Dear Artscope reader, Since 2006, we’ve been honored to bring the stories of the arts community of New England and beyond to you, always believing the best contribution that we can make to a peaceful world is through the stories of artists and the cultures they bring with them through their work; whether they were born in the United States or a distant world we get to know these personal interactions; whether visually or in person, ideally over a cuisine ...

Before I went to see “The Art of French Wallpaper Design,” on view at the RISD Museum through May 11, I thought the exhibition might be stuffy, but quite the opposite — it is a fascinating viewing experience. The wallpaper samples in the show are from the French Rococo period (1770-1840) and relate a softer style of decorative art than Baroque. The historical context in which they were made spans the opulence of Marie Antoinette, and encompasses the French Revolution, ...

Kudos to the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire for mounting the first major solo museum exhibition by a notable Indigenous artist. The exhibition, “Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai: Living Light,” tells stunning visual stories of Indigenous people in ways that convey the allure, strength and complexity of contemporary Native life. “I am deeply committed to making work that addresses Native American social issues and changes the way people perceive us in contemporary society,” the noted photographer ...

No genius evolves in a vacuum. Teasing out the intricate tapestry of influence and experience that wove Leonora Carrington’s extraordinary body of work makes fascinating viewing at the Rose Art Museum on the campus of Brandeis University this spring. During her lifetime, Carrington produced writing, painting, drawing, tapestry and sculpture. Her imagery is acutely personal and therefore unclassifiable, although she is usually labeled a surrealist and was allied with the movement. Her personal mythologies include recurring protagonists — bird-headed humanoids, ...

From the moment you step inside the second-floor gallery of the New Bedford Whaling Museum hosting “Community BLOOMS: Katy Rodden Walker,” you are submerged into a mysterious underwater world. This gem of an exhibition is an experiential installation that immerses you in ocean depths where ethereal jellyfish float suspended in an imaginary sea. The mystery is enhanced as a slowly transforming light projection of cobalt blue morphs into lime green. Gradually, the colors morph into an orange sunset washing over ...

“Crisis” is a powerful word, and whoever paired it with “climate” knew precisely what they were doing. For many young Americans, including myself, the term conjures up images of burning forests, melting ice caps and record-breaking hurricanes. However, “the ShowRoom” — the current exhibit at the Fort Point Arts Community (FPAC) Art Space — acknowledges this dire line of thought without parading its urgency, offering a perspective on the ecofuture that is both accessible and utilitarian. The exhibition features the ...

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA), located just 12 miles from Hartford, Connecticut. The “Modern Women: Visionary Artists” exhibit is a nod to and celebration of the female side of the abstract expressionist movement. This exhibit features a group of female artists who were based in New York City in the late 1940s. Their visions were largely influenced by the angst and discomposure following World War II. Joan Brown, Jenny Holzer, ...

The African American Master Artists in Residence Program at Northeastern University (AAMARP) has been a dynamic and unique nexus for artists of the African diaspora for 50 years, according to its current director, Dr. Reginald Jackson, himself a collagist, photographer, filmmaker, professor emeritus at Simmons college, and one of AAMARP's original practitioners. Some of the artists that AAMARP has fostered include John Wilson, who created the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Capitol Rotunda, and Theresa-India Young, celebrated in part for ...

As your wheels turn down the bumpy roads of a small town, seemingly uninhabited except for collapsing billboards and flickering neon signs, it can be hard to remember that people reside within the hollow structures on either side of the pavement. Sprawling landscapes are reimagined with the passing of time, to be built up into a metropolitan dystopia or left alone like a barren reminder of what it once looked like. In a world concerned with betterment and beauty, it ...

Clara Wainwright’s new exhibition at the Paul Dietrich Gallery at Cambridge Seven, “GLORY: A Satirical Retrospective of Fabric Collages,” is a kind of hallucinatory storyboard of a trip through Wainwright’s mind as it considers the insane chaos of the current Trumpian political gestalt. Her fabric collages are not exactly quilts, though each has three layers like a quilt, but they are smaller in size compared to traditional quilts which are large. These are basically fabric paintings, varying in size from ...

Running through March 30 in the Kingston Gallery’s Main Gallery, Nat Martin’s “Over Days” exhibition invites the viewer to play a game of iSpy with new sculptures, prints and some photography, primarily completed within the last few years. Inspired by his daily life, knicks-knacks — and artists such Joseph Beuys and others of the modern and Fluxus movements of the 1960s and ‘70s — Martin reinvents recyclables and life’s little moments. The show also features some revisited projects completed in ...

When the original Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross, formerly in O’Kane Hall, was dedicated in 1983 Rev. John E. Brooks, S.J. president emeritus of Holy Cross declared: “An undergraduate liberal arts college is academically strengthened when its students and staff are exposed to works of art.” The current Cantor Gallery, on the third floor of the Prior Performing Arts Center designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that opened in 2022, is a ...

How do you begin to engage with an exhibition of someone whose work you’ve followed for nearly 40 years, a period during which he documented many of your friends and, over time, as a reporter, had the honor of working with? In “Stephen DiRado, Better Together: Four Decades of Photographs,” on view through June 1 at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM), everyone seems to have been a friend of the Worcester-based photographer and Clark University professor. It’s one of those ...

Norad Mill in North Adams, Massachusetts is home to an assortment of quirky and highly visible businesses. It retains its vintage mill appearance while adding contemporary features, making it a desirable opportunity for businesses and artists to flourish. Within this winding megalopolis is a bright, clean-lined gallery space, Lapin Contemporary and its sister space, Lapin Curiosities. Cristina Barbedo is the proprietor and curator, bringing a unique focus to the Berkshires art community. Barbedo chooses a distinct array of artworks of ...

Edd Ravn is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice spans growing bacteria, painting with rainwater, recording soundscapes and designing public furniture to co-create objects that question perception and connection. With a BFA from the Glasgow School of Art and an MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art, Ravn’s work has been exhibited at RAINRAIN Gallery, New York, the Norton Museum of Art, Florida, and the Brazilian Embassy in London. He has served as visiting artist and critic at Yale ...

There are always good reasons to visit the Art Complex Museum at Duxbury and the annual “Duxbury Art Association 52nd Winter Juried Show,” which continues through April 19, is one of them. Add a magnificent display of ceramic pottery by Needham, Massachusetts, master potter Steven Branfman, who works in the tradition of Japanese Raku and your pleasure will be complete. If you are unfamiliar with Raku, the museum’s permanent collection will supply you with first-hand knowledge of the ceramic teacups ...

What makes a photograph special? That it provides a clear, static documentation of notable events worth cataloguing; for its artistic merit which, like a lightning-rod, can conduct particular feelings less abstract than those received from a painting or sculpture; or simply that it allows us to hold on to something physical, giving false permanence to the ultimate intangible force in our lives: time? Boston’s Panopticon Gallery is one of America’s oldest spaces dedicated exclusively to the showing of photographs. Having ...

On Monday, February 3, curator and artist David Walega arrived at New Bedford’s Gallery X around noon. The walls were bare inside the 1855 Universalist Church-turned-art gallery. Paintings, sculptures and ceramics covered floors and tables, waiting for installation. The sight was “overwhelming,” he said. And art just kept coming through the door. By 3:15 p.m., with the help of several volunteers, 67 works by 36 artists hung on the walls and sat upon white pedestals. The work of planning, preparing ...

The Cambridge Art Association's 2025 Members Prize Show once again offers a compelling showcase of artistic talent from its vibrant community. Open to all current members, the exhibition spans two locations: the Kathryn Schultz Gallery and CAA @ University Place. This year's juror, Shana Dumont Garr, brings a rich background in contemporary art curation and academic research, lending her expertise to the careful selection of works presented in the show. Garr's juror statement reflects her appreciation for the artists' trust ...

On one of the coldest days in February, even by Vermont standards, I stepped inside the Burlington City Arts gallery to find my senses stirred by the dramatic, enigmatic and visually seductive semi-abstract landscape paintings of Bunny Harvey. I forgot about the -7 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The exhibit consists of close to 20 recent large-scale oils on canvas as well as two works on paper made for this event. For those who have followed Harvey’s prolific four-decade-long career, it will ...

In all my years, I’ve never seen color used this way. Peter Batchelder is all about putting color where it shouldn’t be. The outcome is breathtaking and certainly not something you ever tire from. It’s not just me. Collectors and fans are effusive. Describing his work as “dramatic,” “provocative,” “vibrant,” “jaw-dropping,” “luminous,” “stimulating.” It borders on indescribable. Batchelder is a man of many talents. Each talent and experience are built on the previous, and the resultant growth is noteworthy. He ...

Bayda Asbridge's “Children of War,” on view at Babson College’s Hollister Gallery from March 27 through May 18, is an emotionally moving and profoundly thought-provoking exhibition that sheds light on the often-overlooked realities of war's youngest victims. A Syrian-British artist based in Worcester, Massachusetts, Asbridge brings her extensive multidisciplinary expertise to this deeply moving body of work. Seamlessly integrating sculpture, mixed media, and textile techniques, she crafts an immersive and evocative experience that resonates on both an intellectual and emotional ...