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.

INS AND OUTS AND UPS AND DOWNS: PAULINE DECARMO: At LABspace, @labspace_art, 2642 NY, Route 23, Hillsdale NY

On View Through: August 11, 2024

Featured Artist: Pauline Decarmo

Pauline Decarmo, Blue sky, 2024, acrylic on wood panel, 24 X 24 inches

“These paintings are self-portraits. But they can also be a portrait of anyone. Perhaps the viewer.”

—-Pauline Decarmo

Resulting from ongoing complications due to a bout with cancer in 2017, Decarmo could not use her dominant arm to paint. Rather than succumb to the idea of not painting, she trained her alternate arm and produced a body of primarily self-portraits. What she did create was an extraordinary body of work that not only is emotional and expresses the frustrations, limitations, and successes that things beyond our control can render but also demonstrates an exquisite finesse in painting. These works exemplify dual qualities, a raw emotion, but one expressed through painterly texture, composition, and color acumen, which displays a belief in the power of creating exquisite art in the most basic way. Decarmo’s work will culminate in an end of show celebration.

Until the Sun Goes Dark, Taylor Davis at September, @septembergallery, 4 Hudson St., 3rd Flr. Kinderhook, NY

On View Through: September 15, 2024

Featured Artist: Taylor Davis

Taylor Davis, Untitled (Floor Workl 3), 2022, milled sugar maple, elm, and oak, 9 x 67 x 83 inches

Why are we living in an era of barbarity worldwide? Is it naturally ingrained? Why are some repulsed while others regale in violence as festive entertainment? What is the joy found in power over others through brute force? Celebrated artist Taylor Davis, known for beautiful, cerebral works, takes on this burden in September in Kinderhook, NY. She is not seeking answers or conclusions, but through biblical readings, specifically Psalms, Job, and Ecclesiastes, and using found images, text, sculpture, painting, and works on paper, she examines the nature of humanity and inhumanity.

Relying on systems of chance and logic and a mindset that the materials are collaborators, Davis does not merely execute an idea but deeply interacts with the texts and characteristics of the mediums she uses. What emerges as compelling art is the proverbial two sides of a coin, beauty and anxiety. Ecclesiastes, when translated from the Greek, means one who convenes an assembly. This book of the bible presents several questions, and that is exactly what Davis has done in September. Don’t miss it; you have till September 15th.

Neither Here Nor Now, Bill Arning Exhibitions, @billarningexhibitions 17 Broad St Kinderhook, NY

On View Through: August 11

Featured Artists: Ario Elami, Tara Fracalossi, Eric Hibit, Jeff Fleming, Roberto Juarez, Cobi Moules

Roberto Juarez, Puerto Rico, 2020, mixed media on canvas 40 x 40 inches

To travel through the Hudson Valley, under arches of celadon and sparkling viridescent towers of conifers and evergreens with vistas of farmland, and a body of rapidly moving water so wide and vast it is hard to describe as a river, is to think you have landed in Xanadu. Living in this heavenly natural world landscape, no matter what the medium, is a given.

Bill Arning, veteran curator, museum professional, and gallery owner, assembled a group of artists working in a variety of mediums to tackle the age-old practice of depicting landscapes. This is not your en plein air exhibit, but one that plumps the depths of meaning and emotion that emanate from the still image of memories and desires.

João Salomão: Circo de Visões (Circus of Visions) at Gallery 495, @mainstreetgallery495 495 Main St., Catskill, NY

On View Through: July 27, 2024

Featured Artist: João Salomão


Installation view, João Salomão: Circo de Visões, Gallery 495, 2024, Photo by Otto Ohie

Gallery 495, on the edge of the small town of Catskill, NY, is one of the most innovative galleries to open in the last few years. The aim of founder and director Mike Mosby, a native of the Hudson Valley, is to exhibit rich and compelling work by diverse and multi-generational artists. Recently, a Brazilian artist, now living in NewYork City, João Salomão, presented a body of work composed of paintings, sculptures, and drawings that mined the urban environment, transforming the detritus of city streets into a transcendental experience that can conjure many of the same spiritual and meditative moments usually associated with forest bathing.

About the writer: Sara Farrell Okamura is an artist, writer, and arts educator based in North Adams, Massachusetts.