visual arts

Our introduction to our 2025/26 class of artists-in-residence continues with Sayako Hiroi. Sayako is a Japanese visual artist based in Boston, working across painting and traditional kintsugi, the practice of repairing broken pottery with gold. Her practice responds to silence and erasure, and to the unseen traces of presence, drawing from feminist ethics and Japanese visual archives.

Kat O’Connor is a full-time artist working in watercolor, acrylic, oil, and drawing media, and a popular art instructor at The Umbrella and elsewhere. Her work has been included in numerous exhibitions nationwide, and is currently featured in a solo show, Twice the Speed of Bliss, on view in The Umbrella's Allie Kussin Gallery January 13 - March 23, 2025.

Dr. Linda Booth Sweeney is a systems educator, author and advocate for healthier human systems. She is internationally recognized for her efforts to make systems thinking accessible to diverse audiences, including students, educators, policymakers, and business leaders. She has made significant contributions to promoting the use of metaphors like the bathtub model to enhance public comprehension of critical issues such as climate change.

Congratulations to Umbrella Studio Artist Louise Arnold whose oil painting Woodshed II earned First Prize in the Cambridge Art Association 2023 National Prize Show! This show is juried by former editor of ARTnews, Robin Cembalest, and features artists from around the country. 

On Saturday, June 10, The Umbrella Visual Arts Program and A La Luz will present Into the Oceanic: A Documentary Film and Creative Projection, a companion dual-screening to accompany the current exhibition in the Main Gallery, Points of Return.

The Umbrella Studio Artists are all around! We are proud to support our Artcubator resident, Hillary Kane, and her show UNEARTHED: Relics of Memory, currently on display at the Lucy Lacoste Gallery until September 24, 2022. 

Our Umbrella Studio Artists and Teaching Artists are busy creating and exhibiting work in galleries, museums, and other venues all around New England and beyond! Just a few to watch out for this summer include:

Jill Goldman-Callahan

"35 Paintings at Trinty Church"

Trinity Church, 81 Elm Street, Concord, MA

Last week’s decision by the Supreme Court makes meaningful climate change mitigation at the federal level more difficult, at least in the immediate future. The ruling strictly limits the ways in which the Clean Air Act, the nation’s main air pollution rule, can be used to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Visual Arts and Environment Programs Collaborate with Social Documentary Network for Powerful Global Storytelling

The Umbrella Arts & Environment and The Umbrella Visual Arts programs, in partnership with the Concord, MA-based Social Documentary Network/ZEKE Magazine, present an exciting new exhibition (July 5–31, 2022) of world-class documentary photography emphasizing long-term sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.

Artcubator artist Nicholas Johnson will be hosting an artist talk and walkabout on Saturday, March 5 at 3PM. During this talk, Nicholas will speak about his art and what he has been working on during his time as an Artcubator artist. NOTE: The Umbrella's COVID-19 policy requiring masks and proof of vaccination remain in effect for this event.