10 Shows to See in Upstate New York This January
Ash Eliza Williams’s fantastical paintings, Jonathan Becker’s glamorous photographs, and group shows on reproductive health, light, and new worlds. by Taliesin ThomasSubscribe to our newsletter
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Anne Schaefer
Foreland, 111 Water Street, Catskill, New York
Through February 16
The current Greater Valley Artists show, a regular showcase of artists working in Greene and Columbia County at Foreland in Catskill, features the robust color combinations of Valatie-based artist and educator Anne Schaefer. Featuring four artworks on a white brick wall as a site-specific installation in the lobby area of the iconic Foreland building, Schaefer’s graphically charged artworks spark love at first sight. “trifurcated” (2023) is a bright abstract square shape with a bold turquoise area at the top that gives way to warm swaths of yellow and fluorescent orange while four relentless lines of red cut through the middle. Her multi-panel composition “twenty-four hour palette (dawning, everlasting, present)” (2018–24) is a wild yet precisely organized vision of pale block colors that pattern at random, cross over each other, combine and intersect at different intervals. Made by “sourcing, remixing and riffing” from her archive, as the artist put it in her statement, these works sweep us into layered spaces simultaneously composed and liberated.
HOLIDAY
LABspace, 2642 Route 23, Hillsdale, New York
Through February 23
The annual HOLIDAY group exhibition at LABspace in Hillsdale is a seasonal felicity, and the seventh incarnation of the show is as gleeful as ever. The opening last month was a chance to see colleagues and friends in a joyful setting that momentarily dispelled the woes of this world. And the packed exhibition is a cheerful blow-out of everything from drawing to photography by 375 artists, all of whom submitted a tiny work to accommodate this robust and expertly installed show. Among the highlights include Zohar Lazar’s “RRRUNCH!” (2024), featuring a cartoon creature feasting on a slime-green sandwich, and Philip J. Palmieri’s “Adam’s First Kiss” (2024), an intimate caress between two male faces. “Sure-Footed” (2024), a silly sculpture of two little chicken feet by Hanna Washburn, solicits an instant smile, as does the loveable polka-dotted hotdog-style dog in “Superior Breed” (2024) by Philip Knoll. “Empathetic Roots” (2023) by Julie Evans is a lush floral medley made of ceramic, while Susan Meyer’s delightful “Pretzel” (2024) is colored with a candy cane swirl design, a lovely holiday twinkle in this terrific HOLIDAY show.
A Space Between Worlds
Wassaic Project, 37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic, New York
Through March 15
Installed throughout the seven floors of the Maxon Mills building, AKA Wassaic Project in Wassaic, nine artists build their own worlds. Curated by Eve Biddle, Bowie Zunino, Jeff Barnett-Winsby, and Will Hutnick, the various installations of mixed media artworks reveal a range of creative focus and fantastical thinking. Paolo Arao’s sewn cotton “In Verse” (2024) and “Intervals (Prisms)” (2024) are strikingly geometric, while Amira Pualwan’s handwoven cotton “Flame v Flood” (2023) appears to vibrate with a graphic pulse. “Kitchen Window” (2024) by Mary Tooley Parker is an impressive work of hooked tapestry that details a common kitchen scene with such sensitivity that I found myself moved to tears, and“Honey” (2024) by Dana Robinson is a lovely Dada-inspired collage of random objects that float along in a timeless realm. “You are now Egungun: (2017) by Jamal Ademola is the futuristic representative from A Space Between World— it depicts a figure that looks as if it stepped right out of a Nick Cave work, cloaked in an outrageous glittery ensemble.
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