Yi Hsuan Lai: The Ontology of the Body at SoMad

Yi Hsuan Lai exhibits her works in a solo show at SoMad, a femme- and queer-led art space that serves as a platform for emerging artists to experiment, collaborate, and challenge conventions. SoMad comprises a combined gallery and artist residency program, a production house, and an event space. The name “SoMad” reflects both the physical location — south of Madison Square Park — and the collective’s frustration with the current landscape of resources and support structures available for emerging artists, particularly artists from marginalized communities.

Frank Lind: Time and Tide, Homage and Seascapes at Georges Berges

Frank Lind: Time and Tide, Homage and Seascapes at Georges Berges

Getting to see the works of Frank Lind in person gives you an experience of a moment, the capture of a motion, and the building up of an atmosphere. Lind works “en plein air” within nature. Capturing immediate impressions and moments that captivate him, he then carries sketches to canvas. Stemming from the on-site sketches, the larger studio works take on a glow. Using traditional oil painting processes and many old master methods, both of Lind’s series displayed in this exhibition show the end result of a painter’s process.

Susan Cohen – Engrossed in Egg Tempera

Susan Cohen – Engrossed in Egg Tempera

In Dialogue

Painter Susan Cohen began her artistic journey by depicting the interiors of the places she lived, drawn to the emotional resonance of light and shadow. While that early intensity has softened over time, her fascination with light remains the core of her practice — animating her still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes, and close-up studies of foliage.

Shervone Neckles: Steeping Memory

Shervone Neckles: Steeping Memory

We do rely on art for healing purposes, but art that directly heals often requires a performative component. That is not to say that it delivers results, but there needs to be an interactive element in which the art appears to “give back” to the viewer.  I visited the shrine of St. Anthony in Padua, for me, it was mostly to see the Donatello altarpiece and the Antonio and Tullio Lombardo friezes, but it was impossible to ignore the numerous worshippers at the shrine, their foreheads resting against the saint’s sarcophagus, inserting small pieces of paper with requests for St. Anthony.  For nine years, Shervone Neckles has wheeled her healing cart — the Creative Wellness Gathering Station throughout the five boroughs and dispensed potions to fascinated and grateful onlookers. 

Singing in Unison, Part 12: Painting in Space

It began, as many enduring ideas do, over wine and conversation. Michael David, painter, curator, and gallerist of M. David & Co., was speaking at a dinner with Judy Pfaff about her close friend and early champion Al Held. The talk drifted to another dear friend, Elizabeth Murray, and then to her admiration for Frank Stella. From that exchange evolved the idea for Singing in Unison, Part 12: Painting in Space, curated by Michael David, and now on view at Art Cake in cooperation with The Brooklyn Rail.

Fran Shalom: Everyday Improvisations at Kathryn Markel

Fran Shalom’s paintings reduce form to its essentials while preserving the marks of revision and doubt. The surface becomes a record of both decision and hesitation, clarity and its undoing. Her compositions are direct yet ambivalent. Airy lines float within vivid color fields, their edges both firm and uncertain, altogether suggesting a state of being through color, motion, and gesture rather than representation. They obstinately remain abstract, teasing recognition without granting it.  

What The House Dreams Of – Two painters at Ruby Dakota Gallery

“Childhood” has always been a fertile source for artists in all disciplines. We all had a childhood and, for better or worse, we all carry memories that often haunt us throughout our lifetimes. Ruby/Dakota, a scrappy young gallery in the East Village is presenting a two- person show entitled What The House Dreams Of that brings together two young artists with memories to share.

Myth as Metamorphosis at Freight + Volume

In the quiet hum of Freight + Volume, myth breathes anew — through clay, through oil, through the occulted pulse of memory and transformation. Elizabeth Insogna’s luminous ceramics rise from ionic pedestals like ancient offerings, while Jorge K. Cruz’s visceral canvases create a kaleidoscopic backsplash, drawing viewers into a dialogue between the sacred and the subversive.

Learning with Trees-Artists for Climate and Environmental Solutions

In Dialogue

Curator Martina Tanga had been reflecting on the ideas behind Learning With Trees – Artists for Climate and Environmental Solutions long before the exhibition took shape. In 2022, she read Ben Rawlence’s The Treeline, a book tracing how the Boreal forest is shifting under the impact of climate change. That reading sparked the idea that trees could serve as a highly accessible and disarmingly effective way to approach conversations about climate change.

Art Spiel Picks: Boston Exhibitions in November 2025

HIGHLIGHTS

I’m deeply grateful for Boston’s university galleries—they consistently fill the gaps left by the local commercial gallery scene, which has been diluted, in my opinion, by the pressure to cover rent. These institutions reliably bring high-quality, thoughtful art and ideas to the city. A short but not exhaustive list would include the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, the Aidekman Arts Center at Tufts, MIT’s List Visual Arts Center, and the Harvard Art Museums.