Featuring both local artists and international works, this month's exhibits really highlight Austin’s lively cultural scene, offering an array of artistic expressions that delve into themes of identity, culture, and the natural world.

At the Blanton Museum of Art, Melecio Galván's detailed drawings offer a poignant glimpse into Mexican cultural narratives, while Link & Pin's Summer Exposure Exhibition features kinetic artworks and emotive oil paintings that explore human connections. Plus, Women and Their Work presents Bending Light, an evocative exhibition that challenges conventional notions of Black femininity and queer identity through a multidisciplinary approach.

Each gallery invites you to immerse yourself in the creative currents shaping Austin's art scene.

Lora Reynolds Gallery

Group Exhibition: Flower Sound— through September 7
Flower Sound brings together 8 different artists for a diverse set of works focusing largely on bodies and abstraction. Laddie John Dill creates thin glass tubes glowing with colored light, blending drawing, painting, and sculpture. The Haas Brothers and Bing Wright craft sculptures. Karl Haendel's diverse drawings explore masculinity and cultural contradictions. Donald Moffett's monochromatic paintings feature rich textures. Meghann Riepenhoff's large cyanotypes, made without a camera, capture nature's dynamic forces. Jim Torok's cartoons and miniature portraits reveal his inner thoughts. Bing Wright's work focuses on windows, transitioning from photographic prints to intricate sculptures and moving images.

Dimmit Contemporary

Myles Bennett and Ruth Borgenicht: Transcendent Arrays— through September 28
Interested in the intersection of architectural drawings and landscape paintings, Bennett’s work blends mediums to create colorful pieces. The artist's creations, using various media like ink, acrylic, graphite, and colored pencil, blur the lines between traditional art forms. Borgenicht’s work is equally intricate. Borgenicht's ceramic works, inspired by Medieval chain mail, use interlocking clay rings to explore themes of permanence and fragility.

Blanton Museum of Art

Meet Melecio Galvan: The Secret Artist & His Mexican Contemporaries— through August 25
Melecio Galván (1945–1982), a talented yet under-recognized Mexican draftsman, received posthumous acclaim in a 1983 retrospective at Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. Now, the Blanton Museum of Art presents the first U.S. exhibition dedicated to him, featuring 41 newly acquired drawings, bringing its total collection to 47. The exhibit, curated by Vanessa Davidson, spans Galván’s range from preparatory sketches to detailed renderings, including scenes of mother and child, horsemen, and violin trios. It also features works by his contemporaries like Arnold Belkin and Rufino Tamayo.

Link and Pin

Larry Akers, Juan Carlos Amorrortu, and Maggi Miller: Summer Exposure — through August 25
Link & Pin's Summer Exposure Exhibition showcases three distinct artists. Larry Akers, an Austin-based self-taught artist, uses his software background to create kinetic, patterned artworks that interact with viewers' movements. J.C. Amorrortu from Lima, Peru, brings emotional depth to his vibrant oil paintings, exploring nature and human connections. Maggi Miller, a Texas artist and educator, crafts intricate collages from found and handmade paper, blending color and texture to convey complex emotions. Together, they provide a captivating glimpse into their unique creative practices.

Women and Their Work

Kaima Marie Akarue, Ciara Elle Bryant, Catherine Martinez, and Chandrika Metiver: Bending Light — through August 25
Bending Light is an exhibition featuring Texas-based artists Kaima Marie Akarue, Ciara Elle Bryant, Cat Martinez, and Chandrika Metivier, who explore Black femininity, queer identity, and self-discovery through light, color, space, and time. Utilizing video, photography, collage, and sculpture, they disrupt conventional expectations and illuminate new possibilities for Black futures. Akarue examines urbanism and capitalism through her bicultural lens; Bryant discusses modern Black culture and identity; Martinez abstracts the African diaspora's significant moments; and Metivier, a non-binary artist, creates diverse works informed by their multiracial heritage.

West Chelsea Contemporary

Contemporary Currents: A Summer Showcase — through August 25
A dynamic exhibition featuring more than twenty artists, this showcase blends local and regional emerging talent with established national and international names. Drawing from the gallery's diverse roster and extensive 1,400-piece collection, each work is thoughtfully curated to highlight the unique vision and cultural significance of the artists. Featured are mixed media artists like Mr. Brainwash and Cey Adams, as well as Simon Berger, known for his detailed images created from hammered safety glass.

  

Photo courtesy of Wally Workman Gallery

Puckett's figures in Western Civ. exude a quiet confidence

Wally Workman Gallery

Patrick Puckett: Western Civ.— through July 28
Puckett's paintings, celebrated for their vivid palette and nonchalant figures, exemplify his masterful command over various artistic elements. A hallmark of Puckett's style is the self-assured demeanor of his subjects; Each figure seems to exude a quiet confidence, mirroring the artist's own technical prowess. This assurance is reflected in the relaxed poses and expressions of his characters, as well as in the bold, unapologetic way he applies paint to the canvas.