Backscatter: Light Studies and Everyday Alchemy at OVERLAP
Exhibition Review by Persephone Allen

Backscatter: Light Studies and Everyday Alchemy at OVERLAP

Sparkling surfaces abound in Backscatter, OVERLAP’s quietly radiant summer show of works by Funlola Coker, Katherine Mitchell DiRico, Jesse Kaminsky, Joetta Maue, Leah Piepgras, and Esther Solondz, curated by Alicia Renadette. On a clear summer midmorning, sunshine falls across shimmering layers of glass, crystal, gold leaf, copper, bronze, salt, acrylic, and clear liquid. Materials catch and refract light. The overall effect is of a hushed brilliance that draws you in, inviting a closer look.

Reclamation: Holland Tunnel Revisited in Newburgh
Exhibitions by Art Spiel

Reclamation: Holland Tunnel Revisited in Newburgh

previewing

When artist Alexandra Limpert invited Janet Rutkowski to co-curate Reclamation in honor of her longtime friend and Holland Tunnel founder Paulien Lethen, Rutkowski accepted without hesitation. Although she had just finished curating and exhibiting in several projects, she embraced the challenge with what she describes as her “devil-may-care” approach. The exhibition’s title emerged quickly, reflecting her interest in the idea of recovery and renewal.

Exhibitions by Art Spiel

Holly Wong: Full Circle at Slate Contemporary Gallery

Previewing Exhibition

“Coming full circle and making whole” is how Holly Wong describes her process of repair—working with memory, reassembling fragments, and layering paint, fabric, and light into new forms. On view at SLATE Contemporary in Oakland from September 5 through October 11, 2025, Full Circle is her second solo exhibition with the gallery. It brings together collaged paintings on shaped aluminum and wood panels, mixed media drawings, wall-based fiber and LED installations, and a heat-molded acrylic assemblage, presenting a mid-career survey of her work.

MIST – Fleeting moments and Summer Sensibilities at Helm Contemporary
Exhibition Review by Taylor Bielecki

MIST – Fleeting moments and Summer Sensibilities at Helm Contemporary

In MIST, four artists are brought together to take the inspiration of summer, and find a way to break through the heatwaves that have recently hit New York. There is a dialogue between the artists and their various takes on works on paper, bringing forth summer sensibilities, airiness, freshness, and a feeling of being free. Each artist offers a different series of works.

Exhibition Review by Amanda Church

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.

Exhibition Review by Adria Arch

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.

Exhibition Review by Will Kaplan

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.

Art Spiel Picks: Philly Exhibitions in August 2025
Exhibition Highlights by Jessica Aguilar

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 the 2025 cohort for their Windgate Arts Residency program, inviting experimentation and individual perspectives in wood in A Plank in a Shipwreck.

Jonathan Syme Coaxes Spirit from Matter at Royale Projects
Exhibition Review by Stephen Wozniak

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.