No need to head to Williamsburg or SoHo for a day of gallery hopping. Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens have galleries of their own to satisfy your craving for contemporary art by both established and up-and-coming talents.
490 Atlantic Avenue (between Third Avenue and Nevins Street)
Jim Edwards, who works out of a studio in Boerum Hill, opened this storefront gallery in 2012 to showcase works by fellow contemporary artists. “Primal Matter,” the first show of 2018, featured sculptures by Ruth Hardinger made of cement, corrugated cardboard, and other workaday materials alongside Cynthia Hartling’s paintings of rounded shapes seemingly floating in the cosmos. The previous show, “Val and Veronica,” displayed new paintings by Don Doe, whose works have been bought by MoMA and the Chicago Institute of Art, among others, and Rachel Phillips, whose works more than hold their own with Doe’s in terms of color and form.
160 Union Street (between Henry and Hicks Streets)
ArtMix was founded by another artist, Ellie Winberg, whose studio is in Carroll Gardens. The goal is to support new talent, particularly those working in mixed media; Winberg herself specializes in heavily textured, richly pigmented handmade papers. Showing through the end of March is “Color Blocks 2018,” featuring new work by Mauricio Morillas that incorporates wood panels, metal hardware, and high-gloss resin.
371 Court Street (between Carroll Street and First Place)
The second-floor space in Carroll Gardens is not only an art gallery but also a site for cooking demonstrations and other food events. For instance, in February a class on cooking Chinese vegetables was held there, as was a session on food photography by author/photographer Diana Kuan. Among the artists represented by Court Tree are printmaker/illustrator Pauline de Roussy de Sales, photographer (and Court Tree co-founder) Stephen Lipuma, and Toni Ann Serratelli, known for oil paintings on linen that blur the distinction between landscape and dreamscape. Showing from March 9 through April 6 is “Interviews and Incidents,” oil paintings by Kristin Texeira.
140 Warren Street #6A (between Henry and Hicks Streets)
Rene Melchor was a curator and dealer before opening Gallery Rene Mele in Cobble Hill in 2014. The gallery shows a medley of emerging and established contemporary artists. Nikolai Makarov, a Moscow-born German artist perhaps best known for oil paintings that evoke both stillness and unease, is the subject of the gallery’s current show. Other artists recently featured include Alex Casso, whose oil paintings feature wolves as a metaphor for the threat to the traditional Mexican-American way of life; abstract expressionist painter Luisa López Celada; and sculptor Matthew James Stone.
51 Bergen Street (between Smith Street and Boerum Place)
The Invisible Dog. Image: Bonniekate/Wikimedia
The Invisible Dog offers live performances, film screenings, and readings as well as art exhibitions. The 30,000-square-foot building, a former factory dating back to the late 19th century, also houses artists’ studios. (The name comes from one of the last products manufactured during the building’s life as a factory: the invisible-dog leash, a novelty item popular in the 1970s.) From March 10 through April 22, the gallery will host “The Floating World” by Emma Sulkowicz, an installation of suspended glass orbs that takes inspiration from shibari, the Japanese art of tying, and Japanese fishing floats. Showing concurrently is “Seed/Pond,” large-scale algorithmic ink drawings by Halsey Chait.