Welcome to our 106th issue! Like many of you, we’ve spent the past few months catching up on long delayed projects and getting to see the artists, galleries and museums we’ve been away from for far too long. After hearing reports of strong sales in Boston’s SoWa District, especially during First Friday and Sundays during SoWa Open Market,when large crowds are in the neighborhood, it seemed like a good idea to start the fall previewing several of the exhibitions taking ...

At the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts is a comprehensive exhibition that includes Edvard Munch’s earthbound paintings, spanning decades. The paintings are energetic, reading as an exploratory of the artist’s emotional life through his observation of the natural world. This important exhibition was carefully and mindfully curated by Jay A. Clarke from the Art Institute of Chicago; Trine Otte Bak Nielsen, curator from Munchmuseet, and Jill Lloyd, an independent curator, drawing upon knowledge of Munch’s early life of emotional ...

When I say, “photographic arts,” what or who comes to mind? Annie Leibovitz? Ansel Adams? Alfred Stieglitz? Richard Avedon? Different genres. Different styles. Different expressions. The two artists who are currently exhibiting works at the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts in Portland are creating work that has osmosed into a totally different expression of the genre. They are photographers, no doubt, and both have interest in sculpture. But all assumptions end there. Todd Watts works are represented in major museum ...

Fountain Street Gallery, a contemporary art haven nestled within Boston's SOWA art district, will present a captivating exhibition titled "Undercurrents" this October. This collaboration between Virginia Mahoney and Nathalie Miebach beckons connoisseurs and enthusiasts to embark on an immersive journey into the intricate tapestry of unconventional patterns, both concealed beneath and soaring above the surface of materials. The exhibition urges contemplation upon these meticulously composed layers, inviting introspection and wonder. In a world increasingly influenced by the rise of artificial ...

Modern collage, invented by George Braque, Pablo Picasso and others in the early 20th century, lives on today in the exhibition “Embodied” by Robin Colodzin at the famous Copley Society of Art in Boston. Founded in 1879, the Copley Society has long been the bastion of painting in the romantic realism tradition, and many of its artist-founders are honored as America’s great painters. In an effort to be more contemporary, the Copley selection committee is now including experimental artists who ...

In the days before instamatic and digital cameras, realist paintings were timeless documents of life throughout the decades and centuries. Now, as our aging cities and landmarks continue aging and decaying, and major atmospheric storms change our coastlines and landscapes without warning, the eyes of the artists in the “2023 New England Regional Juried Exhibition” at the Guild of Boston Artists serve to give us a detailed look at the effect of those changes as well as current household items, ...

Christine Palamidessi’s “Couples,” a multi-faceted exploration of the dynamic commitment between two individuals, promises an epic experience. This exhibition is laced with humor, and studies contemporary relationships and their parallel to antiquity and every historical period in between. Observations come from both the artist’s experience as well as universal qualities that signify the magnetic power of love. Palamidessi has revisited themes in her work many times over the years, but always from a deeper, newer and more insightful angle. Her ...

The phenomenon of displacement, whether stemming from conflict, economic forces, or environmental shifts, exerts a profound influence not solely on those directly uprooted, but also on their subsequent generations. The repercussions of displacement, encompassing personal experiences, enduring traumas, and cultural disconnections, extend across time, impacting not just the displaced individuals but echoing into the lives of their descendants are explored in Kingston Gallery’s current solo exhibition, “Krystle Brown: Better Homes Than Gardens,” through October 1. Within this exhibition lies a ...

There is beauty in what is blooming, beauty in what withers and satisfaction in assembling a world of flowers and objects into a specific aesthetic expression. Anyone who has ever picked flowers and arranged them, and then photographed or painted them, anyone who has put a collection of pleasing objects into a personal exhibit or admires the work of Joseph Cornell or the antique cabinets that curiosities collectors used to keep, can understand the indescribable satisfaction in creating little worlds ...

Joyce J. Scott, recognized as the foremost pioneer and influencer in the realms of beadwork, fine art, craft and social commentary, is being honored through “Messages,” her inaugural New England solo exhibition that is on view through November 5 at Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. Curated and organized by Jo Anne and Libby Cooper of Mobilia Galleryof Cambridge, this momentous occasion celebrates a storied career replete with accomplishments and sustained dedication spanning decades, all aimed at propelling the arts forward ...

Surreal, puckish touches everywhere: An unimposing wall of a sea captain’s mansion blares as if with a spotlight for a celebrity to enter or exit; or perhaps an invitation for the honored viewer – yourself – but there is no door, just the leaves of high bushes full of light. Are bushes being honored, while the majestic facade’s portal is ignored? Everyone knows Edward Hopper’s iconic 1942 “Nighthawks,” but are they fully aware of how his touches of individuality in ...

Through performance art, photography and film, trans-Indigenous/Brazilian artist UÝRA tries to make sense, and advocate, in a hostile world. UÝRA — who identifies with she/her/they/them pronouns — has created a tight exhibition that focuses on prejudice and oppression, biodiversity and dispossession, ritual, the lasting wounds of colonialism and the goings-on of their young compatriots in the industrial center of Manaus, which sits central in the sprawling state of Amazonas. The threats directed at UÝRA and her ilk are real, the ...

The large format experimental photography in “Ellen Carey: Struck by Light,” on view at New Britain Museum of American Art (NBMAA) through January 28, 2024, delivers a feast of process for the eyes. Her work has the sensibility of color-field painting brought into photographic context relating similar minimalist simplicity, elegance and color-saturation. It is remarkable to see the physicality of Carey’s nearly floor-to-ceiling unframed polaroid prints. The artist’s “pulls” are installed pinned to the walls and hanging unframed, exposed and ...

“Bag lady, you gon' hurt your back / Dragging all them bags like that / I guess nobody ever told you / All you must hold on to / Is you, is you, is you” — Erykah Badu, “Bag Lady” My hand reaches for my shoulders. Sure, I often have a tote bag on one side, a backpack, or if I am trying to look sophisticated, a handbag like the movie depictions of 20-something women in the workforce, but I ...

Allison Tanenhaus is here to make friends. Glitch artist extraordinaire, she collaborates with musicians, sculptors and other glitch and digital artists to bring immersive, dynamic and other worldly art to audiences around New England. What is glitch art? Several decades old, it began with artists experimenting with altering analog signals, manipulating them with magnets and messing with wiring to intentionally create unpredictable visual “errors.” Tanenhaus started to be curious about glitch art when her computer crashed, and jagged lines appeared ...

Since arts organizations began emphasizing equity, diversity, and inclusion, commendable efforts have emerged, resulting in tangible changes, often at the institutional level. These efforts have led to the opening of doors, the dismantling of barriers, and the establishment of genuinely welcoming environments that offer opportunities to ethnic minorities, women, Black artists, and neglected communities, as well as authentic stories about nations. However, a critical question remains: how prepared are these art organizations to fully commit to advancing equity and implementing ...

Photographers Bremner Benedict, Ville Kansanen, Ellen Konar, Steve Goldband, Jason Lindsey, Connie Lowell, Simon Norfolk and Camille Seaman seek “to shed light on the critical issues of climate change and the water cycle, using the power of photography to evoke awareness, empathy and action” in “Ceding Ground” that opens September 8 and continues through October 15 at the reopened Griffin Museum of Photography, 67 Shore Rd., Winchester, Massachusetts. “Through their distinct lenses, these artists explore the intricate relationship between human ...