Valentine’s Day is an annual reminder that affection for others and personal passion are vital aspects of living creatively amid challenging times. The vamp of art leads the way into February’s crop of exhibitions in Upstate New York. Kick off this romantic time of the year with a visit to Mary Ellen Mark’s show at the recently reopened Center for Photography at Woodstock to see this award-winning photographer’s poignant photos of women in a high-security psychiatric facility. Head to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls to see Nigerian-American painter Odili Donald Odita’s vibrant paintings. At the Front Room Gallery in Hudson, Linda Griggs shows sumptuous and moody oil paintings laced with solitude, while Joan Harmon’s exhibition at Garner Arts Center in Garnerville includes glass sculptures and charcoal works on paper that feel otherwordly. Meanwhile, a six-decade survey of painterRalph Fasanella at the Ruffed Grouse Gallery in Narrowsburg features spirited works by this self-taught artist from the Bronx, and Z Bhel’s exhibition at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson features wild sculptural creations. Let us indulge our ardor for art during these amorous days of February!
Joan Harmon: Chaos/Light
Garner Arts Center, 55 West Railroad Avenue, Garnerville, New York
Through February 23
One theory holds that the universe is held in place by opposing binaries — where there is form, then, there is always formlessness. Joan Harmon’s exhibition at Garner Arts Center in Garnerville seems to toggle between these two states with a series of glass pieces and charcoal works on paper that morph between free-form and fully formed. “Streambed” (2024), a ceramic, cast glass, wood, and emitted light work that recalls a bed of undulating red clay with a fiery gold stream running right through the middle, is both tomb-like and fairytale-esque. “Lighted Footpath” (2024) feels like another chapter from the same narrative of wandering some far-flung world, featuring a quarter-circle of strung-together glass feet lit from below atop a pile of crushed basalt. And while the sci-fi blue-hued “Bouton Cluster” (2024), a hand-blown glass object, seems to wrangle with its own strange shape, Harmon’s glowing “Glass Brain” (2020) is just the reminder that consciousness is the ultimate formless power.
Rand Hardy, Lisa Hoke, Buzz Spector
Catskill Art Space, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New York
Through March 1
Among the great trios of Hindu iconography are Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver), and Shiva (destroyer), and their colorful incarnations offer timeless insights into the true nature of reality. At Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor, Rand Hardy, Lisa Hoke, and Buzz Spector explore playful modes of creation, preservation, and destruction through a series of mixed-media installations and sculptures. Hardy’s Aqua-Resin “Scribbler” (2024) and “Ta Ta Tati” (2024) suggest the creation stage with their quasi-phallic protruding shapes and delightful nonsensical form. Spector’s “About the Author” (2014), which consists of photos and text on museum board, and “Frieze” (2025), a row of dust jackets installed gracefully in a horizontal line across the wall, are about the preservation of the past. And Hoke’s beautifully chaotic “Lady Liberty” (2025) and “Pop” (2024) installations revel in destroyed materials, transforming recycled packaging and disposable ephemera into spinning and twisting shapes that dance as they cascade down the wall, bringing the conversation full circle to creation
Linda Griggs – Comfort and Loss
The Front Room Gallery, 205 Warren Street, Hudson, New York
February 8–March 9
A series of sumptuous and moody oil paintings by Linda Griggs at the Front Room Gallery in Hudson reflects a feeling of solitude laced with a trace of strangeness. The story of the exhibition begins with works such as “Night Swimming” (2024) and “Sirens” (2023), in which aqua-tinted pools suggest midnight skinny dipping on sultry summer evenings. The ambiance lightens with works such as “Hamilton Fish Kiddie Pool” (2023), in which empty lifeguard chairs and recliners anticipate an influx of seasonal swimmers and sun worshippers. Griggs’s tale then takes a turn towards a hazy dream state: The existentially prosaic “Salad Bar, Myrtle Beach” (2022) depicts a spread of bowls full of colored Jello nestled amid a bed of wilting kale on ice. “Piggly” (2022) is perhaps the apex of this exhibition-as-memoir. We are witnesses to this strange black and white scene of two figures holding hands as they walk down a road smattered with old vehicles and incredulous folks staring at the oversized pink pig head of one of the pair. At the foreground, a child gazes outward at us in a scene that feels bizarrely nostalgic.
Z Bhel: Stand in My Danger
Pamela Salisbury Gallery, 362 ½ Warren Street, Hudson, New York
Through March 30
Z Bhel is not afraid to go big. The first time I encountered the larger-than-life sculptures of this New York City-born-and-raised badass, I was smitten with her work. Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson presents a four-story installation of recent multi-media works by the artist and her collaborator Kim Moloney (together known as BALONEY), including installation, paintings, drawings, and films. In “Artist as Coyote” (2025), Bhel crafts a mythical half-human, half-animal out of cast concrete, metal, and stone; the shadows it casts are as compelling as its eccentric hunched anatomy. BALONEY’s “Harpy (3 Fates)” (2024), meanwhile, is a dynamic vision of another strange creature made from a wicker birdcage that appears on the verge of taking flight from a steel perch. And the duo’s “Fertility Tub” (2024) hints at an ulterior narrative with its surreal assemblage consisting of three snakes slithering around the empty metal frame of a tub. BALONEY’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Filmmaker” (2025) is the showstopper: Made of steel, concrete, and fabrics including lace, cheesecloth, and velvet, this elaborate harlequin character hangs down from the fourth floor and fills the open shaft of this historic carriage house with its monumental body, while Behl’s drawing “Plan for Carriage House” (2024) presents a sketch of this female trickster archetype balancing perfectly in a daring yogic position.
History Lessons
University Art Museum, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York
Through April 4
History Lessons at the University Art Museum in Albany presents works by 15 artists working from the 1960s to the present, including deceased greats such as Louise Nevelson and powerhouse contemporary figures such as Glenn Ligon. This mixed-media exhibition considers counternarratives that reposition the past and promote activism and education as fundamental to the health of society today. “AIDS (Marcus Garvey)” (1991) by General Idea — the collective project of Canadian artists Jorge Zontal, AA Bronson, and Felix Partz — is a bold reconfiguration of Robert Indiana’s “LOVE” (first created in 1964) and a poignant reminder of the once-crippling epidemic that ravaged queer communities (and claimed the lives of Zontal and Partz). “my ancestors will not let me forget this” (2020) by Demian DinéYazhi’ is a powerful text-based vision of an American flag that reads “EVERY american [sic] flag is a WARNING SIGN,” which is all the more chilling during our current political climate. Jeffrey Gibson’s “SHE KNOWS OTHER WORLDS” (2019) is a gorgeous example of his signature blending of geometric compositions and patterned beadwork to create punchy graphic visuals. And Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds’s “Sweetheart Songs” (2017–18), consisting of 24 monoprints with white text against shades of crimson, brings a smile with saccharine statements such as “hold me tight in your arms dear” and “no matter where you are I love you.”
Seen: Six Decades of Ralph Fasanella Paintings
The Ruffed Grouse Gallery, 144 Main Street, Narrowsburg, New York
Through April 6
Ruffed Grouse Gallery is showing six decades of the work of Ralph Fasanella, an artist who dropped out of school to work on his father’s ice truck (among other odd jobs) before devoting his life to painting. His “Night Nude” (1947) a domestic psychological composition slightly reminiscent of Matisse’s “The Red Studio” from 1911, features a naked red woman lying stiff on a red tabletop (or is it a bed?) in a domestic scene overpowered by the hulking red lamp to the right. “Nathans with Bakery” (1996) depicts love for community in the form of motley humans snacking together in a cafeteria environment. Fasanella’s work will be featured at the Ruffed Grouse Gallery’s booth at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City later this month, giving art lovers on both ends of the Hudson River a chance to encounter this self-taught ace.
Mary Ellen Mark: Ward 81
The Center for Photography at Woodstock, 25 Dederick Street, Kingston, New York
Through May 4
The year 1976 is the backdrop for Mary Ellen Mark’s solo show at the newly renovated and reopened Center for Photography at Woodstock in Kingston. Curated by Gaëlle Morel and Kaitlin Booher, the show is organized by the female names — pseudonyms for those in the photographs — featured in each cluster of images, including “Laurie,” “Carol T.,” “Mona,” and “Beth” as main characters. Mark met these women while shooting on the set of the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1973) at Oregon State Hospital in Salem, where she returned a year later for 36 days to document daily life at this high-security psychiatric facility. In “Mona with Michael Douglas’s Picture,” Mark photographs Mona from above as she leans gently into a poster of Douglas during his early heartthrob years, whereas “Carol T. in the Mirror” positions Mark’s camera slightly behind this frail female who peers at herself earnestly. “Laurie in the Bathtub” depicts the titular subject’s head and her wet hair matted against the porcelain tub in a comical and childlike moment. These moments of levity uplift a show that is often somber: “Mona and Beth in the Shower,” for instance, depicts two women together in bathing suits who gaze at Mark with faces both incredulous and defiant, inviting more questions than answers with regard to mental health and personal intimacy.
Odili Donald Odita: A Survey of Context
The Hyde Collection, 161 Warren Street, Glens Falls, New York
Through May 11
The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls presents a survey of Nigerian-American artist Odili Donald Odita, who employs a bright, bold graphic style that combines West African aesthetic traditions with a form of abstraction associated with Minimalism. Strong conceptual undercurrents such as violence and displacement (he fled from war in Nigeria as a child) highlight his personal journey to the States and infuse his work with fearlessness. For instance, in “Burning Cross” (2023), among the most provoking collage works in the show, an overlay of colorful shapes conquers images of KKK members in the background with their geometric beauty. The similarly sized and composed“Smoke” (2023) is a variation on this theme of overlapping realities. A series of early photographs reveal Odita’s interest in advertising and Black American fashion: works such as “The Authentic African (Businessman)” (1997) feature stylish lone figures free-floating against a white backdrop. Several large-scale abstract paintings anchor the show, including “Eternal” (2020) and “Return” (2024), both of which vibrate vigorously with Odita’s signature color palette. Where the highly angular “Light Storm” (2023) appears like a flash of intensity, “Descent” (2001), with its horizontal layers of cool colors, is a metaphorical exhale.
Making Connections: Highlights from a Decade of Acquisitions
Memorial Art Gallery at University of Rochester, 500 University Avenue, Rochester, New York
Through July 13
Making Connections | Highlights from a Decade of Acquisitions showcase the more contemporary spectrum of the Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Rochester’s collection of diverse creative practices from antiquity to now. Among the treasures included in this show are Judy Chicago’s “Earth Birth” (1985), a serigraph of a muscular naked female figure that appears to dissolve into the layers of undulating waves that encompass her is paired with George Platt Lynes’s gelatin silver print “Walter H. Roehmer” (c. 1944), is a quasi homo-erotic image of a sturdy man from behind with his arms wrapped in rope high above his head, in a complementary examination of gender. Mary Beth Edelson continues that exploration with “Some Living American Women Artists” (1972), an old-school photomechanical lithograph in black and white featuring a re-staged vision of The Last Supper with Georgia O’Keeffe as Christ and other revered women as the apostles that flank her at the table. “Gossip” (2005) by Mexican-American artist Elizabeth Catlett also celebrates women: It features two female figures that seem to be silently digesting a bit of intense news.
Landmines: Dawoud Bey, Christina Fernandez, Richard Mosse, Rick Silva
The Dorsky at SUNY New Paltz, 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, New York
Through July 13
The history of humanity is riddled with stories of colonization and acts of violence toward Indigenous peoples. Landmines, curated by Sophie Landres at The Dorsky at SUNY New Paltz in New Paltz, presents the work of four artists whose camera-based work explores the role of landscapes as revealers or concealers of narratives. “Cabins and Shadows” (2019) by Dawoud Bey is a black and white photograph of a lonesome stretch of shadowed plantation yard, hinting at the horrors of slavery. Richard Mosse’s “Slaughterhouse, Rondônia” (2021) is an aerial drone’s view of this unforgiving location in the Amazon basin — and yet he turns this bleak place into an otherwise beautiful vision of psychedelic colors and shapes. Christina Fernandez’s “Untitled Farmworker (Photographic Collage)” (1989/1994/2020/2025) agitates for reform in its depiction of an anonymous hand repeatedly placing a white card with the name of someone who has died and their cause of death — usually, toxic farming chemicals — into the earth.
