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    Yen Yen Chou Embraces Change in a Whimsical Realm Brimming with Water Droplets

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    “Leaves of Becoming” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 16 x12 inches. All images courtesy of Kishka Gallery, shared with permission

    Yen Yen Chou Embraces Change in a Whimsical Realm Brimming with Water Droplets

    October 8, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    With a penchant for kaleidoscopic colors and whimsy, Yen Yen Chou renders a dainty, dreamlike environment in which pastel hues and subtle gradients rule. The artist, who lives between Taipei and Brooklyn, is drawn to dualities, particularly the relationships that emerge from “the ephemeral and the physical, the micro and the macro,” she says. At Kishka Gallery & Library, Yen Yen’s presentation of two modes of working—watercolors on paper and epoxy clay reliefs—conjures the magic of polarities.

    An Ever Changing View, as its name suggests, takes transformation as its root. Water droplets recur throughout the works, descending from a long, thin line into a swirling pool in “Rippling,” for example, and appearing as anthropomorphic, dozing characters in “Leaves of Becoming.” While suspended on panel or paper, these forms connote movement, as they’ll eventually evaporate or combine with a larger body.

    “Rippling” (2025), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 37 ½ x 25 inches

    For now, though, Yen Yen depicts a whimsical world on the verge of possibility. “This new body of work continues my exploration of transformation and interconnectedness in everyday life. I’ve been thinking about dualities…and how these relationships shape the way we experience life, through our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions,” she writes.

    An Ever Changing View is open through November 22 in White River Junction, Vermont. Find more from Yen Yen on her website and Instagram.

    “Lady Rainbow” (2023), acrylic on epoxy and foam, 15 x 5 ½ inches

    “To Gaze Upon a Passing Sky” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 16 inches

    “Swinging in the rain” (2024), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 27 x 22 inches

    “Daydreamer” (2025), watercolor and gouache on paper, 12 x 16 inches

    “Iridian Path” (2023), acrylic and epoxy clay on wooden panel, 26 x 21 inches

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      ‘We AmeRícans’ Celebrates Puerto Rican Community, Pride, and Cultural Hybridity

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      Ruben Natal-San Miguel, “Home Ruins, Bathroom, Old San Jan, Puerto Rico” (2017), color serigraph/photo silkscreen on canvas, 24 x 36 inches. All images courtesy of Claire Oliver Gallery, shared with permission

      ‘We AmeRícans’ Celebrates Puerto Rican Community, Pride, and Cultural Hybridity

      October 7, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      At the end of September, the NFL’s announcement that Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny would be headlining the Super Bowl LX halftime show generated an uproar. He’s one of the most-streamed musical artists in the world, and while many fans rejoiced, the news made waves with conservatives, who take issue with the fact that he predominantly performs in Spanish and has been critical of the current administration. Bad Bunny has since clapped back in an appearance on Saturday Night Live, illuminating the culture war within the polarized U.S. political climate.

      It seems fitting, with Puerto Rican Heritage Month just around the corner, that a group exhibition honoring the island commonwealth and its diasporic community opens soon at Claire Oliver Gallery in New York City. We AmeRícans, curated by Ruben Natal-San Miguel, brings together the work of 10 artists whose practices reflect “the history, resilience, and cultural contributions of the Puerto Rican community in New York City and beyond,” the gallery says.

      Danielle de Jesus, acrylic on U.S. currency

      Through photography, painting, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, and mixed-media compositions, the exhibition highlights Puerto Rican community and identity. The title is drawn from a poem by Tato Laviera titled “AmeRícan,” penned in 1985, a rhythmic and joyous celebration cultural hybridity.

      We AmeRícans highlights an intergenerational group of artists, from the acclaimed and established practices of the likes of Carlos Rolón, Carlos Betancourt, and Danielle de Jesus to the fresh perspectives of young and emerging artists like Felix Plaza, Erica Morales, and Elsa María Meléndez.

      Natal-San Miguel’s vibrant photographs, for example, draw from his series Puerto Rico: Paradise Ruined, Its Aftermath, in which he documents houses and businesses heavily damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Following the storm, thousands of people were forced to abandon their homes. “Between 114,000 and 213,000 Puerto Ricans are estimated to have relocated annually to the U.S. mainland since the hurricane,” the artist says in a statement.

      A range of mediums lend themselves to cross-cultural experience. De Jesus meticulously renders a house facade with a Puerto Rican flag onto two U.S. one-dollar bills. Meléndez turns to textiles, on which she embroiders portraits and creates sculptural elements from an array of patterned fabrics. And Betancourt uses a range of found objects to create assemblages, sculptures, and large-scale print installations.

      Carlos Betancourt, “Times of Illuminations” (2017-18), mixed media including collected tree toppers, electrical wiring, remote “magic” wand, paint, color pencils, etc, mounted on plywood, 101 x 101 inches

      “This exhibition is a celebration and an act of preservation, documenting the creativity, strength, and ongoing impact of Puerto Rican artists across generations,” Natal-San Miguel says. “Through their work, we see not just personal narratives, but the collective story of migration, labor, resilience, and cultural pride.”

      We AmeRícans opens in Harlem on November 5 and continues through January 3. See more on Claire Oliver Gallery’s website. You might also enjoy artist Adrián Viajero Román’s portraits that reflect on Puerto Rican diasporic experience.

      Elsa María Meléndez, “La Isla de las Nostalgias / The Island of Nostalgias” (2020-24), embroidery on canvas with discarded stuffed stockings and wire, site-specific installation, 156 x 170 inches

      Ruben Natal-San Miguel, “Home Ruins, La Perla, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico” (2017), color serigraph/photo silkscreen on canvas, 24 x 36 inches

      Beatriz Williams, “Madurando,” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches

      Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, (2021), gown created in collaboration with costume designer Kristina Tollefson. Image of Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz during a dress rehearsal for the performance “Exodus Pilgrimage” (2019), in Orlando. Photo by Dominic DiPaolo

      Felix Plaza, “Flora – Rojo y verde” (1999-2020), gum bichromate and silkscreen, individually hand-cut Rives BFK and other papers, 30 x 22.5 inches

      Carlos Betancourt, “The Future Eternal (Process as Ritual)” (2018), pigmented inkjet on fine art paper, 36 x 36 inches

      Dave Ortiz, “Barnito Providencia” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

      Erica Morales, “You’re Gonna Lose The House” (2024), spray paint, fabric collage and pencil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

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      Lakota and Western Art History Converge in Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works

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      “Wopila | Lineage II” (2023), acrylic, glass beads, synthetic sinew, and thread on aluminum panel, 96 x 120 inches. Gochman Family Collection. Photo by Rik Sferra. All images courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates, New York, and Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, shared with permission

      Lakota and Western Art History Converge in Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works

      October 1, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Throughout history, those who wield the most power or resources are typically the ones whose stories are represented in textbooks, passed down through generations, and etched into our collective consciousness. Without intentional effort, it can be difficult to hear more than a single narrative.

      In art history, the reality is much the same. The canon has always privileged white male artists, from titans of the Renaissance like Michelangelo to bad-boy American Modernists like Jackson Pollock. The foundations of 19th-century American landscape painting, for example, are inextricable from the belief in Manifest Destiny, as the American government violently expanded westward. And Western painting and sculpture have historically reigned supreme in the market-driven hallows of galleries and auction houses. But what of the incredible breadth of—namely Indigenous—art forms that have long been overlooked?

      “Visiting” (2024), acrylic, glass beads, thread, and synthetic sinew on aluminum panel with a quartz base, 120 x 15.5 x 15.5 inches (base 5 x 24 x 24 inches). Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra

      For Sičáŋǧu Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk, the construction of American art history lies at the core of her multidisciplinary practice. “She lays bare the exclusionary hierarchies that have long governed cultural legitimacy, authority, value, and visibility,” says a joint statement from Alexander Gray Associates and Bockley Gallery. “In this light, White Hawk reframes Indigenous art and Western abstraction as inseparable practices—linked by a shared history that dominant narratives have labored to separate and obscure.”

      Pablo Picasso is credited with the saying, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Seminal paintings like “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” and others created in the early 1900s would not exist if it were not for his fascination with African masks. White Hawk draws a similar parallel between the 20th-century Color Field and Minimalism movements to highlight the influence of Native American art forms in the evolution of these styles. She prompts viewers to consider how these notions shape our aesthetic perceptions and judgment while also considering the role of cultural memory and community.

      White Hawk’s work spans painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and installations. Alongside oil and acrylic paint, she incorporates materials commonly used in Lakota art forms, like beads, porcupine quills, and buckskin.

      “I strive to create honest, inclusive works that draw from the breadth of my life experiences,” White Hawk says in a statement, merging influences from Native and non-Native, urban, academic, and cultural education systems. She continues: “This allows me to start from center, deepening my own understanding of the intricacies of self and culture, correlations between personal and national history, and Indigenous and mainstream art histories.”

      “Nourish” (2024), ceramic tile installation of handmade tiles by Mercury Mosaics, 174 x 369 1/2 inches. Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Whitney Acquisition Fund 2024.13

      Mirroring the meditative labor and incredible attention to detail required to create traditional Lakota artworks—from elaborately beaded garments to abstract buckskin paintings—White Hawk creates energetic installations that are bold and confrontational. Vibrant geometric patterns are direct and visceral in a way that “unsettles the categories of Eurocentric art history,” the galleries say.

      White Hawk notes that her mixed-media canvases honor “the importance of the contributions of Lakota women and Indigenous artists to our national artistic history…as well as the ways in which Indigenous artists helped shape the evolution of the practices of Western artists who were inspired by their work.”

      “Nourish,” an installation that spans nearly 31 feet wide and 14.5 feet tall, comprises thousands of handmade ceramic tiles that visually reference Lakota beadwork and quillwork. Permanently installed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the piece enters into a dialogue with the history of American Modernism through painters such as Marsden Hartley and Pollock, who are credited as trailblazers of American abstraction and yet were indelibly influenced by Native American art.

      Detail of “Visiting.” Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra

      “At its core, White Hawk’s practice is sustained by ancestral respect and guided by value systems that center relationality and care for all life,” the galleries say. “By addressing inequities affecting Native communities, she creates opportunities for cross-cultural connection and prompts a critical examination of how artistic and national histories have been constructed. Her work invites viewers to evaluate current societal value systems and their capacity to support equitable futures.”

      Minneapolis-based Bockley Gallery, which has represented White Hawk for more than a decade, has recently announced co-representation of the artist with New York City-based Alexander Gray Associates, where she’ll present a solo exhibition in fall 2026. If you’re in Minneapolis, Love Language opens on October 18 at the Walker Art Center and continues through February 15. The show then travels to Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where it will be on view from April 25 to September 27, 2026. See more on White Hawk’s website.

      Installation view of ‘Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 6 to September 5, 2022). “Wopila | Lineage” (2022), acrylic, glass beads, and synthetic sinew on aluminum panel, 96 9/16 x 168 3/8 inches. Photo by Ron Amstutz

      “Carry IV” (2024), buckskin, synthetic sinew and thread, glass beads, brass sequins, copper vessel, copper ladle, and acrylic paint, 123 x 12 x 10 inches. Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo by Rik Sferra

      Detail of “Carry IV.” Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo by Rik Sferra

      Installation view of “I Am Your Relative” (2020) in ‘Sharing the Same Breath,’ John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, 2023. Courtesy of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

      Detail of “Visiting.” Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra

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    • 125 Shares117 Views

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      Detroit’s Heidelberg Project in Wisconsin? Tyree Guyton Transports His Magic

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      ‘Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now?’ installation
      view (2025). All images courtesy of the artist and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, shared with permission

      Detroit’s Heidelberg Project in Wisconsin? Tyree Guyton Transports His Magic

      September 29, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      If you were to have visited the 3600 Block of Heidelberg Street in Detroit around 1986, you would have likely encountered a young artist beginning the project of a lifetime. Found object assemblages and painted patterns were quickly transforming a neighborhood that had experienced mass disinvestment, turning grassy lots and abandoned homes into an enclave of creativity.

      Soon, an immersive, vernacular art environment emerged and was at once an amalgamation of everyday materials and what seemed to be a mystical translation from another realm. The creator behind the sprawling installation—which continues today—is artist Tyree Guyton, who dubbed what would become his most famous work in his home neighborhood of McDougall Hunt, The Heidelberg Project.

      Site view of ‘The Heidelberg Project’ (1986–ongoing)

      Spanning nearly four decades and several blocks, the ever-evolving environment has become a destination for tourists and locals alike as Guyton’s spiritual philosophies reach every inch of the property. There’s the iconic polka-dot house, another covered in long paintings of shoes, a collection of portraits on car hoods, and countless sculptures and assemblages that seem to take on a life of their own. Because the works are exposed to the elements, maintenance and upcycling occur regularly at the project, as the artist adds to an existing piece or transforms materials anew.

      Several of Guyton’s standalone works are on view at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. A large-scale presentation of the artist’s decades-long outdoor and studio projects, Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now? is rooted in what the museum describes as “the study of discarded material incorporated into the fabric and structure of a community and the effects on the community.”

      Guyton, on the other hand, is much more abstract, offering the following in a phone conversation from Detroit. “That’s what this show is about, magic. Two plus two equals eight, Heidelbergology…There are people there that have not been here, and I came there to give them a reason to come. It’s an invitation.”

      While exhibiting in a traditional white-cube gallery space, Guyton brings his community focus to Sheboygan. He invited locals to paint his beloved polka dots on the walls, providing a vivid and expressive backdrop for his expansive works. Looming in the entrance is Guyton’s version of Noah’s Ark, composed of crowd-sourced stuffed animals and children’s toys piled high atop a painted fishing boat.

      “Auto World” (1998), mixed media and paint

      Guyton makes an explicit connection to the divine—and Yahweh, in particular—throughout the exhibition and his work, more broadly. He considers The Heidelberg Project to be both a mirror to society and also a conduit to a higher power, one whose messages he translates and shares with anyone who might encounter the work.

      “What I see happening in the world? I put it on those TV sets, put it in a museum, turn it into works of art, to give it back to the public and to say to them, look at what’s happening,” he says. “Like, can we see it? I see it through me.”

      The exhibition also nods to the artist’s own history and his grandfather, Sam Mackey, who first introduced Guyton to art as a child. A collection of Mackey’s drawings made at the end of his life is suspended in a house-shaped structure at the center of the museum. These familial works aren’t typically on view in Detroit and offer special, often-unseen insight into the artist’s background.

      As Guyton and the project’s team prepare for the future, they intend to transfer The Heidelberg Project to the community, who they hope will steward the enormous effort and further invest in the neighborhood. “I’m here to do something that when I die, it’s going to live on,” the artist says. “I believe that what I have done here is so philosophical, it’s teaching me, and I love making mistakes.”

      Site view of ‘The Heidelberg Project’ (1986–ongoing)

      While hoping to secure support for the project, Guyton isn’t precious about his work and easily embraces change. When the exhibition in Sheboygan wraps, for example, the sculptures and paintings that have been so meticulously cared for in a museum setting will be returned outdoors, although they might find themselves in a new spot if the artist filled the previous location with something new.

      In this way, The Heidelberg Project is always in motion, presenting new messages for Guyton to learn and share through a graffiti-covered television set or a collaged work on panel. When asked how he feels a piece is complete, he answers clearly: “My work is finished when I’m dead.”

      See Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now? through February 15, 2026. And while you’re in the area, be sure to check out the truly impeccable environments at the Art Preserve just a few miles away. You can find more about the project on the website and Instagram.

      ‘Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now?’ installation view (2025)

      ‘Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now?’ installation view (2025)

      ‘Heidelbergology: Is It Art Now?’ installation view (2025)

      Site view of ‘The Heidelberg Project’ (1986–ongoing)

      Site view of ‘The Heidelberg Project’ (1986–ongoing)

      Site view of ‘The Heidelberg Project’ (1986–ongoing)

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    • 125 Shares132 Views

      in Art

      Abstract Shapes Build Jason Boyd Kinsella’s Expressive and Unique Characters

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      “Chris” (2025), oil on canvas, 189 x 159 centimeters. All images courtesy of Jason Boyd Kinsella and Perrotin, shared with permission

      Abstract Shapes Build Jason Boyd Kinsella’s Expressive and Unique Characters

      September 26, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      Jason Boyd Kinsella refers to himself as “a collector of things at heart.” The manner in which the Toronto-born, Oslo-based artist (previously) assembles shapes and colors appears to emerge from this lineage, his impeccable ability to capture a particular human emotion through abstract forms on full display.

      Alchemy of the Eternal Self is Kinsella’s most recent body of work and continues his bold portraiture focused on the building blocks of our inner lives. Standing several feet tall, the geometric figures loom larger than most viewers, their bold personalities inviting an encounter.

      “Luna” (2025), oil on canvas, 104 x 124 centimeters

      Kinsella zooms out in some of the pieces in the series, including “Luna” and its titular hunched character. With a sleek, white bob and perpetual frown, the figure’s long fingers reach for the ground as she turns to look out of frame. Exploring body language in addition to facial expressions, the artist also turns to art history, drawing the woman’s bent posture from Jean-François Millet’s “The Gleaners.” The large-scale painting, completed in 1857, garnered sympathy for the lowest classes and showed their essential labor.

      In this way, Kinsella puzzles together both the timely and enduring, prompting connections through his Cubist paintings in which pure feeling and expression show that no matter how different we appear, we’re all made of the same emotional DNA.

      Alchemy of the Eternal Self is on view through October 24 at Perrotin in Shanghai. Keep up with Kinsella’s work on his website and Instagram.

      “Graham” (2025), oil on canvas, 109 x 89 centimeters

      “Helen” (2025), oil on canvas, 159 x 134 centimeters

      “Freddy” (2025), oil on canvas, 184 x 184 centimeters

      “Paula” (2025), oil on canvas, 189 x 159 centimeters

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    • 138 Shares132 Views

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      Omar Mendoza’s Natural Pigment Paintings Radiate the Power of Ancestral Knowledge

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      “Noche obsidiana” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, jonote, zacatlaxcalli, kina, charcoal, turmeric, beet, and beeswax on handmade cotton surface. Images © Omar Mendoza, shared with permission

      Omar Mendoza’s Natural Pigment Paintings Radiate the Power of Ancestral Knowledge

      September 26, 2025

      Art

      Jackie Andres

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      Since ancient times, artists and craftsmen have drawn upon natural pigments for creative use. Extracting dyes from organic sources is an art in and of itself, deeply rooted in various cultures across the historical Mesoamerican region. Although many traditional practices—like pigment harvesting—have been threatened by external factors such as colonialism, artists continue to keep these processes alive today.

      Mexico City-based artist Omar Mendoza taps into the persistence of ancestral knowledge for his newest series of paintings in Serpiente Solar 〰 Noche Obsidiana, or Solar Serpent 〰 Obsidian Night, at Povos. Conjuring hues from native plants, tree bark, and flowers collected from his father’s hometown, supplemented with pigments sourced from local markets, the existence of Mendoza’s works are themselves a symbolic form of resistance.

      Detail of “Lluvia florida”

      Visually, the artist’s compositions evoke cosmic power and sacred rhythm. As Mendoza reaches toward the sanctity of time-honored cultural wisdom, he connects both celestial and earthly forces, depicting multitudes of intuition and insight through motifs such as stars, planetary objects, snakes, eagles, vines, and more.

      Victoria Rivers’ curatorial text shares:

      Omar Mendoza creates these works from a cosmovision in which everything is alive and in relationship: water, stone, plants, fire, night. In that web of sacred correspondences, painting becomes an act of reciprocity with the earth and its cycles.

      Symmetry flows through several of Mendoza’s paintings, calling to the mirroring of two worlds. Nonetheless, tactile washes of pink, blue, violet, and yellow atop hand-prepared canvases sumptuously intertwine, presenting a transcendent sense of harmony across Mendoza’s series of works, calling once more to the cyclical energy that courses through them.

      Serpiente Solar 〰 Noche Obsidiana opens on October 4 in Chicago. In the meantime, you can find more from Mendoza on Instagram.

      “Espejo obsidiana” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, jonote, zacatlaxcalli, kina, charcoal and blue wood on handmade cotton surface

      Detail of “Camino a casa”

      Detail of “Invocación”

      “Lluvia florida” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, zacatlaxcalli, kina, charcoal, turmeric, beet and beeswax on handmade cotton surface

      “Serpiente de jade” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, jonote, kina and turmeric on handmade cotton surface

      “Eclipse” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, kina, turmeric and obsidian on handmade cotton surface

      “Cantares” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, indigo blue, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, zacatlaxcalli, kina, charcoal, turmeric, beet, alder and beeswax on handmade cotton surface

      “Cielo roto” (2025), mayan blue, mayan green, brazilian wood, mexican honeysuckle, zacatlaxcalli, kina, charcoal, turmeric, beet and beeswax on handmade cotton surface

      Detail of “Eclipse”

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    • 125 Shares132 Views

      in Art

      Millo and Seth Globepainter Trade Concrete for Canvas in ‘Beyond’

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      Images © the artists, shared with permission

      Millo and Seth Globepainter Trade Concrete for Canvas in ‘Beyond’

      September 26, 2025

      Art

      Jackie Andres

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      Street artists Francesco Camillo Giorgino and Julien Malland (a.k.a. Millo and Seth Globepainter) have painted in more than fifty countries combined. In a new exhibition titled Beyond, the pair takes their expansive mural practice indoors with thirty new works and their first collaborative canvas installation.

      Beyond is grounded by a vast map at the entrance of the show, charting the far-reaching and meandering paths both artists have taken across the globe. Though they’ve crossed paths before, the exhibition emphasizes their convergence once again at Goldman Global Arts Gallery, where their monumental works have been reimagined within the context of gallery walls.

      Both Millo and Seth radiate a childlike wonder within their works, evoking a sense of joy and curiosity. While Millo’s compositions usually feature monochromatic figures and architectural components expressed with robust line work and bold pops of color, Seth’s pieces illustrate his signature optical illusion perspectives, executed with vibrant yet soft palettes.

      Installed together, the works visually complement each other and amplify overlapping themes of surreal dreamscapes, everyday whimsy, and the power of imagination.

      Beyond continues through November 16 in Miami. See more work on Millo and Seth’s respective Instagram accounts.

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    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Art

      In Ethereal Paintings, Calida Rawles Plunges into the Dark Depths of Water

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      “All is One” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches. All images courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London, shared with permission

      In Ethereal Paintings, Calida Rawles Plunges into the Dark Depths of Water

      September 19, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      In This Time Before Tomorrow, Calida Rawles diverges from the familiar faces—those of her daughters and chosen companions—that characterized her most recent body of work. Instead, the artist returns to rippling abstractions and bubbling textures, obscuring identifiable features with painterly gestures.

      Water, for Rawles, is never neutral. In the lineage of scholars like Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, the artist considers water to be a charged site and vessel for memory. Along with references to texts by Audre Lorde, Octavia Butler, and Albert Camus, among others, she presents this philosophical grounding as a way to consider the inevitability of change and how transformation can inspire hope. “What is the artist’s role in moments of crisis?” she asks.

      “Refraction” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 x 2 inches

      Mixing her hyperrealistic style with surreal distortions, Rawles always begins with a photo session before turning to the canvas. In this stage, she conjures moments of ambiguity. Glimmering undulations and bubbles cloud the figures’ bodies, while the reflective surface creates the illusion of a double and two forms bleeding into one another. Whether barely breaching the water’s surface or plunging into a pool, the figures appear suspended in a brief moment, their liquid surroundings embracing their relaxed limbs.

      Rawles gravitates toward chiaroscuro in these paintings, rendering deep, murky waters in bold acrylic. This dark color palette is also a metaphor for the current moment. She says:

      Personally, I’m grappling with the fractures within the American mythos—once rooted in the promises of democracy, inclusion, and justice. Today, that dream feels increasingly elusive. The melting pot that was once a symbol of unity now cracks under the weight of deportations; truth has become subjective; and justice feels subverted. Amidst this cultural disorientation, I find myself untethered—aware of tectonic shifts beneath both my personal and collective foundations.

      This Time Before Tomorrow is on view through September 27 at Lehmann Maupin London.

      “A Balance of Dawn” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 x 2 inches

      “When Time Carries” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 72 x 96 inches

      “Through Fury and Beyond Reason” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 x 2 inches

      “Musing” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 x 2 inches

      Installation view of ‘This Time Before Tomorrow.’ Photo by Lucy Dawkins

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    • 125 Shares154 Views

      in Art

      Surreal Narratives Unfurl Between Animals in Laura Catherwood’s Dreamy Paintings

      by

      “Flying Lesson (Dusk).” All photos by Matt Wenc. Images courtesy of the artist and Vertical Gallery, shared with permission

      Surreal Narratives Unfurl Between Animals in Laura Catherwood’s Dreamy Paintings

      September 15, 2025

      ArtIllustrationNature

      Kate Mothes

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      Curious foxes, sleepy fawns, and daring mice are just a few of the woodland creatures that populate Laura Catherwood’s dreamy drawings and paintings. Working primarily in graphite and oil, she situates recognizable animals into unexpected and fantastical situations in illustrations that “explore the inner emotional landscape while simultaneously soothing the viewer,” she says.

      It often takes a moment to comprehend the scope of each of Catherwood’s scenarios. A pair of spotted frogs in “Rue,” for example, is not what it seems at first, as two heads emerge from one body, and their long tongues are both pierced with a fishing hook. And in “Inexhaustible,” a toad with an unusual, bowl-like back full of water provides a tiny oasis for a troupe of flying fish.

      “Inexhaustible”

      Catherwood is interested in the power of illustration to channel feelings, questions, and experiences that may be challenging or revolve around grief. Her scenarios are surreal and even a little cryptic, yet we’re invited to witness intimate, affecting, and enigmatic narratives that prompt curiosity and wonder.

      A couple of these works are currently on view alongside Jerome Tiunayan and Joseph Renda Jr. in The Scenic Route at at Vertical Gallery, which runs through September 27 in Chicago.

      Catherwood is also currently working on a series of nine small murals as part of a public outreach project about invasive species, plus a small body of work related to species found in Upstate New York, where she’s soon moving. And she’s also preparing for two solo exhibitions next year. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Rue”

      “Stirring”

      “Listen”

      “Flying Lesson (Dawn)”

      “The Bridge”

      “Hard to Find”

      “Everything Happens for the First Time”

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