to kick off the summer season and celebrate the brightest stars of the region with the international audience in mind. My feeling was that as we, as a country, are dealing with division and darkness, many artists are using their art as a way to exorcise their inner feelings, making this the perfect time to cover a gallery whose work bares the human soul. Indeed, owner Jonny Skye told Volmer that she hopes her artists “bubble up from the Earth’s crust to express their truths.”

Lisa Mikulski previews a show taking place at another new venue, SoWa Boston’s Beacon Gallery, where “Layers & Light: The Artwork of Aja Johnson and Lori Mehta” opens on May 4. We’ve always got our eyes open for fresh faces, be they artists or gallerists, to bring to our readers. As our nation continues to try to ascertain what is real and what is fake news, Johnson told Mikulski, “Art is one of the purest forms of communication that we can still rely on.”

Lucy Kalian — whose work graces our cover and whose “Witness” exhibition opens at Boston’s Copley Society of Art on May 17 and runs for a month — uses graphite to draw us closer to “fields and woodlands that have witnessed history longer than most of us” and their states of decay, her way of calling attention to challenging situations around the world. Elayne Clift interviewed the artist, who travels between homes in New Jersey and Vermont, just prior to us going to press.

Another artist calling attention to Earth’s beauty with the hope of encouraging its protection is Boston’s Cristi Rinklin, whose “Paramnesiac” exhibition, opening in mid-June at the Newport Art Museum, features paintings inspired by photographs of large natural land formations, which Rinklin then enhances with modern photography programs before recreating them with her brush. You’ll find yourself doing a double take to confirm they are indeed paintings, and then try to separate which part of her paint is real and which occupies “pictorial space.”

I was introduced to painter Nella Lush last September during the United South End Artists South End Open Studios; for this issue, Beth Neville visited Lush’s North Attleboro studio to see pieces of what she labeled “Romantic Abstract Expressionism” that Lush will be exhibiting in Provincetown, Nantucket and Boston in the months ahead. Neville then traveled to the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck to review the “Art from the Soul: Nine Painters” show that Lush curated and which allows us to introduce a new group of artists to our readers.

As warmer weather, finally, arrives, many of us will begin planning our annual visits to Cape Cod. If you are doing just that, we hope that Ron Fortier’s feature on Carol Odell, Tom Odell and John Howell White will convince you to either check out their work at the Odell Art Studio and Gallery in Chatham, or their “Related Visions” exhibition that runs from May 4 through June 24 at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, or both.

There’s more great craftsmanship at the Lexington Arts & Craft’s 10th Biennial Show, “State of Clay,” in Lexington, Mass., previewed here by Taryn Plumb, and “In the Garden,” where multiple installations by Jennifer Angus and Marie Zimmermann utilize the architecture of Shelburne Museum’s galleries in a show enhanced by the awe-inspiring display of 60-plus-piece Tiffany & Co. and Edward C. Moore flatware service from the museum’s collection, in what Marta Pauer-Tursi calls a “beautifully-curated exhibition by Kory Rogers.”

If you’re lucky to find yourself traveling in northern Maine, make sure to schedule time to see the “Richard Pousette-Dart: Painting/Light/Space” exhibition at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, where Artscope publisher Kaveh Mojtabai will be participating in a gallery talk on August 2.

Artscope is proud to be a media sponsor of the “Exploring the Myths of James Dye” exhibition on view through September 2 at the Worcester Art Museum (WAM); you can read about this show of finely-detailed ink illustrations and the road the 36-year-old took to earning his first major showcase, along with many other reviews and previews of exhibitions taking place throughout New England in the months ahead.

To read more, pick up a copy of our latest issue! Find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe Here.