Best July Art

Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

“Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

“Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
“Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

“Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

“Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

“Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

“Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

“Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

“The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

“In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

“My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

$\u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"$

Photo courtesy of Artechouse

Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

museums openings visual-art

Best November Art

10 must-see art openings and festivals happening in Houston this month

Image courtesy of Moon Papas

Conceptual Rendering of "Chromatic Forest" at Discovery Green

A diverse roster of art shows and exhibitions open in Houston this month. Public outdoor murals and sculptures appear amid the city's landscape, while some big blockbuster shows open at Houston's major art institutions. And for those thinking about holiday gift giving, November festivals bring many opportunities to purchase fantastic artworks and crafts.

Big Walls Big Dreams Mural Festival throughout the city (painting period now through November 15)
Look for even more massive murals across Houston, as this festival paints its ways through the city for the fifth year. This selection of acclaimed local, national, and international artists will definitely get around, as they bring color and images to outdoor walls in East Aldine, the Arts District, the East End, the Heights, Midtown, Southeast District, the Energy Corridor, and Five Corners.

The lineup includes Houston artists Cease Martinez, Anat Ronen, Colors, and Tra' Slaughter, along with visiting artists including Odeith (Lisbon), whose anamorphic murals appear to float off the wall. New Mexico artist Drew Merritt will create the largest painting of the festival, a 150-foot wall in the Heights. Twelve of the murals will be painted in East Aldine, as the East Aldine District is celebrating its 25 year anniversary with the Aldine Mural Route, a program sponsoring 25 murals for 25 years.

“The Intergalactic Liberation Bureau” at Lawndale (now through December 19)
Houston theater lovers will likely know Candice D’Meza from her stellar performances on stages across the city, but D’Meza has leaned into film and multidisciplinary performance, storytelling, and visual art in recent years. This new exhibition at Lawndale certainly embraces that “multi” dimensionality of D’Meza’s work, as it holds elements of participatory performance, narrative, installation, film, and sound.

Created as a Quantum Control Room helmed by the character of Zeta, a Cosmic File Keeper, “Intergalactic Liberation Bureau” assembles fragmented bureaucratic forms and mundane office trivialities into an encounter with freedom. Drawing from African Indigenous cosmologies, maroon histories, and quantum mechanics, this Bureau of Liberation asks: What does it mean to be free?

“César A. Martínez” at Art League Houston (now through December 20)
Celebrating the work of César A. Martínez, the recent recipient of the Art League’s Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts, which honors living artists who have made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts in Texas, the exhibition features works that span the over 50 years of Martínez’s career. Emphasizing Martínez’s creative process through a diverse range of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, constructions, photography, and digital work, the exhibition includes pieces from his most renowned series: Bato/Pachuco, Mestizo, South Texas, and Serape.Through these four series, visitors can gain an understanding of the extraordinary depth and range of art created by this legendary figure in the Chicano art movement.

“Saharan Air Layer” at Art League Houston (now through December 20)
With a title that references the massive sand and dust cloud that rises from the Sahara Desert and makes its way across the Atlantic to Houston each summer, this exhibition from Jamal Cyrus, winner of Art League’s 2026 Texas Artist of the Year Award, explores the African diaspora. Cyrus has made sound and music a central part of his practice and this exhibition. “Saharan Air Layer” features collage, drawing, photography, installation, film, and performance work and traces Black American history via sound territories, with a particular emphasis on the Southern vernacular,.

“Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through February 7)
One of this country’s greatest painters of outdoor life, Winslow Homer captured the nature and spirit of place. His works gave future generations a feel for New England life in the late 19th century. With works ranging from Homer’s childhood drawings to painting he made in the early 20th century, “Of Light and Air” features nearly 50 watercolors by the artist, alongside a selection of his oils, drawings, and prints.

When the MFAH calls this exhibition once in a generation, it isn't exaggerating. There’s an irony in the nature of watercolors, as they can depict light and nature with such beauty, but exposure to light for decades can also fade the colors. So while viewers in Boston might have seen selections of these works before over the years, these pieces have never been exhibited all together until now.

“This exhibition invites visitors to explore how Homer grew as a watercolor artist — and to see for themselves why he’s considered the greatest American watercolorist of the 19th century. His dazzling works burst with color and showcase techniques that were bold, inventive, and ahead of their time,” said Dr. Kaylin H. Weber, curator of American Painting and Sculpture.

International Quilt Festival at George R. Brown Convention Center (November 12-14)
This Houston born-and-bred festival is also the world’s largest quilt show. Attracting more than 35,000 visitors from all 50 states and more than 25 countries, the 2026 show will include special events and guests, including quilter and NASA Astronaut Dr. Karen Nyberg, who quilted a gravity defying block while aboard the International Space Station in 2014. Over 1,400 antique, traditional, art, and modern quilts and works of textile art will be on display, while quilters will love the 500 shopping booths offering fabrics, books, patterns, tools, sewing machines, and crafts. Festival-goers can also find 275 lectures and classes from nearly 90 top teachers.

"The Winds” at MATCH (November 13-15)
Houston multidisciplinary artist John Jenkins uses his fascination with mythology and technology as inspiration for this immersive exploration of how humans have depicted and anthropomorphized forces of nature throughout time and across cultures. Jenkins notes that for thousands of years humans and especially artists and storytellers have given names, faces, and personalities to the wind. In this exhibition, Jenkins reimagines twelve classical winds in an immersive show exploring mythology, identity, perception, and the human impulse to give form and meaning to forces we cannot directly see.

“Chromatic Forest” at Discovery Green (November 13-February 7)
If there’s even a hint of a chill in the air, it must be time for an enchanting new winter art installation at Discovery Green, and this year’s foliage will be bright, vibrant, and interactive. Created by the Houston electronic and light sculptors duo Julian Luna and Matt Fries, a.k.a. Moon Papas, this interactive geometric light “forest” will grow suspended under the magnificent and historic live oaks along the Brown Promenade side of Discovery Green. Consisting of eight, 16-foot-tall sculptures that form seemingly impossible arrangements of changing electric geometric patterns, the colors will respond and transform as people stroll along the pathway. In a playful juxtaposition, the sculptures’ hard lines and washes of dynamic color coexist with the organic lines of the trees.

Art Crawl Houston in the Downtown Warehouse District (November 21)
This 34th annual event celebrates contemporary art in all its forms — abstract, figurative, digital, performance, and more — accompanied by food, music, and family-friendly programming. Last year, Carla Bisong of Bisong Art Gallery took on the organizing of the longtime tradition after the the sad passing of one of the event’s founders, beloved artist Louise Janet Schlachter. And in 2025, artists and art lovers crawled forward and onward with new energy, so we can’t wait to see what art lies around every warehouse corner this year.

Islamic Arts Festival at Ismaili Center (November 21 and 22)
Houston's fall festival season continues as the largest Islamic arts festival in the U.S. brings together artists, scholars, performers, and visitors from across the nation for a vibrant celebration of Islamic art, culture, and heritage. A packed two days of events includes fine art exhibitions, sales of contemporary and traditional Islamic art, live demonstrations by master calligraphers and artisans, interactive workshops, and a Sufi music program. With programming and displays for the whole family, the festival will feature a myriad of artwork from 50 artists, but will also include live demonstrations on calligraphy, henna tattoos, ebru, painting, a variety of children’s art activities, and a variety of traditional food.

$\u200bConceptual Rendering of Chromatic Forest at Discovery Green$

Image courtesy of Moon Papas

Conceptual Rendering of "Chromatic Forest" at Discovery Green.

visual-art festivals openings