December brings a clutch of Hudson Valley shows that refuse to sit still, each one tugging at the border between what art records and what it imagines. Chris Vultaggio turns the Gunks into a living score of risk and poise; Aya Rodriguez-Izumi splices Okinawan memory into a charged montage of militarized leisure; and Julia Leaycraft finally gets the attentive audience her roaming perspective deserved all along. Elsewhere, painters resurrect their own archives, sculptors coax cosmologies from fallen branches, and group exhibitions—whether anonymous or anarchic—remind us that the region’s creative engine runs hottest when artists redraw the frame itself.
“High Exposure” at Mohonk Preserve Visitor’s Center
December 4-31
Opening reception Saturday, December 6 from 2-5pm
At the Mohonk Preserve Visitor Center in Gardiner, the exhibition “High Exposure: Climbing in the Shawangunks” presents the arresting work of climber-photographer Chris Vultaggio, who turns the steep crags of the Gunks into the stage for human ambition. The vertical walls, chalk-dust streaked holds and ancient sandstone become more than terrain—they morph into narrative landscapes of tension and light. Vultaggio, a veteran of the Himalaya and board member of the Gunks Climbers Coalition, brings both athlete’s insight and photographer’s eye to edges where vertigo meets vision. These images don’t simply show climbers; they show the possibility of recalibrating fear, community and place.
“Recreation and Violence” at Turley
Through December 21
At Turley in Hudson, “Recreation and Violence” finds Aya Rodriguez-Izumi parsing the uneasy overlap of leisure and occupation in her native Okinawa. Her photo collages—riffing on Teresia Teaiwa’s concept of “militourism”—splice protest, beach culture, and daily life into fractured images tinted with the eerie palettes of infrared and night-vision tech. Large mixed-media works revisit Okinawa’s Tragedy:Sketches from the Last Battle of WWII the WWII volume written by William T. Randall and illustrated by her father, Jose Rodriguez, layering screen print and pastel into a filial dialogue across decades of conflict. An accompanying soundscape by Douglas Paulson and a reading room deepen the atmosphere. The result is a vivid, unflinching study of paradise under surveillance.
“Unconventional Perspective: Works by Julia Leaycraft 1885–1960” at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum
Through January 4
At the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, “Unconventional Perspective: Works by Julia Leaycraft 1885–1960” offers long-overdue recognition for a painter who lived several creative lives at once. Vassar College firebrand, Artist’s League-trained artist, editor, columnist, Theosophist, and Woodstock modernist, Leaycraft treated landscapes as psychological terrains rather than postcards. Her snow-globe Village in Winter—our December cover—tilts and compresses Woodstock into something both familiar and enchanted. Representational but never obedient, her brushwork roams, her perspectives wander with intent. From Manhattan’s steel optimism to Haiti’s radiant markets, the 30-plus works here reveal an artist who didn’t need rediscovery—only an audience finally ready for her.
“The Landscape Is a Conveyor” at Philip Douglas Fine Art
Through January 11
At Philip Douglas Fine Art in Hudson, “The Landscape Is a Conveyor” pairs Jim Denney’s fire-haunted canvases with Jennifer Wynne Reeves’s buoyant, near-abstract acrylics. Denney—who spent two decades as a wildland firefighter—paints towers, mills, hives, and industrial relics flickering with literal and symbolic burn. His infernal glow rewrites Hudson River School luminosity for an age of collapse, drawing on McKibben, Kolbert, and his own frontline memory. From a fire lookout aflame to the ghostly demolition of Oregon’s Trojan cooling tower, Denney turns landscape into reckoning. Reeves adds a counterpoint of agile, Krazy Kat–inflected gesture, a reminder that even in crisis, the line still dances.
“The Language of Things” at Wired Gallery
Through April 19
At Wired Gallery in High Falls, “Catherine Buchanan: The Language of Things” unfolds like a long conversation between lens and brush. Buchanan spent decades photographing historic collections for museums, only to discover that the world itself—mudflats, closets, yard sales—was an endless archive. Her new paintings, sparked by a trove of aging negatives and a simple prompt (“Why not paint them?”), reanimate what the camera flattens. Working from her own photographs, she treats each image as both artifact and invitation, reviving the everyday with a painter’s quiet sorcery. The result is a meditation on memory, material life, and the eloquence of objects.
“A Gathering of Sticks” at Convey/er/or Gallery
December 6-January 19.
Opening reception on Saturday, December 6 from 4-6pm
In “A Gathering of Sticks” at Convey/er/or in Poughkeepsie, Loren Eiferman brings the forest floor into the gallery, collecting fallen limbs and twigs and weaving them into forms that evoke the farthest reaches of space and the oldest mysteries of human inquiry. His work—echoes of the Hubble Telescope, Buddhist mandalas, quantum entanglements and the cryptic script of the 15th-century Voynich Manuscript—animates what was once debris into sculptures of speculative wonder. Eiferman’s hands trace gravity’s aftermath, re-casting nature’s castaways into cosmos-bound metaphors. It’s a quietly cosmic conversation—earthbound, rooted, and endlessly reaching.
“Gilded Impermanence” at Tyte Gallery
Through January 10
At Tyte Gallery in Millbrook, “Gilded Impermanence” by German-born, New York-based artist Janine Lambers invites us into a quietly radiant reckoning with time. Lambers uses water-gilding—a craft refined across centuries—to produce luminous surfaces of gold, silver and platinum leaf that shimmer with nature’s breath and brevity. From a six-metre yacht mural to delicate gallery pieces, her work spans luxury and meditation. This exhibition draws us into the space between flash and fade, light and shadow, asking what remains when the gilding tarnishes and the moment slips away.
“Dogs and Cats” at September
Through December 21
For anyone drawn to the chaotic charm of wide-open possibility, September’s “Dogs & Cats” show in Kinderhook offers a spirited jumble of color, form and mood. This sprawling group exhibition draws from over 80 artists, far-flung in geography and career stage, united in the spirit of creative surprise. Expect paintings and drawings and weird little marvels side-by-side: earnest, playful, provocative. And there’s heart behind the hustle—10 percent of sales go to the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement, supporting immigrant rights and resources. Think of it as art with teeth, claws, and a conscience.
“5 by 7 Show” at Kleinart/James Art Center
Through December 17
At the Kleinert/James Center for the Arts in Woodstock, the 26th annual “5 by 7 Show” returns with its signature mix of mystery, mischief, and democratic charm. Hundreds of small works—each exactly five by seven inches—line the walls, all displayed anonymously, turning the gallery into a guessing game of brushstrokes and instincts. Emerging artists hang beside established names, levelled by scale and secrecy; the only clue is your eye. Every piece is $150, with proceeds supporting Byrdcliffe’s programming. It’s one of Woodstock’s great communal rituals: part fundraiser, part art party, part who-made-it whodunit, and completely irresistible.
“This Must Be the Place” at Wassaic Project
December 6-March 14
Opening reception Saturday December 6, 3-5pm
Wrestling the wreckage of memory and myth, the winter show at Wassaic Project—called “This Must Be The Place”—transforms the towering floors of Maxon Mills into a labyrinth of longing, lineage and reinvention. Eleven artists conjure ancestral fiber work, collaged textiles, light-punctured paper reliefs and surreal projection-mapped environments that evoke the sacred, the speculative and the seam-bound mythos of home. From the tattoo-rooted weaving of Meli Bandera to the Black-futurist visions of Antonio Scott Nichols, the show folds past and present into one cryptic domestic dream.
