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Mary Heilmann: Water Way at Guild Hall
Water Way, Mary Heilmann’s newly opened show at Guild Hall in East Hampton and her first large-scale museum show on Long Island’s East End, is a joyous celebration of 40 years of the artist’s career. The water-themed exhibition includes not only paintings and works on paper but also chairs, a small table, and ceramics, the latter either on its own or incorporated into a painting as in the 2020’s red acrylic Barrel and Tube. Heilmann is a longtime resident of Bridgehampton and her reverence for the ocean reverberates throughout, underpinned by an underground, punk rock/new wave, California surf culture ethos.
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Earth Suits and Beast Machines
The two-person exhibition Earth Suits and Beast Machines at Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine, orchestrates a compelling conversation between Boston painter Jennifer Amadeo-Holl and Maine sculptor Mike Libby. This thoughtfully curated show rewards careful attention, presenting work that resists easy consumption and demands genuine engagement from viewers willing to slow down and look deeply.
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Comet Eater: Terra Keck at Storage
An occult presence pervades the sylvan scenery of Comet Eater, a solo show from Terra Keck. In these nightswept graphite drawings, trees shimmer and sway. Leaves levitate and glow. Stars or fireflies illuminate ornate paths. Among other sources, Keck hybridizes the ghostly impressions of Anna Atkins’s botanical cyanotypes and the mystic geometry of Hilma af Klint’s paintings.
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Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in August 2025
HIGHLIGHTS Across the city, artists are focused on the meaning of visible labor and extracting the potential in the most innocent of found materials. Through unconventional mediums and reclaiming disregarded items like paper or rubber bands, artists are able to tap into universal experiences that inject value and sacredness into everyday objects. At PEEP Projects, Maria Ah Hyun constructs layered paper vessels to serve as ritual objects and gateways into cultural landscapes. Gabrielle Constantine transforms Blah Blah Gallery into a romantic archive of working class textures and sensibilities that honor the excesses of labor. Museum of Art and Wood presents…
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Jonathan Syme Coaxes Spirit from Matter at Royale Projects
Jonathan Syme paints like someone coaxing spirit from matter—a phrase that sounds mystical until you’re standing in front of the work, where it becomes simply descriptive. As restless as they seem, his canvases don’t argue or perform; they resonate, like a vibration passed through the soles of your feet. Thick skeins of paint are unearthed, revealing strata in a geologic dig of intuition. There’s a kind of archaeology to the gesture: gouges, stains, and eruptions of impasto build a type of sedimentary record, chronicling attention. The eye slows down, and with it, thought.