This Week: Good Folks in the Garden at the BMA, opening reception for Drury Bynum at Electric Avenue Gallery, Tew Years Later with James Phillips, Ernest Shaw, and Charles Mason III at SNF Parkway, Objects at Hand closing reception at XOXO Gallery, Baltimore Beat Summer Jam + Legacy Gala at Baltimore Museum of Industry, Hannah Brancato and Sanahara Ama Chandra’s Dreamseeds closing event at BMA Lexington Market, Crit Club July Critique, Afro House performance at the Walters, opening reception + artist talk with Lisa Elmaleh at Academy Art Museum, and Branford Marsalis at Keystone Corner — PLUS deadline approaching for The Other Side (Trans Art Show) at The Peale and more featured opportunities!
BmoreArt’s Picks presents the best weekly art openings, events, and performances happening in Baltimore and surrounding areas. For a more comprehensive perspective, check the BmoreArt Calendar page, which includes ongoing exhibits and performances, and is updated on a daily basis.
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Thursday, July 123 :: 5:30-8:30pm
@ Baltimore Museum of Art
Good Folks in the Garden returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art for its second year in collaboration with the Good Folks Happy Hour. Join us on the BMA’s West Lawn for a Matisse-inspired happy hour set alongside our beloved meadow, as we celebrate the color, light, and line of renowned artist Henri Matisse.
Dress in vibrant summer colors and let the luminous sounds of DJ Face set the tone. Grab a cocktail at the cash bar, a bite from local food trucks and vendors on the lawn, and participate in art making among friends.
Rooted in joy and powered by good music, Good Folks in the Garden creates a space to unwind, make friends, and honor the brilliance of everyday people doing good work.
This is your invitation to step outside, slow down, and soak in the season with a joyful, colorful garden experience where art, community, and summer come together beautifully. The Museum is open until 9 p.m. Explore the BMA’s celebrated collection and special exhibitions including Matisse and Martinique: Portraits and Poetry and Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again.Good Folks in the Garden returns to the Baltimore Museum of Art for its second year in collaboration with the Good Folks Happy Hour. Join us on the BMA’s West Lawn for a Matisse-inspired happy hour set alongside our beloved meadow, as we celebrate the color, light, and line of renowned artist Henri Matisse.
Dress in vibrant summer colors and let the luminous sounds of DJ Face set the tone. Grab a cocktail at the cash bar, a bite from local food trucks and vendors on the lawn, and participate in art making among friends.
Rooted in joy and powered by good music, Good Folks in the Garden creates a space to unwind, make friends, and honor the brilliance of everyday people doing good work.
This is your invitation to step outside, slow down, and soak in the season with a joyful, colorful garden experience where art, community, and summer come together beautifully. The Museum is open until 9 p.m. Explore the BMA’s celebrated collection and special exhibitions including Matisse and Martinique: Portraits and Poetry and Fratino and Matisse: To See This Light Again.
DRURY BYNUM : LAST CALL A Solo Exhibition | Opening Reception
Thursday, July 23 :: 6pm
@ Electric Avenue Gallery
In 1996, Baltimore painter Drury Bynum delivered three large oil paintings to The Brewer’s Art and watched them become part of the fabric of one of the city’s most beloved institutions. For nearly thirty years they hung there, quietly accumulating the conversations, the late nights, and the collective memory of everyone who ever looked up from their glass and wondered what they meant. When The Brewer’s Art closed its doors in early 2025, Bynum brought the paintings home.
Last Call reunites these original works alongside new paintings from Bynum’s Seraphic Veil series, layered, cinematic works that continue the visual language these earlier pieces helped invent.
The opening reception is 6pm Thursday, July 23 at the Electric Avenue Gallery in Hampden.
The exhibition continues by appointment through late August.
Friday, July 24 :: 5-9pm
@ SNF Parkway Theatre
Tew Years Later brings together James Phillips, Ernest Shaw, and Charles Mason III, three generations of Black Baltimore painters connected through mentorship, for an evening of conversation, storytelling, and creative exchange. Hosted by Arts Collective and The Social Boot Network at the SNF Parkway Theatre, the program continues with live performances, a shared meal through The Mixing Bowl, local artists and organizations, and a Storytelling Booth where attendees are invited to share their own stories. Sliding Scale Tickets $5-$50. No one turned away. Doors Open at 4:30 PM. Program starts promptly at 5:00 PM
Objects at Hand | Closing Reception
Friday, July 24 :: 6-9pm
@ XOXO Gallery
Ideas and materials meet in the world of objects. Today’s artists and designers challenge habitual thinking about objects and our relationships to them by means of fearless dedication to play, process, and a willingness to let the audience into the conversation.
The result is an array of work that is less concerned with disciplinary boundaries and more invested in possibility. What are the conceptual potentials of craft? How do we identify with making? How do we engage our audiences? The resulting work is dynamic, generative, and generous. A playful and nuanced mediation of materials and ideas, the work shown here asks us to rethink the nature of the constructed world.
Baltimore Beat Summer Jam and Legacy Gala
Friday, July 24 :: 6-9pm
@ Baltimore Museum of Industry
This year’s Summer Jam event honors members of the Baltimore community for their work preserving Black media with an awards gala and dinner!
Baltimore Beat’s Summer Jam event now includes the inaugural Legacy Gala, an awards ceremony honoring W. Paul Coates, Dr. Leslie King Hammond, and Afro Charities for their work in preserving Black media. Your ticket to this event supports Baltimore Beat’s mission to honor the tradition of the Black press and the spirit of alt-weekly journalism with reporting that focuses on community, questions power structures, and prioritizes thoughtful engagement with our readers, and includes:
- a 2-course plated dinner and assorted desserts catered by H3irloom Chefs David and Tonya Thomas
- signature summer cocktails
- a spot at the Summer Jam afterparty immediately following the awards ceremony from 9pm-12am, outside on the Baltimore Museum of Industry’s terrace overlooking Baltimore’s beautiful waterfront
A separate Summer Jam afterparty ticket is available for folks who are unable to attend the gala.
Dress code for the gala and afterparty is creative cocktail/summer sophisticate/chic. See you there!
Dandelion Wishes: A Closing Event
Saturday, July 25 :: 1-5pm
@ BMA Lexington Market
After gathering dreams, stories, and songs seeded over their six-week residency at BMA Lexington Market, Dreamseeds will lead a closing processional, collaborative song circle, and ivy-weaving workshop. Join in to reflect on shared hopes, connect with fellow participants, and help envision possibilities for Baltimore’s collective future.
About Dreamseeds
Hannah Brancato and Sanahara Ama Chandra’s interdisciplinary creative practice, Dreamseeds, enacts ways to move from isolation to collective experiences through the healing power of art. Ama is a teaching and performing artist, holistic nurse, and mama of two who practices sound healing and energy clearing practices. Grounded in a decade of anti-sexual violence activism, Hannah creates textiles and public rituals that bring stories together. The original concept and creation of Dreamseeds was made possible with the support of a 2021 Rubys Artist Grant, which is a program of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.
Saturday, July 25 :: 2pm
@ Baltimore City Crit Club
This month’s exhibition has been curated by Jared Christensen, who has assembled an exceptional group of artists whose practices each approach narrative, memory, and identity from distinct perspectives.
The exhibition features Yoon Sun Shin, whose paintings and sculptures draw from personal experience, transforming everyday moments into emotionally charged and often absurd narratives informed by his experiences growing up between Korean and American cultures.
Joining him is Lolo Gem, whose vibrant paintings and sculptures combine influences from vintage comics, early animation, and ceramics to create playful yet deeply emotional works that explore anxiety, grief, connection, and the fragmented nature of the self.
The exhibition is rounded out by Andersen Woof, whose richly layered figurative paintings examine identity, belonging, and memory through the lens of his experiences as a queer Chinese American artist, creating open-ended narratives that reward careful observation and discussion.
Kojo Astronaut: An Afrofuturistic Performance by Afro House
Saturday, July 25 :: 3-4pm
@ The Walters Art Museum
Afro House presents a Kojo Astronaut performance in connection with Douriean Fletcher: Jewelry of the Afrofuture. Multi-talented Artistic Director, Scott Patterson, leads soulful operatic vocals and live instrumentation to create a lush, cosmic soundscape that invites audiences to explore love, liberation, and consider the ways in which we navigate our relationship to our planet, solar system and beyond.
Promised Land / Tierra Prometida | Opening Reception & Artist Talk with Lisa Elmaleh
Saturday, July 25 :: 5-7pm
@ Academy Art Museum
Please join us at 5:00pm in the Selections Gallery for an opening reception, followed by at artist talk at 6:00pm in the Performing Arts room, where Lisa will discuss her work traveling along the U.S-Mexico border, documenting her experiences through photography, and volunteering with humanitarian aid organizations. The resulting exhibition, Promised Land / Tierra Prometida, is a body of work inspired by and in contrast to the visual culture and discourse circulating about immigration in mainstream news. Promised Land interrogates the myth of the American Dream from the perspective of the borderland environs, the people seeking asylum in the United States, and the volunteers and groups who are engaged in helping migrants with vital needs such as food, shelter, health care, as well as facilitating search and rescue in the desert. In dialogue with Under the Mexican Sky, this contemporary response highlights the dramatic shift in photography’s role as a form of expressive communication, and its striking ability to capture realities, both political and aesthetic.
Lisa Elmaleh (Guggenheim Fellow, 2024) is an American visual artist, educator, and documentarian based in Hampshire County, West Virginia. She specializes in large-format work in tintype, glass negative, and celluloid film. Since 2007, she has been traveling across the US documenting American landscapes, life, and culture. Born in Miami, Florida (1984), Lisa completed a BFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2007, during which time she was awarded the Silas Rhodes Scholarship. Upon graduating, she received the prestigious Tierney Fellowship to work on a project that evolved into an in-depth visual documentation of the impact of climate change on the Everglades. The culmination of this project resulted in a book titled Everglades published in 2016 by Zatara Press. Elmaleh’s work has been exhibited nationwide and recognized by the Arnold Newman Prize, the Aaron Siskind Foundation, and the Puffin Foundation. Her work has been published by Harper’s Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, CNN, The New York Times, National Geographic, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, and NPR, among others.
This exhibition is presented together with a one-day Wet Plate Collodian workshop on Sunday, July 26, 10 AM – 4 PM. Space is limited, please register early.
NEA Jazz Master Branford Marsalis Quartet
Sunday, July 26 :: 5pm + 8pm
@ Keystone Corner
Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz Master, GRAMMY Award-winner, and Tony and EMMY Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet. After more than three decades of existence with minimal personnel changes, this celebrated ensemble is revered for its uncompromising interpretation of a kaleidoscopic range of both original compositions and jazz and popular classics. After receiving GRAMMY nominations on its last two albums, Upward Spiral and The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, the Quartet made it’s Blue Note Records debut with the release of Belonging, a full album interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 ECM album of the same name. The New York Times commented “Marsalis has tackled imposing jazz masterworks before…but at its best, his ‘Belonging’ goes deeper…its a performance that both honors and amplifies.” John Zeugner captured the impact of the Quartet in a review of a live performance, calling it “casually confident, professional, cerebral, and supercharged with energy. The Branford Marsalis Quartet…was all of those adjectives and more.”
Featured Opportunities
Call for Vendors/Performers/Volunteers
posted by Make Space Baltimore
Hiraya Manawari, translating to “may your dreams come true” or “to dream,” invites us to dream for a better future for all oppressed peoples of the world, from the Philippines to Palestine, Iran, Cuba, Haiti, and more. For the Philippines, we know that the country we dream of and will fight for consists of the true independence of our people, upholding of agrarian rights, and a governing body representative of our nation that puts people over profit.
This day will celebrate the Philippines’ history of resistance and struggle, as well as the current ongoing effort of progressive movements across the world and in Baltimore to fight for a future free of imperialism.
Art Night 2026 | Call for Submissions
deadline July 22
posted by Washington Project for the Arts (WPA)
You are invited to submit artwork to be considered for Art Night 2026!
Hickok Cole is once again partnering with Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) to host Art Night, a benefit exhibition and art sale featuring 100+ local artists and up to 250 works of art. Proceeds are split 50/50 between WPA and the artist, furthering WPA’s mission of resourcing artists and building community through collaboration, experimentation, and advocacy. Now in its 26th year, Art Night has raised over $2 million shared between WPA and the local art community. A milestone for both organizations, with WPA celebrating its 50th anniversary, Art Night continues to be one of DC’s preeminent art events.
Art Night offers a great opportunity to increase your exposure to art patrons and buyers within the local design and real estate communities. The private event is held at Hickok Cole’s headquarters in NoMa’s eclectic Union Market District. All artwork will be installed there and listed online through Big Cartel, which serves as the event’s primary sales platform. Select art and artists will be featured in Hickok Cole’s month-long social media campaign to promote the event and WPA’s mission to as many people as possible.
The Other Side (Trans Art Show) | Open Call
deadline July 31
posted by The Peale
The Other Side is a group exhibition featuring work by transgender artists of Maryland to be exhibited at The Peale Community Museum in December 2026-January 2027. Showcasing a wide array of creative skill sets, this exhibition focuses on the power of art as an act of triumph and remembrance. The Other Side works to expand a misunderstood narrative of trans experience by celebrating trans community, diversity, and persistence.
Recently, Baltimore has received national attention from the contemporary art community by hosting the work of transgressive artists, aligning our community with transgender rights in the welcoming of Amy Sherald’s work to the Baltimore Museum of Art. The Other Side continues this tradition by showcasing the transgender artists of Baltimore, showing that Baltimore is not only a safe haven for art but also for the artists of marginalized communities who need a supportive environment for their work. This exhibition will send a national message to transgender people of the United States, stating that Baltimore is a place free from persecution. More importantly, this will positively impact the transgender community of Baltimore, emphasizing that the skills that transgender individuals have are valuable to our city and culture, and that we care to elevate their voices.
“All Things Bright & Beautiful” – Celebrating the Life & Work of Dorothy Hosmer | Call for Submissions
deadline August 21
posted by Gallery Unicorn
In April of 2026 we said farewell to Dorothy Hosmer. A longtime member of the Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, Dorothy Addison was born in Liverpool, England and moved to the United States after marrying Howard Hosmer in 1957. After raising three children, at age 60 Dorothy took up watercolor painting. That decision led to 30 years of artistic expression. Dorothy’s art evolved from watercolor realism through a variety of media and forms, and over the years she sold many paintings through the Towson Arts Collective, Harford Artists Association and Rehoboth Art League and won a number of juried awards.
To celebrate Dorothy Hosmer’s life and work, her sons, Philip Hosmer and David Hosmer, in conjunction with Gallery Unicorn at the Towson Unitarian Universalist Church, is hosting a juried art show. Submissions on the theme “All Things Bright & Beautiful” will be welcomed. The show will be curated by Gina Kazimir, Dorothy’s daughter-in-law. Gina Kazimir has served as a grant panelist for the Maryland State Arts Council, as a presenter at Maryland Arts Day and has worked as VP Public Affairs at the Corcoran Gallery & School of Art, Executive Director of the Cecil County Arts Society and President of the Community Arts Alliance of Maryland. She studied art history at Rutgers University and holds an advanced certificate from Amhearst College. Dorothy Hosmer’s sons and their spouses will serve as the jury for this show.
2026 Chrysalis Award for Emerging Ceramic Artists
deadline August 23
posted by James Renwick Alliance
The Chrysalis Award was created by the James Renwick Alliance for Craft to support and inspire emerging craft artists in the United States. Eligible applicants are those who are in the early stages of their professional artistic careers—regardless of age—and who have completed their training within the past five years. This includes academic programs such as a BFA or MFA, as well as self-directed or alternative forms of study. Artists who have already been curated into major institutional exhibitions (such as at the Renwick Gallery) are not eligible.
Ideal candidates demonstrate excellence in their work and a strong commitment to developing their practice in unique and dynamic ways.
Each year, the award focuses on a different medium. This year’s award will recognize an emerging artist working in ceramics.
The recipient will receive a $5,000 unrestricted award, a one-year JRACraft membership, and the opportunity to present their work at a JRACraft event.
Gallery B 2027 Exhibit | Rental Applications Open
deadline August 31
Bethesda Urban Partnership and the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District are excited to announce that Gallery B is now taking rental applications for 2027 exhibits for solo or group shows. We offer the opportunity for you to sell your art and receive exposure in downtown Bethesda with no commission on artwork sold.
The rental agreement is for one month and the cost is $1,200. The price is broken down into three payments before the rental start date: a $300 deposit upon contract signing, $450 due 3 months before the rental date, and $450 due one month before the rental date. Suggested gallery hours for the artists managing the space are Thursday – Saturday, 12-5pm and Sunday, 11am – 4pm.
All applications must be submitted by August 31st. For more information, contact Bethesda Urban Partnership at (301)-215-6660 or Susanna Parker at [email protected].
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