Art Spiel Picks: Boston Exhibitions June 2025

Highlights

*Lucy Kim: Pigment Spells* at Praise Shadows Gallery, Brookline, MA. Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows Gallery

Several wonderful exhibitions are on view in Boston this month and many more are scheduled for the summer, along with artist talks, performances, and events. Boston’s Public Art Triennial kicked off with a ribbon cutting and a party to celebrate the arrival of several new public art installations around the city for art goers to enjoy throughout the summer. The schools are getting ready for summer break but many of their galleries remain open with dynamic shows. Whether you visit the city, the Cape, or the Islands over the next few months, there is always something to see. Here are a few highlights to consider.

Tilling the Tide at Blue Triangle

@bluetrianglegallery

On view through: June 13, 2025

Featuring: Eben Haines

Blue Triangle is one of the coolest, lesser-known galleries in Boston. Started by an artist couple, the gallery hosts several exhibitions a year in a second floor walk-up in Chinatown. The crowd is warm and hip. The artwork they show is socially engaged and aesthetically interesting. Currently, the work of Eben Haines is on view. I have been a fan of Haines’ work since his Pandemic-era project called Shelter in Place Gallery, where he showed miniature artworks from local artists who were working to scale. It was a wonderful reprieve from the pandemic and a way for the Boston art community to remain engaged. Tilling the Tide at Blue Triangle follows Haines’ concerns for humanity and community by looking squarely at issues that continue to be a concern for all people, including the climate crisis, housing insecurity, and isolation.

Through his signature aesthetic of dark and seemingly-stressed materials, Haines creates rich objects and spaces that feel like they’re from another time. (Or are harbingers of a future full of deterioration.) His artwork is dark. There’s a patina on everything, which adds to its richness, mystique, and sense of history. For such a young, contemporary artist, Haines’ work feels like it’s made by an old man with decades of wisdom, stories, and insights that we would all be better off learning from. The gallery is open on Thursdays and Fridays and by appointment, which I highly recommend. It’s absolutely worth a visit. Also, their openings are a lot of fun and should not be missed. Great art, good vibes, cool people, keg beer, and really good music. What more could you ask for?

Lucy Kim, Kernel Distortion 1, 2025 — Photo by Dan Watkins, courtesy of Praise Shadows

Pigment Spells at Praise Shadows

@praise.shadows.art

On view through: June 27, 2025

Featuring: Lucy Kim

Lucy Kim’s sculptural paintings are consistently interesting and masterfully-made. I have been following her work for many years and love the way it has evolved, remaining consistent in some ways and changed in others. Her exploration of cast resin and oil paint manifest into objects that are poignant, humorous, repellent, and delicious. The work satisfies the senses. Kim’s current exhibition Pigment Spells at Praise Shadows is a beautifully thought-provoking show of some wonderfully composed and produced paintings. Kim is looking at patterns and color, visibly recognizable objects in juxtaposition with odd scale and deep chroma. She is channeling the tradition of Op Art while building three-dimensional structures that protrude into space.

Her work is a reflection of her quirky imagination; mixing familiar objects like teeth and corn kernels with undulating forms, all while referencing the rich history of art. Kim creates work that explores issues of identity, vision, and the experience of looking. She’s a rigorous researcher who makes methodical objects, combining serious intellect with a playful sense of humor. Praise Shadows gallery continues to exhibit some of the best work in town and Pigment Spells is a wonderful way to end the season as we enter into summer. See it while it’s up!

Embracing Dualities at BLKChip

@blkchipgallery

On view through: June 21, 2025

Featuring: Ibrahim Ali-Salaam

At the core of Embracing Dualities is the universal recognition that we’re all a work in progress. For Ibrahim Ali-Salaam, the body of work on view is also a self-portrait of sorts. Ali-Salaam embraces his own personal sense of confidence, contradictions, and self-acceptance. It’s a reminder that all of the fluctuations inherent in personal growth and reflection are part of being human. His gorgeously rendered paintings depict a variety of men and women – sometimes the artist himself – in various states of movement or repose. Faces are sometimes cropped out of the picture and other times portraiture is used to define his subjects. I love the way Ali-Salaam composes a painting; always finding the most interesting angle to portray a subject and using text, sketch, monochrome, multichrome, and a plethora of other techniques and aesthetic approaches to say what he wants to say about his subjects. He’s not afraid to experiment and leave a section of a painting almost unfinished next to an area that is highly rendered. They feel fresh and dynamic.

BLK Chip Gallery is a relatively new space in South Boston focused on the work of Black and brown artists in the city. Supported by a creative agency called Street Theory, BLK Chip has a radical approach to being a commercial gallery by offering artists a larger percentage of the proceeds from a sale, supporting them financially as well as creatively. The space is definitely worth having on your radar and the exhibitions are must-see.

Endships at Lamontagne Gallery

@lamontagne_gallery

On view through: June 7, 2025

Featuring: Bianca Fields

Endships is a high-energy painting show by Bianca Fields, an artist who uses paint like a swashbuckler; jabbing, slashing, and dueling with her subjects as they come to life. Her energy in the act of creating the work is evident on the surface, but also inside the psychological heft of the images that emerge. These are not portraits of anyone specific. (At least there is no indication of this.) Instead, Fields is referencing Moby Dick and historical archetypes of femininity from mythology and literature. These elements clash and swirl in a whirlwind of paint to form images that are provocative and compelling. Her brushwork is seductive and her choices in color and gesture are powerful. Her work is unabashed and confrontational. She describes the feeling of motion sickness as one of the expressed experiences of her work. I immediately felt energized looking at the paintings and got lost in the tumble.

I would like to know if any of these paintings are about specific people in Fields’ life, referencing personal experiences with friends, lovers, colleagues, or mentors. In this I imagine we would get a privileged glimpse into her life as an individual in relationship to others. It’s a vulnerable position to put oneself in, and I can only imagine what that would unlock.

All photos courtesy of Andrew Fish unless otherwise credited.

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About the writer: Andrew Fish is a Boston-based artist and educator. He studied at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and received his MFA from Goddard College in VT. His work has been exhibited in several solo and group exhibitions in the US and abroad. Fish teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, MA. @Andrew_Fish_Studio