As we gleefully exit an extreme winter on the East Coast, April weather is a poignant reminder to remain spirited amid fluctuating moods and unstable times. As the first spring flowers burst forth with their promise of eternal beauty despite all, a lively round of exhibitions around Upstate New York brings elegance to match. Tyte Gallery presents dynamic mixed-media work by three artists, while an exhibition at 68 Prince Street Gallery is an all-out celebration of abstraction by six powerhouse painters. A group show at Yellow Studio explores ideas around female representation, while Daniel Giordano, Davana Robedee, Kathy Ruttenberg present a magical orchestration of ceramics and sculptural artworks at Catskill Art Space and Caleb Weintraub shows colorful figurative paintings at Perry Lawson Fine Art. Meanwhile, Raphael Moser Gallery features one-color artworks in various mediums, and Distortion Society presents contemporary expressions of the ancient Japanese katazome folk art practice. Spring is always a temperamental tease — let’s chase the lively aura of art this month!
Imagined Realities: Pulse and Pattern
Tyte Gallery, 3280 Franklin Avenue, 2nd Floor, Millbrook, New York
Through April 12
The wild, patterned visuals of the mixed-media artworks in this three-person show convey a buoyant, pulsing energy. Shannon Carroll’s abstract atmospheric paintings whisk us away into summery sensations, including her hazy “A Drop in the Ocean III” (2025) and green-hued “A Drop in the Ocean IV” (2025). “Decompose V” (2025) by Sophie Kitching is an extravaganza of bright organic shapes in a free-flowing watercolor dance, while her “Balmy” (2021) is a sensuous slice of flowing pastel lines. Sabri Sundos’s hand-embroidered cotton artworks are utterly delightful, including “Tatreez sampler” (2025) with its two threaded creatures frolicking with flowers, and “We Were Playing with the Clouds” (2025) features a community of those same critters grooving joyfully.
Women in the Abstract
68 Prince Street Gallery, 68 Prince Street, Kingston, New York
Through April 19
With a focus on six powerhouse abstract painters, Women in the Abstract at 68 Prince Street Gallery celebrates the dynamic intensity of abstraction. “Red Velvet” (2026) by Elizabeth Gilfilen is a crimson-hued painting of puffy shapes that pull us into their velvety warmth, while Kathy Goodell’s “Animal Amour” (2026) is a faint white and baby blue field with black calligraphic marks in every direction. Paula DeLuccia Poons’s “Messy Poker” (2023) is a billowy layering from black into pink, and Claire Seidl’s “How on Earth 2” (2025) is a fun and frenzied jumble of ocher, white, and yellow. Meanwhile, “Abstract III” (1985) by Francine Tint is a purple-stained stack of flat shapes that appear soaked in rain, while Gina Werfel’s “Rush” (2025) is a lively pile of color that recalls the innocent thrill of candy.
Multitudes
Yellow Studio, Yellow Monkey Village, 792 Route 35, Cross River, New York
Through April 19
With images of female power and playfulness at its core, Multitudes at Yellow Studio presents four women artists who consider identity, representation, and perception in their mixed-media practices. Allison Belolan’s monotype collage “Colonnade” (2026) features a row of women who pose self-consciously facing every direction, while Dorian Goldman’s “Textured Torso” (2023) is a stout, womanly ceramic trunk. In Anne Pollard James’s “The Ledge” (2023), we look down into a woman’s groin, hips, and red panties as her fingers pull sexily at both sides. Finally, Angela Strassheim’s “Guitar Hero” (2007) pigment print features a woman holding her guitar and facing a TV, naked aside from white underwear, and looking fierce from behind in a moment of private entertainment.
Daniel Giordano, Davana Robedee, Kathy Ruttenberg
Catskill Art Space, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New York
Through April 25
Bursting with vibrancy to match the spring season, Daniel Giordano, Davana Robedee, and Kathy Ruttenberg’s group exhibition at Catskill Art Space is pure magic. As a longtime fan of both Ruttenberg’s and Giordano’s work, I find this trio of artists to be an enchanting curatorial match-up. Giordano’s fun-loving sculptural installation “Pleasure Pipes” (2019–25) features an eccentric collection of phallic pieces and other quirky objects that occupy a full wall in their jolly weirdness. Robedee’s monumental silk-dyed tapestries, including “Single Chromosome Handmirror” (2025) and “Duplicated Chromosome” (2025), are majestic and esoteric indigo-colored compositions. Kathy Ruttenberg’s ceramic stoneware pieces are always ravishing in their poetic charm, and “The Day Her Flower Died” (2026) is an alluring vision of a nude figure on her knees peering into the face of an oversized blossom with a long green stem and human feet.
Lisa Karrer: Forest For The Trees
Garner Arts Center, 55 West Railroad Avenue, Garnerville, New York
Through April 26
Interdisciplinary artist Lisa Karrer explores the human condition in the digital age, presenting her version of “warm technology” in her effort to “reverse post-humanism,” as she described to me via email. Through her immersive community-based installations and diverse mixed-media practice, including ceramics, music, and performance, Karrer expresses her deep care for trees and the environment. Forest For The Trees at Garner Arts Center presents a series of her imaginative hand-painted ceramic tree shapes that revolve on motorized platens in a mini forest environment, wall projections, a collaborative audio soundtrack with original music composition, and a video with participants from all around the globe telling personal stories about trees. Among these works, “Lupuna Tree” (2025) embodies Karrer’s total focus on environmental awareness through art.
Deirdre O’Connell: New Portraits
Susan Eley Fine Art, 433 Warren Street, Hudson, New York
Through April 26
Deirdre O’Connell: New Portraits at Susan Eley Fine Art presents a series of gold-tinted portrayals of the artist’s friends and colleagues, including actors and writers. These images are both loving and candid in their representation of the sitters. In “Zoom #6: Nicole” (all works 2026), for example, a woman with a gorgeous floral headpiece and eyes closed, holds up her hand in a “stop” gesture. The squinted expression of “Bobby #3” and the billowing smoke cloud departing from his mouth suggest personal strife. In the Dan #1-6 series, we see this same character making a variety of theatrical facial expressions. The only painting to present figures from behind, “Jenna, Banks Mateo and Lucy,” is a collaged work that features two women as they hold a child with antlers by the hand and lead him into water in a moment of graceful wandering.
Caleb Weintraub: Both Sides of the Mirror in the Studio
Perry Lawson Fine Art, 90 North Broadway, Nyack, New York
Through April 26
Combining elements of illustration, cartoon, figuration, and bright color schemes to create imaginative scenes, Caleb Weintraub’s paintings are sheer merriment. Both Sides of the Mirror in the Studio at Perry Lawson Fine Art presents a series of recent paintings that tinker with the familiar and unfamiliar. “Rare Birds” (2023) is a vision of three musical-looking men in a futuristic landscape filled with creatures. In “Fanning the Flame” (2024), we come upon a domestic fireside scene and the warmth of a blazing hearth. In “Mincing Words” (2024), two figures in fantastic outfits approach each other in a wild, surrealist realm laden with abstract oddities, while the character in “Rush Hour” (2024) appears to float in similarly weird environs, his foot severed in two.
Commitments to the Monochrome in Contemporary Practice
Raphael Moser Gallery, 75 Bridge Street, Catskill, New York
Through May 1
The intentional group show Commitments to the Monochrome in Contemporary Practice presents a series of artworks totally focused on color. Karlos Cárcamo’s “Kase Painting P6” (2023/26) is an austere vision of a darkened canvas consisting of latex, spray enamel, and collage. “Lumina III” (2025) by Lynne Harlow is a shiny slumped glass that could be mistaken for leather from afar, and Steve Riedell’s “Folded-Over Painting (Orange)” (2023) is a whimsical three-dimensional canvas that hangs off the wall like a sculpture. Arlene Santana Thornton’s “Fog” (2018) is a hazy oil-on-paper piece that appears to be just like its title suggests, while “Traveller” (2023) by Jason Travers is a white square painting with a few black markings that suggest poetic possibilities amid solemnity.
Joan Oliver: Interior Passages
Gallery 495, 495 Main Street, Catskill, New York
Through May 2
Veteran artist Joan Oliver explores themes of personal experience, the female figure, and imaginative uses of material in her solo show Interior Passages at Gallery 495, featuring mixed-media artworks. “Full Exposure” (1997) and “Misguided Career” (1995), for instance, feature a ruddy nude woman and a pensive lady sitting with arms crossed against a purple and green background, respectively. Her “Dreamt Recall” (2025) collage is a layering of miscellaneous imagery and strips of patterned papers, while “Bereft” (2018) is a misty pinkish-hued collage with a Medusa-like face in the upper right of the composition. Among her sensitive portrayals of women, “Selena” (1995) is notable, appearing both deliberate and curious in her expression.
Spaces Between Color
Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, New York
Through May 3
The group show Spaces Between Color at Distortion Society brings together four artists whose work employs this traditional katazome process, which influenced the folk art movement in Japan and beyond, to create contemporary visions. Curator Erina Pearl’s “Snail Party” (2025) features three robust flowers with five little snails crawling about, bordered by a graphic pattern. “Reflection of a Kajarishi” (2025) by Natalia Siu Munro is a mythical lion crouching by a rushing river looking at itself in the water, while Chinatsu Nagamune’s “letter no. 1” (2025) is a layering of squares and rectangular shapes of various white and blue hues. The artist mizosasora’s “입추, (Ipchu, Beginning of Autumn)” (2023), a pigment-on-hanji print of a still life that includes a slender black vase with flowers flanked by two smaller vessels, is a perfectly current expression of this classic Japanese art form.
