The article describes an upcoming exhibition titled 'Cheaper parcel post and paintings' at 1301SW gallery in Melbourne, Australia, running from 23 May to 27 Jun 2026. The exhibition is listed on Ocula.com, an art platform, though the full article text is blocked by a security verification page, preventing detailed reading of the show's content or artists involved.
The article reviews "Before We Knew Better," a group exhibition at Elise Seigenthaler Gallery featuring artists Sarah Bedford, Day Brièrre, Josiah Ellner, and Léa LeFloc'h. The critic reflects on the show's thematic framing around narrative, folklore, and personal mythology, while expressing frustration with its open-endedness and lack of clear intent. Specific works are discussed, including Ellner's psychedelic unicorn paintings, LeFloc'h's enigmatic works on paper, Bedford's nocturnal flowers, and Brièrre's intricate ceramics, though the critic notes the installation does not always serve the pieces well.
81C in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, is presenting "Krankie II: Middle of the Food Chain," an immersive contemporary art exhibition by collaborative duo Emily Braswell (strawberriemilk) and Jenna Rees (warmmilkwithsugar). Opening on May 15, 2026, the show features painting, video, sculpture, and installation that construct a cinematic, psychologically charged world centered on a fictional 1980s movie star, offering absurdist commentary on fame in the pre-internet era versus today. The exhibition is a dual-location activation, also including a component at the XIIID Research and Strategy Innovation Center at the University of the Virgin Islands, with a free opening reception featuring DJ Carbar.
The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art has opened two new exhibitions celebrating queer identity, memory, and community. "John Paul Morabito: Dancing in the Night" features large-scale woven works by transdisciplinary artist John Paul Morabito, using linen, cotton, gold-leaf threads, and beadwork inspired by queer history, resistance, and celebration. The second exhibition, "Norma I. Quintana: Paradise of Memory / Paraíso de la Memoria," presents a portrait series by photographer Norma I. Quintana that examines memory, identity, and cultural heritage, recreating hand-painted backdrops from her family's photographs to honor her community. Both exhibitions run through September 6.
The Navy Museum in Paris is hosting a major exhibition titled "The Navy and the Painters" from May 13 to August 2, 2026, featuring nearly 150 paintings spanning the 17th to 20th centuries. The show traces the evolution of maritime art and the French Navy's history, with works by artists such as Manet, Signac, and Le Lorrain, alongside a special section on the Navy's Official Painters (POM) with 84 contemporary works.
The UOB Painting of the Year competition, now in its 45th edition, is expanding beyond its traditional awards format to launch its first-ever arts festival in Singapore. Running from late August to early September, the festival will feature exhibitions, workshops, and artist talks, showcasing semi-finalists from the Emerging Artist category alongside veteran winners. The competition, established in 1982, has grown into one of Southeast Asia's most recognized art awards, with editions in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and has launched over 1,000 artists' careers. This year also introduces stricter criteria for the Established Artist category, requiring a stronger professional track record.
Sparrow Art Center, an art education company, has opened a new gallery and teaching facility in Loveland, Colorado, and is hosting its inaugural art show with a Mother's Day theme. The exhibition features work from over a dozen artists, including owner Cody Winiecki, who contributed a painting of a horse and foal. The show includes a free public reception on Saturday evening, as well as painting sessions for mothers and children. All proceeds from sales go directly to the artists, and the show will run until early June.
Bowen Island artist Corey Bulpitt presents his new series "Above the Flood, Watching for the Light" at the Hearth Gallery Community Centre, on view until July 28. The six-painting series follows his earlier "Daalkaatlii Diaries" works, which depicted the great flood of Haida territories and are now held in collections including Paris’ Musée du Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac and Gallery Jones in Vancouver. This new body of work shifts from historical catastrophe to speculative imagination, drawing on Haida cosmology while embracing invention and exploring unseen energies, microscopic spaces, and ephemeral light.
Artist Jessica Smith, originally from Texas, is opening her first solo exhibition in Salt Lake City titled "35 Years of Not Painting" at the Salt Lake City Public Library's Lower Urban Room Gallery from May 11 to June 21. After a high school art teacher censored her work, Smith abandoned painting for decades, turning to theater and later creating personalized picture books for her son with autism. She returned to art during the COVID-19 pandemic, painting portraits of admired figures like Mr. Rogers, Tupac Shakur, and Stevie Nicks. Smith is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and has become TERO Certified, allowing her to be listed as a potential artist for tribal commissions. She credits the Urban Indian Center of Salt Lake as a key support system.
ArtHouse Jersey has launched an open call for entries to its new Portrait Award, a competition open to artists aged 16 and over who live in or have a strong connection to the Channel Islands. The award is free to enter, with a deadline of September 30, 2026, and offers a top prize of £1,500 plus two runner-up prizes of £500 each. Selected works will be exhibited at Capital House in St Helier from January to April 2027, alongside works by international artists. All forms of portraiture—painting, photography, mixed media—are eligible, provided they are original and completed within the last three years.
An exhibition titled "The Contemporary Lore: Sojourn of Styles and Generations Unfurled" has opened in New Delhi, featuring works by 23 artists across different career stages and artistic styles. Curated by Kiran K. Mohan with a critical essay by art historian Johny ML, the show includes paintings, sculptures, and mixed media by artists such as Anil Gaekwad, Ashok Bhowmick, Harshwardhan Devtale, and others. The display is deliberately non-chronological, aiming to foster dialogue between seasoned practitioners and emerging voices.
Art Room on 2nd in Medicine Hat, Alberta, is presenting "Remembrance," a solo exhibition featuring the acrylic works of Jackie DeBlasio, who is also a co-owner of the gallery. The show, opening May 8, 2026, presents large-scale figurative paintings on rolled canvas with sewn edges, hung from dowels to emphasize physicality and the process of becoming. DeBlasio describes the works as exploring identity, fluidity, and the tension between structure and surrender.
The Cincinnati Art Museum has announced its first full-scale scholarly exhibition of works by Cincinnati-based artist Charley Harper, titled "The Art of Charley Harper: Creatures Wild and Tame." The exhibition will run from October 16, 2026, through March 7, 2027, featuring around 150 works, including ten large paintings commissioned by the U.S. National Park Service that were only briefly displayed in Washington, D.C., in the 1990s. The show is presented in partnership with the Charley Harper Art Studio and marks the artist's first museum retrospective.
Sanya Kantarovsky presents 'Basic Failure,' an exhibition of paintings, ceramics, and a glass sculpture at Palazzo Loredan in Venice, running concurrently with the Venice Art Biennale 2026. The show features haunting, figurative works that resist linear narrative, drawing on themes of religion, history, philosophy, and human emotion, with the artist describing his intuitive, fragmentary approach to composition.
Two exhibitions have opened at the Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery in Sarnia, Ontario. Mark Stebbins's solo show 'The Lingering Instant' features 27 meticulously hand-crafted paintings, each requiring at least 100 hours of labor using syringe-extruded paint, dip pens, and tiny brushes on burlap and wood panels. The companion exhibition 'Together Apart | Under One Roof' presents works by Winnipeg studio neighbours Aganetha Dyck, Diana Thorneycroft, and Reva Stone, exploring feminist art practice, collaboration, and human-nature connections. Both exhibitions opened April 17 and run until August 30, with Stebbins also hosting a free artist talk on June 6 and a paid workshop on June 7.
Cerritos College opened its 2026 annual Student Art Exhibition on April 23 at the Cerritos College Art Gallery, featuring over 150 student artworks selected by faculty from the college's art, design, and photography programs. The opening night included an award ceremony introduced by Gallery Director James Mac Devitt and a speech by Dr. Jose Fierro. Juror Kim Abeles, an established L.A. artist, presented five awards across seven categories including Ceramics/3D Design, Painting/Life Drawing, Freehand Drawing, Printmaking/2D Design, Graphic Design/Digital Illustration, Photography, and 3D Modeling/Motion Picture Editing. Faculty also gave honorable mentions in each category. Approximately $7,000 in awards was distributed, supported by the Associated Students of Cerritos College, the Cerritos Foundation, and donors including former student John DeMott.
Katara Cultural Village Foundation in Doha has opened a Contemporary Graphic Art Exhibition featuring 29 artists from Qatar and abroad, displaying over 170 works that explore modern printmaking techniques. The exhibition runs until May 18 at Hall 18 in Katara Cultural Village, bringing together artists from different generations to showcase diverse styles and schools within printmaking. Exhibition coordinator Abdulrahman Al Muttawa, along with artists Haifa Al Khuzai and Lina Al Ali, highlighted the exhibition's role in strengthening printmaking's presence in the art scene and celebrating Qatari cultural heritage.
Manila Calling, a traveling art exhibition organized by Manila Collective Inc., launches this May, connecting Manila, Barcelona, Madrid, and Tokyo. The project transforms traditional exhibition spaces into a hybrid of gallery, curated gift shop, and street-level art party, featuring 70 creatives from the Philippines, Spain, France, Italy, and Japan. Participating artists submitted original artworks translated into a unified silk textile installation, alongside limited-edition prints, zines, apparel, and collectible objects. The tour includes stops in Barcelona (May 15-16), Madrid (May 19-20), a month-long exhibit at Centro de Turismo Intramuros in Manila (June 6-27), and a Tokyo stop with a closing celebration in Barcelona in July. A pop-up gift shop in Comuna, Makati precedes the tour on May 8-10.
Gunnedah Shire Council is calling for submissions for its annual NAIDOC Week Art Exhibition, which will celebrate 50 years of the 'Deadly' theme. Artists, hobbyists, schools, and community members are invited to submit works in any medium, including weaving, wood etching, metal work, dot painting, and decorated didgeridoos. A free workshop for First Nations women, led by emerging artist Hollie Crawford, will be held on 9 May to help participants create pieces for the exhibition. Entries are due from 22 to 28 June at the Gunnedah Bicentennial Creative Arts Gallery, with the exhibition running from 3 July to 7 August.
The Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs presents two concurrent exhibitions opening May 9 through June 14. 'Residual Light' is a group show curated by Galina Kurlat and Andrea Cote, featuring eight female artists working with alternative photographic processes and camera-less techniques. 'What the Garden Remembers' is a solo exhibition by Avani Patel, displaying paintings and drawings that explore memory, ecology, and nature. Both exhibitions include opening receptions, artist talks, and a cyanotype demonstration.
Laura Green and Pierre Bounaud have co-curated a new exhibition titled "The Natural World" at The Studio Door in Hillcrest, San Diego, running from May 8 through June 12. The show features paintings by Green and ceramic and glass works selected by Bounaud, all exploring humanity's complex relationship with nature. Green's impressionistic paintings focus on animals and plants from the San Diego landscape, while Bounaud emphasizes clay and glass as materials drawn from the earth. The exhibition includes works by artists such as Oscar Romo and Kathleen Kane Murrell, who address environmental themes and conservation.
The Clymer Museum of Art in Ellensburg reopened on Friday after renovations, featuring a new exhibition titled "Plastic Souls" by Margot Massey, a junior at Central Washington University pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts. The show explores themes of artificiality and performance in social media, with paintings depicting actors, cowboys, showgirls, and rodeo clowns, and will later include two life-size figurative sculptures. The museum closed in January for renovations, which expanded wall space by roughly 30% and created a new gallery near the entrance for rotating student exhibitions.
Royse Contemporary in Scottsdale, Arizona, will present "UNTITLED," a solo exhibition by Mexican American artist Gennaro Garcia. The show features recent works across multiple media, including paintings, monosilk prints, giclée works, and sculpture, drawing on Garcia's childhood in Mexico and blending traditional and contemporary techniques. The exhibition runs through May 24, 2026, at the gallery in the Scottsdale Arts District.
Georgia foster teens have created a traveling art exhibit called the See Me project, sponsored by the nonprofit Georgia Appleseed, which has collected roughly 50 paintings, poems, and sculptures since 2023. The young artists, many first-time participants, explore themes of healing, hope, family, and belonging, often signing their works anonymously. The exhibit has been displayed at the Georgia Capitol, universities, community centers, and law firms, with artists paid $250 for their contributions.
A new exhibition titled "From Hermès to Home" at the Waco Welcome Center showcases the work of internationally acclaimed artist Kermit Oliver alongside local artists Cade Kegerreis and Vincent Thomas, who were mentored by Oliver. Oliver is the only American artist to have designed scarves for Hermès, and the show features his iconic scarf designs alongside paintings and self-portraits by all three artists, marking the first time their work has been exhibited together. The exhibition coincides with a limited-edition re-release of Oliver's scarf design "Faune et Flore du Texas" and the upcoming publication of a book about him by Texas A&M University Press.
Teresa Tyszkiewicz's exhibition "Stories That Tell Themselves" at Profile Foundation in Warsaw showcases the Polish artist's process-driven practice spanning video, performance, and relief-like paintings made with pins, nails, metal plates, ropes, and fabrics. Curated by Bożena Czubak, the show highlights Tyszkiewicz's use of the body as a medium—often naked and immersed in organic materials—to explore emotions, intuition, and unconscious desires, as seen in works like the 1980 film "Grain." The artist, who began her career in the late 1970s alongside Polish neo-avantgarde filmmakers but rejected their conceptual tendencies, developed a tactile, laborious approach that invites sensory engagement.
Tashkeel, a Dubai-based art organization founded in 2008 by Sheikha Lateefa bint Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is presenting "Unfolding," the debut solo exhibition by Emirati artist Moza Al Falasi. Opening May 12 at Tashkeel's Nad Al Sheba 1 Gallery, the show marks the culmination of Al Falasi's participation in the Tashkeel Critical Practice Programme (CPP), where she was mentored by Luisa Menano and Hanaa Bou Hamdan. The exhibition explores memory, loss, and the passing of time through photography, sound, painting, plaster, and fabric, reflecting on inherited grief and personal loss, including the deaths of her parents and husband.
Mark Seidenfeld, a Hamptons-based abstract painter, will present a solo exhibition titled "Uncharted Waters" at the newly renovated Corwith Homestead Tractor Barn, part of The Bridgehampton Museum in New York. The show runs from June 4 to June 21, 2026, and features paintings that transition from representational work into fully realized abstraction, exploring themes of depth, gesture, and discovery through layered and revised compositions.
Lake Effect Community Arts Center in Manistique, Michigan, will present 'Vibrant Rebellion,' a solo exhibition by local artist Jamie John Hider, opening May 1. The show features Hider's intricate paintings of famous musicians like The Beatles and Prince, incorporating hidden clues and Easter eggs that reflect his own background as a musician. A public reception will kick off the exhibit, which runs through May 27.