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 artistic 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 reveals 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 luxurious 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 power of midsummer as our springboard, allow us to rejoice creative vibrancy with decided dignity!
Philip Gebhardt: Past Kind
Time and Area Restricted, 434 Columbia Avenue, Hudson, New York By way of July 27
Philip Gebhardt, “Apex” (2025), oil on canvas (picture by Philip Gebhardt, courtesy Time and Area Restricted Gallery)
Many modern artists regard summary expressionism as an open-ended motion with essentially the most outrageous prospects for realization at this time, and Philip Gebhardt is a diehard amongst them. His solo present Past Kind is simply that — past kind, time, even past abstraction itself, although sustaining a verve for all of it the identical. With passionate titles reminiscent of “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 paying homage 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 reminiscent of Katherine Bradford’s “Couple Swimmers” (2025) function two faceless figures wading into water collectively towards 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 really 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 colour.
Deal with:Earth – WaterStory
Convey/Er/Or, 299 Fundamental Avenue, 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 completely different exhibitions in collaboration with Inspiration Artwork Group Worldwide, with every present representing a artistic embodiment of a pure ecosystem. Deal with: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 house with an idiosyncratic, visually pleasing contraption created from trash. Contained in the gallery, a dangling material sculpture calls to thoughts a vibrant jellyfish whereas translucent material strips grasp from the ceiling, giving the impression of a teeming seascape. Wrapping across the partitions are black and white photographs 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 Avenue, 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 a captivating complement to the festive month of July. A number of beautiful, 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 product of polychrome sugar-maple, and Margaret G. Nonetheless’s “Green Gas Station” (2025) is a dreamy imaginative and prescient of what may very well be a pit cease on a summer season street journey, whereas Andrea Moreau’s “Poland (Glider)” (2023) depicts a frosty panorama of white mountains, the utter antithesis of this steamy season.
By way of Colour to Kind
Lightforms Artwork Heart, 743 Columbia Avenue, Hudson, New YorkThrough July 31
Gerard Wagner, “Vorhan (Curtain)” (1966), watercolor on paper (picture by Gerard Wagner Basis, courtesy Lightforms Artwork Heart)
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 way of Colour 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 course 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 Fundamental Avenue, 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 collection of sturdy crimson-hued work by gallery director Michelle Silver. This solo present of her current 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 pink gestures harmonizes in a metaphorical ecstatic dance, every painterly rhythm morphing into the subsequent. 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 Fundamental Avenue, 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 traditional iconography is pure rapture. With current 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 your entire poetic panorama is lush with fruits, desserts, pomegranates, and beautiful white birch bushes.
Half the Sky
Ethan Cohen Gallery on the KuBe Artwork Heart, 20 Kent Avenue, 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,” a press release that successfully impressed a ladies’s revolution. Half the Sky celebrates the facility 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 collection of daring visions of Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist goddesses constructed from material by Guo Zhen, in addition to Lin Tianmiao’s “Bound/Unbound (bicycle)” (1996) embodying her follow 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 ebook, all of them set towards 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 current pictures that radiate with otherworldly sensitivity and ease. The artist at the moment stewards 60 acres of farmland along 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 Heart, 584 NY-9D, Garrison, New YorkThrough September 7
Erin Rouse, “Broom study 1-4” (2025), pink oak, copper wire, sorghum (broom corn), nails, cotton wire, and beeswax (picture by Alon Koppel Pictures, courtesy the artist and River Valley Arts Collective)
With a deal with native and sustainable supplies because the core of their follow, All of the Gentle and Shadow at Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Heart presents the work of eight artists who discover the interaction between performance and artwork. Curated by Alyson Baker, this subtle present of rarified objects is seamlessly built-in into the home environs of the historic Manitoga house. “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), product of 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 power of this present is wholly embodied by Alexandra Kohl’s “Little Horse” (2025), a tiny creature tucked into the comfortable scene and a delight to behold.
