American artist Claudia Keep presents a new solo exhibition, 'Waggle Dance,' at the Marguo gallery in Paris. The exhibition features a poignant body of paintings that depict bees, flowers, and insects at a larger-than-life scale, conceived as records of an ever-changing world and imbued with an awareness of fragile ecological timelines.
Artist Fran Siegel presents 'Arrábida' at Wilding Cran Gallery, a body of work developed during a Fulbright fellowship in Portugal. The exhibition features multi-panel compositions, cyanotypes, and drawings that investigate the botanical motifs of traditional Portuguese azulejo tiles. By layering organic plant impressions with rigid geometric patterns, Siegel explores how these ceramic surfaces function as a 'visual cartography' that encodes histories of trade, colonial expansion, and cultural identity.
Artist Yashika Sugandh presents 'Vartaman,' a solo exhibition exploring the relationship between humanity and nature, at the Living Traditions Centre, Bikaner House, New Delhi, from September 27 to October 1, 2025. The show features intricate paintings and mixed-media works that blend whimsical hybrid creatures—such as snails carrying giraffes and turtles becoming tomatoes—with motifs like tree branches, reflecting Sugandh's reverence for the natural world. After its run at Bikaner House, the exhibition will continue at Black Cube Gallery, New Delhi, until October 31.
Two rare original watercolor illustrations for Rudyard Kipling’s 1903 edition of The Jungle Book were rediscovered in a London family home and sold at Roseberys auction house for a combined £130,480 ($174,940). Created by twin brothers Edward Julius and Charles Maurice Detmold, the works—titled Mowgli and Bagheera and The Cold Lairs—had been hanging unassumingly for decades. The sale price significantly exceeded expectations, with the Mowgli illustration alone fetching more than four times its high estimate.
This article reviews several Chelsea gallery exhibitions, focusing on Mary Ann Unger's monumental sculpture show 'Across the Bering Strait' at Berry Campbell, which features her hydrocal-over-steel works exploring themes of feminism, anthropology, and the natural world. It also covers 'En Route' at Rosebud Contemporary, a group exhibition of abstract painters Rifka Milder, Meg Hitchcock, and Ketta Ioannidou, each reflecting on artistic journeys through their work.
The Guangzhou Image Triennial 2025, titled 'The Case for Sensitivity,' has opened at the Guangdong Art Museum. The exhibition, featuring over 50 artists and artist groups, directly addresses a perceived crisis of technological mediation, arguing that digital existence deprives us of direct contact with the natural world. It aims to foster new forms of attention by emphasizing the materiality of images—what they are made of—over what they represent.
Maya Lin, the renowned artist and designer known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, has created new works for a Manhattan skyscraper and a Chicago project, drawing on her deep connection to nature. The article highlights her latest installations that integrate environmental themes into urban architecture, reflecting her ongoing exploration of landscape and ecology.
Galician artist Abi Castillo has unveiled a new series of ceramic self-portraits that explore the intersection of femininity, mysticism, and the natural world. Her latest sculptures feature signature wide-eyed figures adorned with organic elements like coral, insects, and flora, which act as a form of delicate armor for the emotive personas. This new body of work was produced in Castillo’s recently acquired larger studio space, which has allowed for expanded creative freedom and scale.
Photographer Yamamoto Masao is presenting a solo exhibition titled 'Ten Owls' at Yancey Richardson gallery in New York. The show features intimate, small-scale gelatin silver prints of owls, creatures that inhabit the forests near his Japanese home, with the works intended for close viewing to foster a connection with the elusive birds.
Carla Hemlock, a Kanien’keha:ka artist, has seen a surge in interest from curators and institutions, allowing her to work at her own pace. Her collaborative installation with her son, filmmaker Raohserahawi Hemlock, titled *In the Arms of the Natural World*, has been donated to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) and is now on view in the exhibition *Rising Suns: Art from the Confederacies of the Great Lakes and Rivers*. The piece, featuring three quilts and two films, explores the legacy of residential schools with what the artists describe as absolute delicacy and care.
Mosaic ArtSpace in Long Island City, NY, presents Antonia Papatzanaki: Unseen Brought to Light, a solo exhibition running from May 22 to September 30, 2025. The show features Papatzanaki's stainless steel light sculptures, inspired by microscopic imagery such as cellular formations and plant tissues, creating immersive environments that blend art, science, and technology. The opening reception is on May 22, 5-8 PM.
The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio presents "Garden Party: Nature on Paper," an exhibition running from May 7 to August 9, 2026, that explores humanity's relationship with the natural world. Featuring prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, and sculpture from the museum's permanent collection, the show includes works by René Magritte, Rufino Tamayo, Kara Walker, Luis Jiménez, and Honoré Daumier. Organized by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, the exhibition is divided into two narratives: one celebrating nature's abundance through gardens and flowers, and another examining human extraction through hunting and exploitation imagery.
Dataland, billed as the world's first museum dedicated to AI art, is set to open on June 20 in Los Angeles at The Grand LA, a Frank Gehry-designed complex. Co-founded by Turkish-American artist Refik Anadol, the 35,000-square-foot privately-funded museum will feature five immersive galleries. Its inaugural exhibition, *Machine Dreams: Rainforest*, is an audiovisual experience based on millions of images and sounds of nature, inspired by a visit Anadol and co-founder Efsun Erkılıç made to the Amazon rainforest. Anadol is known for his generative AI piece at MoMA in 2022 and a projection on the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The McNay Art Museum has opened a new exhibition titled 'Garden Party: Nature on Paper.' The show features prints, drawings, photographs, paintings, and sculpture from the museum's permanent collection, presenting two intertwined narratives: one celebrating nature's abundance and the other examining human extraction and impact.
The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) has launched "Canvas to Clay," an exhibition that pairs the modernist paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe with the black-on-black pottery of Maria Martinez. While these two icons of the American Southwest are frequently exhibited together, this show distinguishes itself by expanding the conversation southward. It integrates Mexican earthenware from Mata Ortiz and Tonalá, highlighting the work of Juan Quezada and Hector Gallegos to showcase a broader regional tradition of abstraction and indigenous revival.
The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York, will open the exhibition 'Regeneration: Long Island’s History of Ecological Art and Care' on February 22, 2026. The show, part of the museum's yearlong 'PARRISH USA250' series, features works by eleven artists with ties to Long Island, including Sara Siestreem, Michelle Stuart, and Maya Lin, and will run through June 14.
The Saint Louis Art Museum will host "Becoming the Sea," a monumental exhibition of works by German artist Anselm Kiefer, from October 18, 2025 through January 25, 2026. The show marks Kiefer's first U.S. retrospective in 20 years and features towering works up to 30 feet tall, including site-specific pieces inspired by the Mississippi and Rhine rivers. Curated by museum director Min Jung Kim and assistant curator Melissa Venator in direct collaboration with the 80-year-old artist, the exhibition will fill the museum's Sculpture Hall and contemporary galleries with over 30 loans from other collections, requiring custom installation systems and even the removal of a doorway to accommodate a large painting.
The Daegu Photo Biennale in South Korea, now in its 10th edition, tackles the Anthropocene through the lens of symbiosis, featuring three main exhibitions: 'The Pulse of Life', 'The Origin of the World', and a solo show by Rinko Kawauchi titled 'M/E On this Sphere Endlessly Interlinking'. Artistic director Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais, a former curator at Centre Pompidou and Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, leads the biennale, which includes 80 artists in the main exhibition and 75 in the special exhibition, alongside emerging artist showcases, a symposium, a photobook exhibition, and a portfolio review, all spread across 4,000 square meters at the Daegu Culture and Arts Center.
A new art exhibition titled “This Bitter Earth: Living in Harmony with Nature” opens on September 12 at MW Gallery in downtown Flint, Michigan. The show features artworks from the Mott-Warsh Collection by artists including Ron Adams, Bisa Butler, Nick Cave, Maren Hassinger, Pope.L, and Howardena Pindell, exploring humanity's complex relationship with the natural world and the four classical elements. A featured video installation, “Zion” by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng, addresses themes of displacement and belonging. The exhibition runs through January 24, 2026, with free admission.
Mia maxima culpa. For many years I felt it wasn’t cool to like Andy Goldsworthy. The British artist’s interventions in and workings with nature, while highly skilful and often very beautiful, seemed out of kilter with an increasingly hardcore, conceptually underpinned and urban-orientated art world. It also didn’t help that most of his work could only be experienced at one remove. Books and photographs were the only record of the ephemeral pieces he’d created from ice, leaves, sticks and stones; as well as of the more lasting installations—walls, sheepfolds, cairn paths and giant arches—he’d make in situ, usually in remote locations across the world.
The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio will open "Sandy Skoglund: Enchanting Nature" on September 11, 2025, running through February 2026. The exhibition features an unconventional mix of sculptures, photographs, and installations by artist Sandy Skoglund, including never-before-exhibited works and large-scale photographic enlargements. Known for her meticulous tableaux using handmade objects, found materials, and live models, Skoglund explores the tension between human-made environments and the natural world.
A new book titled "William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love" by biographer and critic Philip Hoare explores the life and work of William Blake, focusing on the three years the artist spent in Felpham, a coastal village in England, starting in 1800. Hoare argues that the ocean profoundly influenced Blake's art and poetry, using the sea as a metaphor to examine Blake's visionary prints, poems like "Milton," and his androgynous, fluid figures. The book also weaves in a cast of other historical figures—including Herman Melville, Paul Nash, and Nancy Cunard—whom Hoare dubs "sea monsters" for their rebellious, queer, and amphibious spirits.
Kew Gardens in London will host the largest-ever open-air exhibition of Henry Moore's sculptures from May to September 2026, titled "Henry Moore: Monumental Nature." Thirty works, including major bronzes like "Large Two Forms" and "Oval with Points (1968-70)," will be displayed across the 320-acre Unesco World Heritage site, with additional pieces in the Temperate House. The Henry Moore Foundation is lending most works, while 90 more pieces—including prints and drawings—will be shown indoors at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, with loans from Tate and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. Four sculptures will also be exhibited at Kew's Wakehurst botanic garden in Sussex alongside contemporary commissions.
The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C., will host the first career retrospective of artist Joan Danziger, titled "The Magical World of Joan Danziger," opening February 7, 2026. The exhibition spans six decades of her work, from abstract paintings to mixed-media sculptures, featuring over 100 pieces including 40 sculptures and 25 works on paper and canvas. A concurrent exhibition, "Ravens: Spirits of the Sky," showcases 24 large glass and metal raven sculptures, many never before exhibited. Danziger, who continues to work daily at age 91, traces her evolution from an abstract painter to a multimedia sculptor, with influences ranging from surrealists to Hieronymus Bosch.
Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre will present 'Maria Fernanda Cardoso: Spiders of Paradise' opening on May 9, 2025. The exhibition, developed and toured nationally by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia), features Colombian Australian artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso's photographic project on the Australian Maratus spider. It includes 17 large-scale digital photographic portraits created with scientific imager Geoff Thompson and entomologist Andy Wang, plus an immersive projection of Cardoso's video 'On the Origins of Art I-II' (2016), co-owned by MCA Australia and Tate.
The Farnsworth Art Museum in Maine will host a major exhibition titled *Ann Craven: Painted Time (2020–2024)*, showcasing approximately 30 paintings by the celebrated Maine-based artist Ann Craven. The exhibition, running from May 3, 2025, through January 4, 2026, is organized into four thematic sections—moons, trees, flowers, and birds—highlighting Craven's exploration of seriality, repetition, time, and the natural world. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and a film by Fiumi Studio. The exhibition anchors the 2025 Maine in America Award, a lifetime achievement honor recognizing Craven's contributions to Maine's arts and culture, with companion presentations at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the Portland Museum of Art.
In ‘Life Forms,’ Janny Baek Imagines a Speculative Landscape
Sculptor Janny Baek is presenting her solo exhibition *Life Forms* at Chicago's Joy Machine gallery from March 20 to May 9, 2026. The exhibition features her speculative ceramic sculptures, which blend recognizable natural forms like blossoms and creatures with unexpected, abstract elements to create imagined landscapes and primordial organisms. Using techniques like hand-building and the Japanese *nerikomi* method of patterning colored clay, Baek's work captures beings in a state of playful mutation and transformation.
Montreal artist Abbas Akhavan's installation "Entre chien et loup" transforms the Canadian pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale into a living climate system, featuring a humid, Amazon-like environment with a pond of Victoria water lilies. The seeds were sourced from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and germinated at the Orto Botanico di Padova, with the lilies growing and blooming over the course of the biennale.
Ressentir la nature d’après Nicolas Poussin
An exhibition titled "Le sentiment de la nature. L’art contemporain au miroir de Poussin" has opened at the NMNM – Villa Paloma in Monaco. Curated by Guillaume de Sardes, it places Nicolas Poussin's 1651 painting *L'Orage* in dialogue with works by over twenty contemporary artists, including Sarah Moon, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Thomas Demand, Pierre Thoretton, Ange Leccia, Marine Wallon, and Claudio Parmiggiani.
Perrotin Los Angeles is presenting 'Plants and Animals,' a special focus exhibition running from May 1–30, 2026, in conjunction with Kyungmi Shin's solo show 'My Fantasy's Burdens.' The exhibition is anchored by Shin's installation 'ready to fly,' which includes 15 handmade ceramics and planters, and also features works by Theodora Allen, Chiho Aoshima, Amy Cutler, Jean-Michel Othoniel, and Austyn Weiner, all centered on plant, flower, fruit, and animal subjects.