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 February Art

10 art museum and gallery exhibits to see in Houston this month

María Fernanda Cardoso's Maratus: Spiders of Paradise

Image courtesy of Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

María Fernanda Cardoso, "Spiders of Paradise: Maratus plumosus", 2024. Pigment print on paper, 35 7/16 x 35 7/16 x 1 9/16 inches.

Art and history merge in many museums and galleries across Houston this month, as contemporary artists and curators look to the past for inspiration and examination. From Black History Month to agricultural history in the Americas to queer history to the mid 20th century glamorization of dining, we’ve got a range of shows for all art and history tastes. If that’s not enough, we get up close to Australian spiders and celebrate Houston as a town of makers.

"The Black Experience: Past, Present and Future” at Bisong Art Gallery (now through February 28)
Celebrating Black History Month, Bisong Art Gallery presents this show curated by The Dream Affect Foundation. With a focus on Black artistic practice as both an archive and a catalyst, the exhibition features the work of six contemporary artists, including Lauren Luna, Romeo Robinson, Craig “TheArtist” Carter, Corey Haynes, Lanre Buraimoh, and John Whaley Jr. The gallery notes that these artists’ works reflect the enduring influence of history while asserting bold, forward-thinking visions of Black life, identity, and imagination. Though using a varied of medium and visual languages, what each artist has in common is an engagement with cultural memory, resilience, and creative sovereignty.

"Just Wood - Mostly” at Archway Gallery (now through March 5)
Featuring whimsical, creative, and utilitarian works “mostly” in wood, this new show showcases the quirky utilitarian and decorative sculptures by Robert L. Straight, as well as cabinet work by guest artists and furniture maker Tom Wells. From wooden race cars to body parts, Straight’s work offers many unique visions of what woodwork can be. Look for sculptures, new furniture, clocks, and sundry surprises from both artists.

“Nick Vaughan And Jake Margolin: Around The Corner And Two Blocks Down” at McClain Gallery (now through March 7)
The acclaimed Houston-based duo continues their multimedia 50 State Project to reveal lost queer histories and stories from across the U.S. This exhibition at McClain Gallery features some of the latest art from their wind drawing series, a selection of charcoal work within the larger project.

To explore ideas of history lost and rediscovered, the artists translate photographs of prior queer spaces into laser cut stencils and lay down charcoal powder onto the page. Then, they blow the charcoal away using pressurized air. The force of the wind drags the charcoal particulates across the tooth of the paper, etching the final image onto the page.

“Art, Place, and Power: Project Row Houses in Houston's Third Ward” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (now through November 8)
One great Houston arts institution celebrates the history of another great Houston art organization with this MFAH installation of works on paper by several of the founders of Project Row Houses, including James Bettison, Bert Long, Jr., Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, and Floyd Newsum. In 1993, seven artists came together to transform a block of abandoned row houses in Houston’s Third Ward neighborhood, making them into a new kind of cultural space. As the Project Row Houses mission reminds us, the founders sought to preserve the culture and history in one of the city’s oldest Black neighborhoods through the practice of socially-engaged art.

For over three decades PRH has staged free exhibitions, offered artist residencies and youth programs, promoted the preservation of historic architecture, and become a cultural landmark in Houston. With this installation, the MFAH helps Houstonians gain further appreciation of the founders' art. These works celebrate the powerful impact of community-oriented artists and art.

“Boris Lurie: Nothing To Do But To Try” at Holocaust Museum Houston (February 13-July 19)
For this exhibition focused on Boris Lurie, the acclaimed artist, writer, and Holocaust survivor, organizers use his artwork to trace the story of his remarkable life. Viewed together within the show, Lurie’s paintings, drawings and sculptures – many of which he never exhibited during his lifetime – create a portrait of an artist reckoning with devastating trauma, haunting memories, and a lifelong quest for freedom. The HMH notes that these works, presented along with objects from the artist's personal archive, trace his experience from his childhood in Riga through the concentration camps and postwar period in Europe, to his immigration to the United States, followed by his return visit to Riga thirty years after the Holocaust and beyond. Photographs, official documents, and personal writings underpin the visual retelling and processing of Lurie's survival and its crucial function in forming his identity as an artist.

“Midcentury Menu: Dining in the Atomic Age” at Rienzi (February 18-July 31)
The MFAH plates up a visually delicious dish of Midcentury Modern at Rienzi, the museum’s house for European decorative arts located in River Oaks. This unusual and fascinating exhibition draws from Rienzi’s historical cookbook collection and loans from the Heritage Society, to explore how convenience, technology, advertising, gender, and labor converged to redefine the meaning of eating in postwar World War II America.

The exhibition will examine how American’s perspective on food and dining changed at the end of WWII with waves of scientific advancement, complex supply chains, and the rise of popular culture media that put preparing meals, dining, and ads for modern appliances into magazines and on television. Cooks like Julia Child encouraged women to experiment with French cuisine, and the fictitious Betty Crocker championed convenience with step-by-step guidance. Food and home entertaining took center stage in this new age of abundance, and a wide range of cookbooks promoted everything from curious Jell-O salads to international cuisine.

“In Search of History” at Throughline Collective (February 20-March 21)
This juried exhibition and part of FotoFest Houston’s “Participating Space” program, examines the evolution of lens-based art. Curated by Museum of Fine Arts photography curator, Lisa Volpe, this show focuses on 21st century photography and especially the new uses of technology and the diversity in stories that technology brings.

“The works of art submitted to Throughline Collective demonstrate the wide-ranging vision of lens-based art,” Volpe said. “The artwork included in this exhibition provides a fascinating cross-section of artistic production, representing the diverse landscape of contemporary photography and also the vigorous involvement of the artists in contemporary discourse.”

“Maratus: Spiders of Paradise” at Sicardi Ayers Bacino (February 27-April 11)
This show of multi-disciplinary artist María Fernanda Cardoso’s work will feature her ongoing photographic project to bring the minuscule Australian Maratus spider into larger focus. Featuring large-scale and small-scale digital photographic portraits of various Maratus species, each photographic image is comprised of over 1000 individual photos. Seen together as one spider image, the photos reveal the spider’s colors and form and especially its unique and brightly colored abdomen that are part of the species’ elaborate mating rituals. Much of Cardoso’s work explores connections and tensions between society and the natural world.

“Mud + Corn + Stone + Blue” at Lawndale Art Center (February 28-May 2)
Last month, the Blaffer Museum opened the first section of this exhibition, organized by Blaffer chief curator Laura Augusta, that uses artwork to trace the historical entanglements between the United States and Central America through the angle of U.S. agricultural policy. Now Lawndale expands the selection of works from artists with ties to farming communities in the U.S., Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. To complement the Houston presentation of this exhibition, Lawndale has commissioned a mural from Dario Bucheli, activations with Zine Fest Houston, and textiles and candies made by Jorge Galván. Lorena Molina will also install an outdoor corn maze in Lawndale’s 4900 Main Street lot as an immersive piece that explores the experience of immigration and diaspora.

“Clutch City Craft” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (February 28-August 8)
Clutch City, Space City, Bayou City, now among our other favorite monikers for Houston, HCCC would like to add one more: Maker City. Calling H-Town “one of the nation’s most formidable centers of making” HCCC celebrations that maker spirit by organizing this special exhibition to examine Houston’s craft traditions and material cultures. The show features a wide spectrum of making practices, from the artists behind century-old, mosaic street signs to cowboy boot makers and fiber artists who design space suits and preserve the woven interiors of NASA mission control.

“Drawing its title from the city’s emblematic nickname — earned during the Houston Rockets’ back-to-back NBA championship wins in 1994 and 1995 — this exhibition uses Clutch City as both a cultural ethos and curatorial framework to examine how skilled craftsmanship underpins Houston’s industrial, social, and aesthetic identities,” HCCC Curator and Exhibition Director Sarah Darro said.

$Mar\u00eda Fernanda Cardoso's Maratus: Spiders of Paradise$

Image courtesy of Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino presents "Maratus: Spiders of Paradise"

visual-art museums openings