Ashley Garrett: Psyche at September

Welling, 2025, oil on canvas, 65” x 115”

Psyche, Ashley Garrett’s exhibition of paintings at September Gallery in Kinderhook, has a mix of large and small oil paintings, and pastels. The small works have a restless energy emphasized by Garrett’s staccato mark-making. The large canvases give Garrett’s brush plenty of room to deliver longer, more fluid gestures. This freedom allows her paint strokes to slide over and under each other in a flow that can give her compositions a quiet intensity, like tall grass seething in a high wind. Garrett has lightened up her palette to include more pinks and a range of whites and pale grays.

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Until the Sun Goes Dark: Taylor Davis Decontructs Power

Installation view, photo courtesy of SEPTEMBER

In Until the Sun Goes Dark, Taylor Davis’s second solo show with SEPTEMBER gallery at Kinderhook, NY, the Boston-based artist takes on the question of why we exist in a violent, volatile universe. She offers no answers, but through sculpture, painting, and works on paper, elicits inquiries into the nature of brutality by researching texts ranging from 2000-year-old biblical scriptures (Job 27:13- 23, Ecclesiastics 12: 5-8 and Psalm 57: 4-5) to modern writings by Ethnographer, Edward Linnaeus Keithahn and literature by William Gass, In The Heart of the Heart of the Country. Davis does not merely execute a plan to create work but relies on systems of chance and logic. She does not force her materials to bend to her intent but defers to the inherent nature of the materials she is using. Working in a similar manner to a call-and-response practice, her final pieces sometimes challenge the viewers’ initial comprehension of what they are actually seeing.

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Upstate Art Weekend, If You Missed It, It is Still Here!

Pauline Decarmo, CHAMPION, 2024, acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches, LABspace

145 galleries, venues, historical sites, performances, and a few fashion stops and upscale grocers for foodies thrown in for good measure, all scattered across 10 counties north of New York City. This comprised Upstate Art Weekend, a four-day festival highlighting the diversity and breadth of culture in Upstate New York. This was not for the faint of stamina. This is not an art fair. It is a celebration of the creative communities lining the Hudson and the enclaves embedded in the Catskills. I have to believe the intent was never for escapees from urbanity to stop at each little circle on clustered maps. Below are some of the galleries that are the marrow, the heartbeat of the cultural community in specific regions. These are also galleries that exhibit small group and one-person shows that provide a larger window into the artist’s or artists’ thought process. If you missed Upstate Art Weekend, don’t despair; these and other sites are a stable part of the Hudson Valley, enabling anybody to make their own Upstate Art Weekend on their own time. It’s always here, 12 months of the year.

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Myth Maker: Laleh Khorramian at SEPTEMBER Gallery

Installation view. Photo courtesy of Alon Koppol

Finally! What a joy to meander through a show that is not just a formulaic scaffolding rendered to execute a marketing plan rather than make art. Walking into the building that houses September Gallery’s new space in Kinderhook, NY, The first thing you see is not a wall or architectural ornamentation but a monumental scroll that immediately hints you might be here for a while. This colossal collage introduces Myth Maker, the second exhibition at September Gallery by Laleh Khorramian.

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Ashley Garrett – Painting Mind and Space

Ashley Garrette, Oread, 2019, oil on canvas, 13 x 17 in.

Ashley Garrett paints abstracted landscapes which resonate a sense of place – elusive and precise at the same time. Utilizing richer color and bolder gesture, Garrett ‘s recent body of work reveals an artist’s gaze inwards into a deeper psychological space. Ashley Garrett shared with Art Spiel her approach to painting and her upcoming projects.

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