Exhibits of Paintings
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Hilary Doyle Central Massachusetts Artists Initiative
Hilary Doyle is an artist, teacher, and curator from Worcester, Massachusetts. Through her art, Doyle explores issues of women’s autonomy, motherhood, and nature—and the potent intersections between them.
For this installation, Doyle will exhibit paintings from her newest series exploring the life of Maria Sibylla Merian (German, 1647–1717). Merian—an artist, mother, and scientist—was a pioneering ecologist and one of the most significant early contributors to entomology (the study of insects). She was among the first to study butterfly metamorphosis, which she documented in exquisitely detailed drawings and self-published books. She is also believed to have been the first European woman to travel to the Americas in the pursuit of science, which she did independently and with her youngest daughter in tow. She taught her daughters to be artists as well, and in the latter years of her life ran a successful studio with them.
Taxonomies of the Ordinary
In this two-person exhibition, artists Bo Kim and Hayle Lovstedt explore themes of perception, relationship, and vulnerability in artwork that is interconnected yet aesthetically different.
Bo Kim’s paintings of ornithological specimens merge the precision of a scientist with the sensitivity of an artist. By re-presenting natural science collections through a careful and observant lens, Kim highlights the artist’s role as both interpreter and advocate for social and environmental awareness. Her work challenges conventional systems of categorization and perception, encouraging viewers to reconsider the assumptions that shape our understanding of nature and one another. Lovstedt’s “hostile” and “inconvenient” objects confront us with their subversion of functionality in their everyday uses. A serving bowl with spikes or a multi-handled mug gives us pause and invites us to make space for the unspoken tension that may be present at the dinner table.
Together, these disparate bodies of work begin a larger interwoven conversation about the everyday and how false perceptions can embed trauma. What are the implications of our disregard? Who decides what’s worthy of attention and why does their voice carry such weight? How can we begin to shift our perspective? When are we allowed to take up space—and when do we simply take it?
Concord Art Association Exhibitions
We are between shows. Check back soon for our current exhibitions
Lee Mingwei: Our Peaceable Kingdom
The resonance between Hicks’ Quaker vision of peace and the questions I was asking in my own work felt urgent. What does peace look like today? Can it be plural, tender, even contradictory? Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom offered not a conclusion, but a quiet proposition: that peace is not agreement, but the radical act of coexisting with difference.
—Lee Mingwei
Lee Mingwei’s ongoing collaborative artwork, Our Peaceable Kingdom, began in part with a 2018 visit to the Worcester Art Museum, where he encountered a painting by American folk artist Edward Hicks (c. 1833). Captivated by Hicks’ Quaker vision of peace, Lee invited artists to respond to and reinterpret this iconic painting, considering the enduring question, “What is peace?”
Small Works 2025
To round out the year, ArtsWorcester members are invited to participate in Small Works 2025, a non-juried members’ exhibition. All wall-hanging artworks, including sculptures that go on the wall, may not exceed 10” in any direction, including frame. Artworks that go on a pedestal may be no larger than 10” in height and 10” at the widest point.
Beyond the size limit, there is no medium or theme requirement. All media are welcome, including but not limited to painting, sculpture, photography, fiber, fine craft, digital art, and video.
Artworks do not need to be listed for sale. Any artwork that is listed for sale must have a minimum price of at least $100. Our annual Small Works show draws many holiday shoppers, as small artworks make wonderful and unique gifts.
American Art
This winter, the Worcester Art Museum will unveil newly reimagined galleries dedicated to its renowned collection of American art from the colonial period through the 19th century. The fully redesigned space will showcase more than 130 works of art representing a diverse range of artists, media, styles, and stories. Scheduled to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the United States, the galleries will address the achievements, complexities, and enduring relevance of American art and history. Artworks will be grouped thematically, inviting viewers to draw connections between different time periods, perspectives, and artistic voices. Each section will delve into a subject that resonates throughout the history of American art and into the present day. Explore wide-ranging visions of nature, the ways art has been used to construct identities, the stories of New England makers, the global influences on American art, and more as you rediscover this signature area of the Museum’s collection. The American Art Galleries are curated by Karen Sherry, Curator of American Art. The Museum also sought input from a diverse group of community advisors, including representatives of various cultural and educational organizations.
The Twenty-Second Annual College Show
The Twenty-Second Annual College Show
A Weather Eye: Art and Early Modern Meteorology
Does it look like rain? From mythology to meteorology, journey through the dramatic scientific and social shift in Europe and America’s collective understanding of weather from the 16th to early 19th century. Bringing together more than forty works on paper, early weather forecasting devices, and more, A Weather Eye charts more than three hundred years of humanity’s evolving relationship with the natural world. Explore the mythology of weather and the classical theory of the four elements (earth, air, water, and fire). Delve into stories of witchcraft and sorcery, and the ways weather was divined through folk knowledge, astrology, and “weather wising.” Learn about the idolized innovators of the scientific revolution, and make light of the storm with satirical prints of cats, dogs, and more raining from the sky. This exhibition is curated by Olivia Stone, Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photography.
Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth
Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang
Immerse yourself in Fever Dreams of a Cool-Breathed Earth, a new exhibition created for the Worcester Art Museum by Christa Donner and Andrew S. Yang. Their first joint museum exhibition and largest collaboration to date, the multi-sensory installation situates the experience of weather and the seasons in an examination of climate change in the twenty-first century. The artists propose that: “as warm-blooded creatures on an intensely warming Earth, we find ourselves seeking new ways to adapt our bodies to the planetary one—both have a fever in need of cooling. This exhibition reflects on climate-driven extreme heat and visualizes the deeply material and figurative relationship of our bodies to the changing planetary body as complex systems in transformation.”
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