As another Independence Day comes and goes, and our nation is increasingly compromised, we lean ever further into our collective dedication to art and the creative courage it delivers throughout the season. This July, the bounty of exhibitions in Upstate New York includes a solo show of abstract paintings by Philip Gebhardt and spiritually infused works by the late Gerard Wagner, both in Hudson. Among the dynamic group shows on view, Ligenza Moore Gallery presents mixed-media works by 15 artists and Carrie Haddad Gallery features six artists who extol the season in The Summer Show. The myths and muses of history inhabit the lush paintings of Dana Sherwood at Geary in Millerton, while Ethan Cohen Gallery in Beacon celebrates the work of Chinese women artists who explore themes of female agency in their work. With the strength of midsummer as our springboard, let us celebrate artistic vibrancy with determined dignity!
Philip Gebhardt: Beyond Form
Time and Space Limited, 434 Columbia Street, Hudson, New York
Through July 27

Many contemporary artists regard abstract expressionism as an open-ended movement with the most outrageous possibilities for realization today, and Philip Gebhardt is a diehard among them. His solo show Beyond Form is just that — beyond form, time, even beyond abstraction itself, though maintaining a verve for it all the same. With passionate titles such as “Hold Me” (2022) and “A Grasp and A Gaze” (2024), Gebhardt pulls us into his cubist-style figurative scenes and wildly expressive landscapes. “Tangled” (2024) is reminiscent of bodies jumbled together gleefully in bed, while “The Mending II” (2024) reflects the perfectly chaotic and richly hued realms of the artist’s fluid fancies.
Destination Earth
Ligenza Moore Gallery, 78 Trout Brook Road, Cold Spring, New York
Through July 27

In a flurry of dynamic group exhibitions, Destination Earth is a buoyant representation of regional talent. Featuring 15 artists exploring “what it means to exist in this present moment,” as stated by the gallery. Works such as Katherine Bradford’s “Couple Swimmers” (2025) feature two faceless figures wading into water together against a dark sky, suggesting a night swim. “Jimena with Iguana” (2014) by Garry Nichols is a lavish painting of a woman sitting peacefully with the stoic green creature in her lap, a calm moment of existing in the now. A 1992 quasi-surrealist collage by Judy Pfaff has an anatomical edge, while Greg Slick’s “The Lives of Others #4” (2019) appears to have been carved, though it is actually an abstract acrylic painting. Sculptures by Tony Moore and Cal Lane explore notions of memory and place, and “The Thousand-Eyed Present (from Ralph Waldo Emerson)” (2025) by Meg Hitchcock is a delightfully muscular structure that appears to fold outward in a controlled riot of three-dimensional color.
Address:Earth – WaterStory
Convey/Er/Or, 299 Main Street, Poughkeepsie, New York
Through July 27

This month, venues across the Hudson Valley are hosting eight different exhibitions in collaboration with Inspiration Art Group International, with each show representing a creative embodiment of a natural ecosystem. Address:Earth – Water Story at Convey/Er/Or presents a poignant installation by Bibiana Huang Matheis and Mimi Czajka Graminski, who together focus on the fragility of our oceans. The artists fitted the front window of the gallery with single-use plastic containers, effectively filling the space with an idiosyncratic, visually pleasing contraption made from trash. Inside the gallery, a hanging fabric sculpture calls to mind a vibrant jellyfish while translucent fabric strips hang from the ceiling, giving the impression of a teeming seascape. Wrapping around the walls are black and white images of human arteries, ocean waves, and glacial formations — stark visions of natural fluids as currents of power and possibility.
The Summer Show
Carrie Haddad Gallery, 622 Warren Street, Hudson, New York
Through July 27

With a celebratory spirit as the baseline for this six-person exhibition, The Summer Show is a charming complement to the festive month of July. Several gorgeous, glistening paintings by Samantha French capture sanguine swimmers in brilliantly blue water, including “Summer Solstice” and “Bon Vivants” (both 2024). “Time Traveler Heat Wave” (2025) by Clark Derbes is a playful geometric-patterned sculpture made of polychrome sugar-maple, and Margaret G. Still’s “Green Gas Station” (2025) is a dreamy vision of what could be a pit stop on a summer road trip, while Andrea Moreau’s “Poland (Glider)” (2023) depicts a frosty landscape of white mountains, the utter antithesis of this steamy season.
Through Color to Form
Lightforms Art Center, 743 Columbia Street, Hudson, New York
Through July 31

The late Gerard Wagner was a German-born English painter deeply influenced by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher and social reformer who was a mentor to Hilma af Klint, among other notable artists of her generation. Curated by Sampsa Pirtola and presented in collaboration with Rudolf Steiner Library and the artist’s foundation, Through Color to Form gathers over 30 sensual paintings by Wagner that vibrate with a metaphysical brilliance. In “Vorhan (Curtain)” (1966), we encounter a small figure holding an arched rainbow in the middle of a purple-and-blue landscape as a reddish-orange, double-faced figure looks down while beaming rays penetrate the beautiful and strange scene, altogether a reflection of his exploration of spiritual forces through art. The healing and melting rainbow motif continues in other works, while “Der Tote (The Dead)” (1978) and its lone face in an abstract floating realm are a graceful reminder of fate.
What She Builds, She Must Destroy
Distortion Society, 155 Main Street, Beacon, New York
Through August 10

In the opening lines of the Iliad, Homer invokes the feminine with the words “Rage—Goddess, sing the rage,” and thus begins his thundering epic. Infused with a sense of Homerian rage, What She Builds, She Must Destroy at Distortion Society highlights a series of robust crimson-hued paintings by gallery director Michelle Silver. This solo show of her recent work wrangles concepts of motherhood, feminine power, and pleasure as reflected in these muscular works that seem to battle with themselves. With “The Unraveling” (2025) as a prime example, a swirl of fiery red gestures harmonizes in a metaphorical ecstatic dance, each painterly rhythm morphing into the next. In “Holding Pattern” (2025), we see the painter herself — pregnant, leaning forward, and returning our gaze — immersed in quasi-Impressionist environs, while “The Dancer” (2024) throws us further into a beautifully chaotic disarray of pure abstract frenzy.
Dana Sherwood: Garden of the Sphinx
Geary, 34 Main Street, Millerton, New York
Through August 10

Inspired by myths and muses of history and employing the Sphinx as her symbolic focus, Dana Sherwood’s exploration of classic iconography is pure rapture. With recent paintings and glazed porcelain works, her solo show pays homage to eminent figures, including Persephone and Alice in Wonderland, among other literary heroines. “Moons of Medusa” (2025) is a luscious re-imagining of the wrathful gorgon in glowing porcelain. With “Inside the Belly of the Fawn (odalisque)” (2025), we encounter a contemporary version of Ingres’s famous sitter, this time surrounded by sweet treats and lovingly nestled beside a fawn who steps carefully among snails in a pastoral environment. “Inside the Belly of the Horse (lagoon with pomegranates)” (2025) continues the theme of femme beauty in a rarified world, where one woman straddles a horse and another rests inside its body while the entire poetic landscape is lush with fruits, cakes, pomegranates, and lovely white birch trees.
Half the Sky
Ethan Cohen Gallery at the KuBe Art Center, 20 Kent Street, Beacon, New York
Through August 30

During his reign over China, Mao Zedong declared that “women hold up half the sky,” a statement that effectively inspired a women’s revolution. Half the Sky celebrates the power of 11 visionary Chinese women artists and is dedicated to Joan Lebold Cohen, a critic, scholar, and pioneer in the field of contemporary Chinese art. This dynamic show includes a series of bold visions of Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist goddesses constructed from fabric by Guo Zhen, as well as Lin Tianmiao’s “Bound/Unbound (bicycle)” (1996) embodying her practice of wrapping everyday objects in thread. Meanwhile, Cui Fei’s “Tracing the Origin” (2006) is a delicate orchestration of twigs to resemble calligraphy and Shen Ling’s pop-inflected “Sunflower Woman” (2005) depicts two confident women enjoying beer, cigarettes, and sitting without underwear as a man behind them casually reads a book, all of them set against a dramatic yellow wall.
In the Secret Distance
Headstone Gallery, 28 Hurley Avenue, Kingston, New York
Through August 31

Documenting her life as a mother and a farmer, Olivia Bee uses photography to capture moments of human bliss and the poetic transience of the natural world. Her solo show In the Secret Distance centers recent photographs that radiate with otherworldly sensitivity and ease. The artist currently stewards 60 acres of farmland with her husband and daughter in the Umpqua Valley of Western Oregon, a place that features prominently in her work. In “Northern Lights” (2024), a naked woman turns her head toward a blazing pink and purple night sky, while in “Fescue in May” (2023), a woman stands in an expansive field as she faces the brilliance of a rising sun. “White Rainbow” (2023) captures the essence of Bee’s affinity for the land, portraying a chalky glowing arc over a pastoral landscape.
All the Light and Shadow
Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center, 584 NY-9D, Garrison, New York
Through September 7

With a focus on local and sustainable materials as the core of their practice, All the Light and Shadow at Manitoga / The Russel Wright Design Center presents the work of eight artists who explore the interplay between functionality and art. Curated by Alyson Baker, this sophisticated show of rarified objects is seamlessly integrated into the domestic environs of the historic Manitoga home. “Broom study 1-4” (2025) by Erin Rouse includes four brooms suspended from handsome black hooks, their steadfast presence defying their otherwise intended use. Zach Hadlock’s “20 raku fired vessels” (2023–2024), made of stoneware, is a coordinated vision of bulbous beauty, while Jonathan Kline’s “Large Wrapped Grid” (2024) consists of painted black ash that hums with an aura of geometric perfection. The graceful energy of this show is wholly embodied by Alexandra Kohl’s “Little Horse” (2025), a tiny creature tucked into the snug scene and a delight to behold.