As one other Independence Day comes and goes, and our nation is more and more compromised, we lean ever additional into our collective dedication to artwork and the inventive braveness it delivers all through the season. This July, the bounty of exhibitions in Upstate New York features a solo present of summary work by Philip Gebhardt and spiritually infused works by the late Gerard Wagner, each in Hudson. Among the many dynamic group exhibits on view, Ligenza Moore Gallery presents mixed-media works by 15 artists and Carrie Haddad Gallery options six artists who extol the season in The Summer season Present. The myths and muses of historical past inhabit the plush work of Dana Sherwood at Geary in Millerton, whereas Ethan Cohen Gallery in Beacon celebrates the work of Chinese language ladies artists who discover themes of feminine company of their work. With the energy of midsummer as our springboard, allow us to have fun creative vibrancy with decided dignity!
Philip Gebhardt: Past Kind
Time and Area Restricted, 434 Columbia Road, Hudson, New York By means of July 27
Philip Gebhardt, “Apex” (2025), oil on canvas (picture by Philip Gebhardt, courtesy Time and Area Restricted Gallery)
Many up to date artists regard summary expressionism as an open-ended motion with probably the most outrageous potentialities for realization right this moment, and Philip Gebhardt is a diehard amongst them. His solo present Past Kind is simply that — past type, time, even past abstraction itself, although sustaining a verve for all of it the identical. With passionate titles corresponding to “Hold Me” (2022) and “A Grasp and A Gaze” (2024), Gebhardt pulls us into his cubist-style figurative scenes and wildly expressive landscapes. “Tangled” (2024) is harking back to our bodies mixed in gleefully in mattress, whereas “The Mending II” (2024) displays the superbly chaotic and richly hued realms of the artist’s fluid fancies.
Vacation spot Earth
Ligenza Moore Gallery, 78 Trout Brook Highway, Chilly Spring, New YorkThrough July 27
Meg Hitchcock, “The Thousand-Eyed Present (from Ralph Waldo Emerson)” (2025), mat board constructions, acrylic paint (picture courtesy the artist)
In a flurry of dynamic group exhibitions, Vacation spot Earth is a buoyant illustration of regional expertise. That includes 15 artists exploring “what it means to exist in this present moment,” as acknowledged by the gallery. Works corresponding to Katherine Bradford’s “Couple Swimmers” (2025) characteristic two faceless figures wading into water collectively in opposition to a darkish sky, suggesting an evening swim. “Jimena with Iguana” (2014) by Garry Nichols is a lavish portray of a lady sitting peacefully with the stoic inexperienced creature in her lap, a peaceful second of current within the now. A 1992 quasi-surrealist collage by Judy Pfaff has an anatomical edge, whereas Greg Slick’s “The Lives of Others #4” (2019) seems to have been carved, although it’s truly an summary acrylic portray. Sculptures by Tony Moore and Cal Lane discover notions of reminiscence and place, and “The Thousand-Eyed Present (from Ralph Waldo Emerson)” (2025) by Meg Hitchcock is a delightfully muscular construction that seems to fold outward in a managed riot of three-dimensional coloration.
Tackle:Earth – WaterStory
Convey/Er/Or, 299 Important Road, Poughkeepsie, New YorkThrough July 27
Bibiana Huang Matheis and Mimi Czajka Graminski, “Bibi – Mimi – Ocean Memo” (2025), archival pigment print on canvas, textile sculpture, and single-use plastic (picture by Bibiana Huang Matheis, courtesy Convey/Er/Or)
This month, venues throughout the Hudson Valley are internet hosting eight totally different exhibitions in collaboration with Inspiration Artwork Group Worldwide, with every present representing a inventive embodiment of a pure ecosystem. Tackle:Earth – Water Story at Convey/Er/Or presents a poignant set up by Bibiana Huang Matheis and Mimi Czajka Graminski, who collectively deal with the fragility of our oceans. The artists fitted the entrance window of the gallery with single-use plastic containers, successfully filling the area with an idiosyncratic, visually pleasing contraption comprised of trash. Contained in the gallery, a dangling cloth sculpture calls to thoughts a vibrant jellyfish whereas translucent cloth strips hold from the ceiling, giving the impression of a teeming seascape. Wrapping across the partitions are black and white pictures of human arteries, ocean waves, and glacial formations — stark visions of pure fluids as currents of energy and chance.
The Summer season Present
Carrie Haddad Gallery, 622 Warren Road, Hudson, New YorkThrough July 27
Samantha French, “Summer Solstice” (2024), oil on canvas (picture courtesy Carrie Haddad Gallery)
With a celebratory spirit because the baseline for this six-person exhibition, The Summer season Present is an enthralling complement to the festive month of July. A number of attractive, glistening work by Samantha French seize sanguine swimmers in brilliantly blue water, together with “Summer Solstice” and “Bon Vivants” (each 2024). “Time Traveler Heat Wave” (2025) by Clark Derbes is a playful geometric-patterned sculpture fabricated from polychrome sugar-maple, and Margaret G. Nonetheless’s “Green Gas Station” (2025) is a dreamy imaginative and prescient of what could possibly be a pit cease on a summer time street journey, whereas Andrea Moreau’s “Poland (Glider)” (2023) depicts a frosty panorama of white mountains, the utter antithesis of this steamy season.
By means of Shade to Kind
Lightforms Artwork Middle, 743 Columbia Road, Hudson, New YorkThrough July 31
Gerard Wagner, “Vorhan (Curtain)” (1966), watercolor on paper (picture by Gerard Wagner Basis, courtesy Lightforms Artwork Middle)
The late Gerard Wagner was a German-born English painter deeply influenced by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian thinker and social reformer who was a mentor to Hilma af Klint, amongst different notable artists of her technology. Curated by Sampsa Pirtola and introduced in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner Library and the artist’s basis, By means of Shade to Kind gathers over 30 sensual work by Wagner that vibrate with a metaphysical brilliance. In “Vorhan (Curtain)” (1966), we encounter a small determine holding an arched rainbow in the midst of a purple-and-blue panorama as a reddish-orange, double-faced determine appears down whereas beaming rays penetrate the attractive and unusual scene, altogether a mirrored image of his exploration of non secular forces by artwork. The therapeutic and melting rainbow motif continues in different works, whereas “Der Tote (The Dead)” (1978) and its lone face in an summary floating realm are a sleek reminder of destiny.
What She Builds, She Should Destroy
Distortion Society, 155 Important Road, Beacon, New YorkThrough August 10
Michelle Silver, “The Unraveling” (2025), oil on canvas (picture courtesy Distortion Society)
Within the opening strains of the Iliad, Homer invokes the female with the phrases “Rage—Goddess, sing the rage,” and thus begins his thundering epic. Infused with a way of Homerian rage, What She Builds, She Should Destroy at Distortion Society highlights a sequence of strong crimson-hued work by gallery director Michelle Silver. This solo present of her latest work wrangles ideas of motherhood, female energy, and pleasure as mirrored in these muscular works that appear to battle with themselves. With “The Unraveling” (2025) as a first-rate instance, a swirl of fiery purple gestures harmonizes in a metaphorical ecstatic dance, every painterly rhythm morphing into the following. In “Holding Pattern” (2025), we see the painter herself — pregnant, leaning ahead, and returning our gaze — immersed in quasi-Impressionist environs, whereas “The Dancer” (2024) throws us additional right into a superbly chaotic disarray of pure summary frenzy.
Dana Sherwood: Backyard of the Sphinx
Geary, 34 Important Road, Millerton, New YorkThrough August 10
Dana Sherwood, “Inside the Belly of the Fawn (odalisque)” (2025), oil on panel (picture courtesy Geary)
Impressed by myths and muses of historical past and using the Sphinx as her symbolic focus, Dana Sherwood’s exploration of basic iconography is pure rapture. With latest work and glazed porcelain works, her solo present pays homage to eminent figures, together with Persephone and Alice in Wonderland, amongst different literary heroines. “Moons of Medusa” (2025) is a luscious re-imagining of the wrathful gorgon in glowing porcelain. With “Inside the Belly of the Fawn (odalisque)” (2025), we encounter a recent model of Ingres’s well-known sitter, this time surrounded by candy treats and lovingly nestled beside a fawn who steps rigorously amongst snails in a pastoral setting. “Inside the Belly of the Horse (lagoon with pomegranates)” (2025) continues the theme of femme magnificence in a rarified world, the place one lady straddles a horse and one other rests inside its physique whereas all the poetic panorama is lush with fruits, truffles, pomegranates, and beautiful white birch timber.
Half the Sky
Ethan Cohen Gallery on the KuBe Artwork Middle, 20 Kent Road, Beacon, New YorkThrough August 30
Cui Fei, “Tracing the Origin” (2006), twigs, pins, and plexiglas (picture courtesy Ethan Cohen Gallery)
Throughout his reign over China, Mao Zedong declared that “women hold up half the sky,” an announcement that successfully impressed a ladies’s revolution. Half the Sky celebrates the ability of 11 visionary Chinese language ladies artists and is devoted to Joan Lebold Cohen, a critic, scholar, and pioneer within the discipline of up to date Chinese language artwork. This dynamic present features a sequence of daring visions of Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist goddesses constructed from cloth by Guo Zhen, in addition to Lin Tianmiao’s “Bound/Unbound (bicycle)” (1996) embodying her apply of wrapping on a regular basis objects in thread. In the meantime, Cui Fei’s “Tracing the Origin” (2006) is a fragile orchestration of twigs to resemble calligraphy and Shen Ling’s pop-inflected “Sunflower Woman” (2005) depicts two assured ladies having fun with beer, cigarettes, and sitting with out underwear as a person behind them casually reads a e book, all of them set in opposition to a dramatic yellow wall.
Within the Secret Distance
Gravestone Gallery, 28 Hurley Avenue, Kingston, New YorkThrough August 31
Olivia Bee, “Northern Lights” (2024), inkjet print of 35mm movie (picture courtesy Gravestone Gallery)
Documenting her life as a mom and a farmer, Olivia Bee makes use of pictures to seize moments of human bliss and the poetic transience of the pure world. Her solo present Within the Secret Distance facilities latest pictures that radiate with otherworldly sensitivity and ease. The artist at the moment stewards 60 acres of farmland together with her husband and daughter within the Umpqua Valley of Western Oregon, a spot that options prominently in her work. In “Northern Lights” (2024), a unadorned lady turns her head towards a blazing pink and purple evening sky, whereas in “Fescue in May” (2023), a lady stands in an expansive discipline as she faces the brilliance of a rising solar. “White Rainbow” (2023) captures the essence of Bee’s affinity for the land, portraying a chalky glowing arc over a pastoral panorama.
All of the Gentle and Shadow
Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Middle, 584 NY-9D, Garrison, New YorkThrough September 7
Erin Rouse, “Broom study 1-4” (2025), purple oak, copper wire, sorghum (broom corn), nails, cotton wire, and beeswax (picture by Alon Koppel Images, courtesy the artist and River Valley Arts Collective)
With a deal with native and sustainable supplies because the core of their apply, All of the Gentle and Shadow at Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Middle presents the work of eight artists who discover the interaction between performance and artwork. Curated by Alyson Baker, this refined present of rarified objects is seamlessly built-in into the home environs of the historic Manitoga dwelling. “Broom study 1-4” (2025) by Erin Rouse contains 4 brooms suspended from good-looking black hooks, their steadfast presence defying their in any other case meant use. Zach Hadlock’s “20 raku fired vessels” (2023–2024), fabricated from stoneware, is a coordinated imaginative and prescient of bulbous magnificence, whereas Jonathan Kline’s “Large Wrapped Grid” (2024) consists of painted black ash that hums with an aura of geometric perfection. The sleek vitality of this present is wholly embodied by Alexandra Kohl’s “Little Horse” (2025), a tiny creature tucked into the cosy scene and a delight to behold.
