Home Events Arts Visual Arts

This sweet opportunity comes to us from the Downtown Austin Alliance, the Pease Park Conservancy, and Ride Bikes Austin – so we know it's a damned good thing indeed. Take the self-guided Art & Parks Tour to explore the best of what Downtown Austin art and parks have to offer through this selection of curated murals, artworks, and green spaces. You can sign up anytime, so click that URL and get ready to learn the most vibrantly visual parts of your city soon – live and in person.

Use your smartphone to access self-guided tours of the outdoor public art sited by UT's award-winning Landmarks program any time you feel like it. BONUS: There's also a free, docent-led tour starting at Marc Quinn's "Spiral of the Galaxy" (1501 Red River) on Sun., Jan. 8, 11am.

When a fellow is named Tim McCool, you’ve got to hope he lives up to the moniker. We reckon that, as co-founder (with his dauntless spouse, Kira) of the right-there-in-the-garage Good Luck Have Fun Gallery off Enfield, this particular art-scene mover and shaker is as McCool as it gets. Evidence: The gallery’s newest show brings together the colorful and provocative work of four women artists – Aubree Dale, Aria Brownell, Wendy Rhode, and Barbara Miñarro – “who explore the relationships between individual identity and the collective, the process of making art and of making one’s self.” – Wayne Alan Brenner

This multimedia exhibition is a comprehensive exploration of the beauty of botanical forms, expressed realistically and in the abstract, featuring the work of local artist Francine Funke.

You think it’s easy, being somebody’s mother? You think giving birth to another human being doesn’t put your own humanity and purpose under some fierce self-scrutiny? Milwaukee-based artist Aimée M. Everett, in her solo show at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, uses abstraction, minimalist line-making, saturated colors, and melodic compositions to explore “the profound transformations experienced during childbirth and the subsequent journey of self-discovery into motherhood.” Word – or, more appropriately, image – to your mother. – Wayne Alan Brenner

This is a solo exhibition of Annalise Gratovich's color woodcut series, “Carrying Things from Home," based on matryoshka dolls and the textile patterns from Ukrainian embroidery. Bonus: The artist's most recent collages and woodcuts are also on display in this show.

This local treasure of a venue, run by those Contemporary Austin folks who also bring us the Jones Center shows Downtown, is all about the outdoors – which is perfect for these trickily navigated times of ours, n'est-ce pas? Recommended: Stop by and breathe in the air, enjoy the lawns and gardens and the many examples of world-class sculpture arrayed across the property, and (as Frankie used to say) r-e-l-a-x.

Back in 2020, Rick Fleming helped then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden campaign for the top spot by selling tote bags adorned with the politician’s portrait. Now, the local artist turns his attention to more musical inspirations, from Prince and David Bowie to Björk and Taylor Swift. United by his signature full eyes and round nostrils, Fleming’s homages take a more abstract approach to his subjects’ likeness – though accompanying lyrics, like to Queen’s namesake 1976 classic, give each piece away. Visit Springdale’s SAGE Studio Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to see Fleming’s paintings on vinyl discs – or buy one yourself for $200 a pop. – Carys Anderson

Here's a two-person exhibition that features painting, installation, videography, and sculpture by Moll Brau and Wes Thompson. It's a deep dive into a pool of loneliness, triumph, and rebirth. It's a forest of mazes where fireflies provide the light. It's a show of creations from a pair of terrific, hardworking local artists and you don't want to miss it.

Opening this Friday, Feb. 2, is Mexican, Latino, and Latin American art & cultural center Mexic-Arte Museum’s annual mega exhibition/art sale. Mix ’n’ Mash will feature over 200 artists utilizing a 12-by-12-inch Gessobord to explore “the large and small of what makes Austin weird, interesting, timeless, and robust,” according to Mexic-Arte’s website. Each board goes for around $150 each, but buyers are encouraged to buy at least three to create an ATX triptych to impress all your gallery-going friends. – James Scott

Enter the fascinating world of illusions in this new venue that boasts a stunning array of intriguing visual, sensory, and educational experiences among new, unexplored optical wonderments.

This exhibition of new work by Kate Breakey showcases hand-colored photography of the natural world, particularly of Texan and Australian landscapes, animals, and insects.

The opportunity to witness, in person, the creative expression of different times and diverse cultures is one of the perks of city-dwellers everywhere – and exemplified by the collections and traveling exhibitions hosted by UT’s acclaimed Blanton Museum of Art. The Blanton’s newest show displays masterpieces from Edo-period Japan, on loan from the Worcester Art Museum through June 30. These “pictures of the floating world” depict the lifestyle, pleasures, and interests of the urban population – samurais, geishas, kabuki actors, boat parties, palaces, and lush landscapes. As then, so now: Much of who we are is what we do with our lives. – Wayne Alan Brenner

This place, ah, it's one of our favorite places in the entire city; and of course they're properly corona-closed. But check 'em out online right now – it's a rich, wonder-filled website – to whet your appetite for when things get back to … uh … are we still calling it "normal," these days?

This three-person show of visual art at the venerable Dougherty Arts Center suggests ways in which “the natural world can serve as a conduit to a deeper understanding of the ethereal,” divulging liminal places where material and spirit intertwine. Local and simultaneously beyond locale, the layered oil abstractions of Rebecca Bennett, the stunningly manipulated photography of Leslie Kell, and Elena Lipkowski’s digital collages embellished with hand-stitched embroidery shift the gallery’s walls toward wonder and may open your doors of perception into a realm that’s downright seelie. Bonus: Meet the artists there tonight, 7-9pm. – Wayne Alan Brenner

This excellent gallery on East Cesar Chavez presents a solo exhibition by Elizabeth Chapin, inspired by the myth of the Greek goddess Artemis, who turned the hunter Actaeon into a stag and shot him full of arrows for sneakily watching her as she bathed. In “Treespell,” the Mississippi-born painter explores natural and mythological worlds “to comment on the transformative power of the gaze and the interconnectedness of all living things, incorporating personal, historical, and imaginative elements to wield and subvert notions of viewership and voyeurism.” – Wayne Alan Brenner

This solo exhibition by Austin-based artist Fernando Palomo invites you to immerse yourself in a transformative dialogue that navigates the tumultuous sea of human sentiment and experience.

Minneapolis-born and -raised, Elizabeth Olds lived to a sturdy 94 but didn’t get the attention she deserved in her lifetime. The Harry Ransom Center’s new exhibit, which opened Feb. 3 and runs through July 14, aims to rectify that with a first-of-its-kind look back at more than 100 of her prints, paintings, drawings, and illustrations from the 1920s to the 1960s. Of particular note: her depictions of social and political change from her time as a Works Progress Administration printmaker. Want to go deeper? Drop in for one of the daily docent tours. – Kimberley Jones

This is Ray Donley's gallery of art by Native Americans, located in that company of artistic glory called Canopy and resplendent with creations from the original people of our struggling country.

Yard Dog presents the vibrant works of Paul Rodriguez, a printmaker from San Miguel de Allende. "And some very cool new paintings by Harry Underwood."

The local powerhouse of figurative painting, the art school that's the smart school for artists of all kinds, they've got a painting-along-at-home series going to help you keep your skills honed in these socially restrictive times, featuring live costumed models posing on camera and a thriving community of creatives rendering that lovely human biotecture from their separate studios. "Join us for a three-hour costumed-model drawing session. Use any supplies you wish, listen to music, share your work, chat with others. It’s a great way to stay connected with your art community!"