10 Shows to See in Upstate New York This February

Valentine’s Day is an annual reminder that affection for others and personal passion are vital aspects of living creatively amid challenging times. The vamp of art leads the way into February’s crop of exhibitions in Upstate New York. Kick off this romantic time of the year with a visit to Mary Ellen Mark’s show at the recently reopened Center for Photography at Woodstock to see this award-winning photographer’s poignant photos of women in a high-security psychiatric facility. Head to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls to see Nigerian-American painter Odili Donald Odita’s vibrant paintings. At the Front Room Gallery in Hudson, Linda Griggs shows sumptuous and moody oil paintings laced with solitude, while Joan Harmon’s exhibition at Garner Arts Center in Garnerville includes glass sculptures and charcoal works on paper that feel otherwordly. Meanwhile, a six-decade survey of painter Ralph Fasanella at the Ruffed Grouse Gallery in Narrowsburg features spirited works by this self-taught artist from the Bronx, and Z Behl’s exhibition at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson features wild sculptural creations. Let us indulge our ardor for art during these amorous days of February! 

Joan Harmon: Chaos/Light

Garner Arts Center, 55 West Railroad Avenue, Garnerville, New York 
Through February 23 

One theory holds that the universe is held in place by opposing binaries — where there is form, then, there is always formlessness. Joan Harmon’s exhibition at Garner Arts Center in Garnerville seems to toggle between these two states with a series of glass pieces and charcoal works on paper that morph between free-form and fully formed. “Streambed” (2024), a ceramic, cast glass, wood, and emitted light work that recalls a bed of undulating red clay with a fiery gold stream running right through the middle, is both tomb-like and fairytale-esque. “Lighted Footpath” (2024) feels like another chapter from the same narrative of wandering some far-flung world, featuring a quarter-circle of strung-together glass feet lit from below atop a pile of crushed basalt. And while the sci-fi blue-hued “Bouton Cluster” (2024), a hand-blown glass object, seems to wrangle with its own strange shape, Harmon’s glowing “Glass Brain” (2020) is just the reminder that consciousness is the ultimate formless power. 

Rand Hardy, Lisa Hoke, Buzz Spector

Catskill Art Space, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New York
Through March 1

Among the great trios of Hindu iconography are Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver), and Shiva (destroyer), and their colorful incarnations offer timeless insights into the true nature of reality. At Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor, Rand Hardy, Lisa Hoke, and Buzz Spector explore playful modes of creation, preservation, and destruction through a series of mixed-media installations and sculptures. Hardy’s Aqua-Resin “Scribbler” (2024) and “Ta Ta Tati” (2024) suggest the creation stage with their quasi-phallic protruding shapes and delightful nonsensical form. Spector’s “About the Author” (2014), which consists of photos and text on museum board, and “Frieze” (2025), a row of dust jackets installed gracefully in a horizontal line across the wall, are about the preservation of the past. And Hoke’s beautifully chaotic “Lady Liberty” (2025) and “Pop” (2024) installations revel in destroyed materials, transforming recycled packaging and disposable ephemera into spinning and twisting shapes that dance as they cascade down the wall, bringing the conversation full circle to creation

Linda Griggs – Comfort and Loss 

The Front Room Gallery, 205 Warren Street, Hudson, New York
February 8–March 9

A series of sumptuous and moody oil paintings by Linda Griggs at the Front Room Gallery in Hudson reflects a feeling of solitude laced with a trace of strangeness. The story of the exhibition begins with works such as “Night Swimming” (2024) and “Sirens” (2023), in which aqua-tinted pools suggest midnight skinny dipping on sultry summer evenings. The ambiance lightens with works such as “Hamilton Fish Kiddie Pool” (2023), in which empty lifeguard chairs and recliners anticipate an influx of seasonal swimmers and sun worshippers. Griggs’s tale then takes a turn towards a hazy dream state: The existentially prosaic “Salad Bar, Myrtle Beach” (2022) depicts a spread of bowls full of colored Jello nestled amid a bed of wilting kale on ice. “Piggly” (2022) is perhaps the apex of this exhibition-as-memoir. We are witnesses to this strange black and white scene of two figures holding hands as they walk down a road smattered with old vehicles and incredulous folks staring at the oversized pink pig head of one of the pair. At the foreground, a child gazes outward at us in a scene that feels bizarrely nostalgic. 

Z Behl: Stand in My Danger

Pamela Salisbury Gallery, 362 ½ Warren Street, Hudson, New York
Through March 30

Z Behl is not afraid to go big. The first time I encountered the larger-than-life sculptures of this New York City-born-and-raised badass, I was smitten with her work. Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson presents a four-story installation of recent multi-media works by the artist and her collaborator Kim Moloney (together known as BALONEY), including installation, paintings, drawings, and films. In “Artist as Coyote” (2025), Behl crafts a mythical half-human, half-animal out of cast concrete, metal, and stone; the shadows it casts are as compelling as its eccentric hunched anatomy. BALONEY’s “Harpy (3 Fates)” (2024), meanwhile, is a dynamic vision of another strange creature made from a wicker birdcage that appears on the verge of taking flight from a steel perch. And the duo’s “Fertility Tub” (2024) hints at an ulterior narrative with its surreal assemblage consisting of three snakes slithering around the empty metal frame of a tub. BALONEY’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Filmmaker” (2025) is the showstopper: Made of steel, concrete, and fabrics including lace, cheesecloth, and velvet, this elaborate harlequin character hangs down from the fourth floor and fills the open shaft of this historic carriage house with its monumental body, while Behl’s drawing “Plan for Carriage House” (2024) presents a sketch of this female trickster archetype balancing perfectly in a daring yogic position.

History Lessons

University Art Museum, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York
Through April 4