We cherish the seasons for their charms and endure their agonies, and as the cold rains and political races come and go, we scurry to art as a steadfast shelter from the storm. This month, the Hudson Valley invites you to explore exhibitions across the map. At Public Private Gallery, ethereally expressionistic paintings by Kathy Goodell brighten the mood. Hudson Hall presents the curiously macabre photographs of Corrine May Botz, while the Palmer Gallery at Vassar College features futuristic figurative paintings by Larissa Tokmakova. A fun-loving two-woman show at Susan Eley Fine Art highlights the dynamic painting practices of Susan Lisbin and Sasha Hallock. Meanwhile, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild offers an encounter with the sublime through photos that celebrate nature, and a group exhibition at Elijah Wheat Showroom continues the festivities with a photography show. November, the penultimate month of the year, we brave your bitter days with happy art in our hearts!Kathy Goodell: In The Darkness I SeePublic Private Gallery, 530 Columbia Street, Hudson, New YorkThrough November 16Kathy Goodell, “A Perfect Day” (2025), Flashe and acrylic on canvas (courtesy Public Private Gallery / DGFA+Projects, and A. Lin)As Kathy Goodell puts it in the press release for her solo show at Public Private Gallery, “The painting process replicates my internal life of questioning.” In the Darkness I See is a chorus of abstract, impressionist works that whisk us into the lush ambience of Goodell’s energetic practice. Works such as “Taam Jah” (all works 2025) appear to reflect a crowded corner of the ocean with creatures flitting about, while “Murmur” brings to mind a mystical ultramarine forcefield. With its vibrant, illuminated green tone, “One Thousand Years from Now” emanates a healing vibration, and “The Night Belongs to Lovers” is both sensuous and uplifting, with playful and passionate marks moving in all directions against a white background.Corrine May Botz: Ghosts, Mother’s Milk, and Other StoriesHudson Hall, 327 Warren Street, Hudson, New YorkThrough November 23Corrine May Botz, “Kitchen” (2004) from The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death series, c-print, (photo courtesy Hudson Hall)With its macabre and eerie edge, Ghosts, Mother’s Milk, and Other Stories at Hudson Hall is a feast for the psyche. Featuring over 40 photos arranged under themes indicated by the title, Corrine Botz takes us through various chapters of her photographic practice, including a series featuring real-life miniature crime scenes crafted by the criminologist Frances Glessner Lee (The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 2004). Works such as “Dark Bathroom (tub)” (2004) include a tiny doll with her head in a sink, and “Kitchen” (2004), in which a woman lies face down on the floor. The two other sections of this show are equally captivating: The Milk Factory series includes works such as “Incarcerated Parent” (2019), a vision of a lonely corner of a jail cell where a rocking chair and breast pump machine wait stoically for a mother. Meanwhile, Botz’s Haunted Houses (2010) series includes uncanny works such as “Rhinebeck, New York,” images that reflect her multi-year project documenting haunted sites around the United States.Larissa Tokmakova: Shelter/ConsolePalmer Gallery at Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, New YorkThrough November 23Larissa Tokmakova, “Sentinels” (2024–25), oil on canvas (courtesy of Palmer Gallery at Vassar College)My first impression of Larissa Tokmakova’s painting style: a futuristic wrestling match! Featuring a series of dynamic works created over the last decade, Shelter/Console at Palmer Gallery at Vassar College highlights Tokmakova’s powerful painterly style. “Solace” (2023) depicts a creature that appears to be one part cyber-hawk, one part human, while “The Empress” (2018) shows a matronly torso in an abstract environment. Works such as “Untitled 2” (2025) and “Safe II” (2024) feature figure-like formations that seem to dance.Walkers & FloatersCut Teeth, LODGER studio, 394 Hasbrouck Avenue, Kingston, New YorkThrough November 29Left: Installation view of Walkers and Floaters (2025); right: The Small Canteen Kitchen (photo by CHEF HIBINO, both photos courtesy Cut Teeth)I was admittedly originally baffled by the description for this show — it took a kind email exchange with artist and chef Leon Johnson to clarify that Walkers & Floaters is an intermedia exhibition “with a performative culinary through-line.” In my own words: It’s an assemblage, a residency, a kitchen-lab, a mobile culinary pop-up, a performance, and still more. Another feature of this “art experience” is a series of mixed-media prints, all untitled and made this year, depicting collage-like tableaus, including a strapping, glistening male torso from behind; a large doll-like male figure traipsing through a bucolic landscape; and the isolated head of a bull set against a map with lines crisscrossing in star-like patterns.Susan Lisbin & Sasha Hallock: Do You Hear Me—One Day We Will Fly Susan Eley Fine Art, 433 Warren Street, Hudson, New YorkThrough November 30Left: Sasha Hallock, “Trumpeter, Small Works No. 139” (2025), oil on linen; right: Susan Lisbin, “Can You Hear Me XI” (2024), oil on canvas (both photos courtesy of the artist and Susan Eley Fine Art, Hudson)Pairing Susan Lisbin and Sasha Hallock is utter brilliance; their back-and-forth volley of recent paintings celebrates the playfulness of abstraction. Lisbin’s retro style, with its muted colors and slightly surrealist edge, includes works such as “Shields” (2024), in which two isolated anthropomorphic forms are enclosed by white shapes, and “Come Over Me” (2024), in which side-by-side forms are overlaid with mathematical-looking drawings. Hallock’s works, meanwhile, are absolute fun from top to bottom: “The Hard Work of Love” (2025) is a multicolored symphony of abstract shapes set against a black background, while “Trumpeter / Small Works No. 139” (2025) is a figure-like formation that appears to groove wildly in a party of one. Sharing the Space: Women Photographers Collective of the Mid-Hudson ValleyWoodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, 36 Tinker Street, Woodstock, New YorkThrough November 30Lovell Birge Harrison, “Untitled (View from the Stream)” (1904), pastel, graphite, gouache on woodblock print (photo by Anne Arden McDonald, courtesy Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild)The great aesthetician and philosopher Immanuel Kant described the sublime as “a serious matter in the exercise of the imagination.” Sharing the Space: Women Photographers Collective of the Mid-Hudson Valley at Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild is a supremely sublime vision of Mother Nature, a Kantian thrill of a show. Featuring photographic works by 16 artists, these women take us down dreamy paths and toward splendid mountain ranges. Ana Begen’s “Early Morning” (2024) depicts a crystal blue lake; its cobalt peak will take your breath away. Lovell Birge Harrison’s “Untitled (View from the Stream)” (1904) has a certain gestural charm reminiscent of Van Gogh, while “Winter Treeline” (2020) by Mary Ann Glass is a poetic view of a distant row of trees that activates the gray landscape.Alone with the Moon: Biff Elrod, Kathryn Lynch, Enrico Riley Ruthann, 453 Main Street, Catskill, New YorkThrough December 6Biff Elrod, “Conversation” (2025), oil on canvas (courtesy the artist)The mood of Alone with the Moon at Ruthann, which presents the work of three painters who explore timelessness, is quixotic yet existential. “Broad Street” (2025) by Kathryn Lynch is a gray painting of a nighttime steeple set against a hazy full moon, while Lynch’s “Growth” (2025) depicts a sultry sun above a foggy field. Enrico Riley’s “Untitled: Before the Harvest” (2025) is a painting of a piece of folded green paper that appears poised to be shaped into origami, while “Devotion to the Setting Sun” (2025) is a crinkled pink version of the same. Finally, Biff Elrod’s “Conversation” (2025) celebrates a moment of connection between two women seated and chatting outdoors while their combined shadow casts an abstract silhouette on the street below.Unfixxxed: A group photography exhibitionElijah Wheat Showroom, 195 Front Street, Newburgh, New YorkThrough December 14Lauren Silberman, “Un(Holy) Fuck(up)” (2010), archival pigment print face-mounted to plexi (courtesy the artist and Elijah Wheat Showroom)The press release for this group show at Elijah Wheat Showroom starts with a poignant quote by the late Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhat Hanh: “Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.” Photography is that magical medium that captures the impermanent moments of existence. See, for instance, “Two Candles” (2020) by Jackie Furtado, in which one candle burns endlessly while the other lies flat and extinguished. Lauren Silberman’s “Un(Holy) Fuck(up)” (2010) takes us into the morning after a party, with erratic graffiti on the wall above a long red couch and beer cans littered about. Jon Verney’s “Bather” (2021) is an archival pigment print that looks like a cross between luscious melting ice cream and broken glass. Shirin Neshat’s “Passage Series” (2001), meanwhile, is a powerful image of a group of women in black chadors; as they claw at the sandy ground, the resulting dust cloud creates a ghost-like shroud around them.Jody Isaacson: Holding ArtemisThe Roxbury Arts Group, 5025 Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, New YorkThrough December 20Jody Isaacson, “Watcher” (2023), stoneware, sticks (courtesy James Shanks and Roxbury Arts Group)Roaming the forests of ancient Greek mythology is Artemis, goddess of the wilderness and the hunt. Holding Artemis at Roxbury Arts Group presents Jody Isaacson’s interpretation of this sacred woman figure through a series of mixed-media pieces that employ arrows, birchbark, raku, and other mediums of expression. “Watcher” (2023) is a stoic stoneware bird poised atop a branch that matches the color of its brown body, while “Spoon” (2025) features two multicolored bird-like shapes that rest side by side. “Thunderbirds” (2024) consists of pottery pieces that appear to take flight upward together; their majestic hand-painted forms seem to embody the mythical lifeblood of Artemis in contemporary times. Seeking ComplexityBill Arning Exhibitions, 17 Broad Street, Kinderhook, New YorkThrough December 21Brian Kenny, “1 2 3 GOD” (2023), oil on canvas (courtesy of Bill Arning Exhibitions)Seeking Complexity at Bill Arning Exhibitions features a motley mix of snazzy works by eight artists. The fun starts with “Sir Lady” (2025) by Deborah Bright, a colorful Pop-inspired portrait of a gender-fluid figure. Brian Kenny’s “1 2 3 GOD” (2023) is a compelling contemporary still-life painting of skeletons, skulls, and other monster-like creatures in a strange domestic setting. The found wood sculpture “Ferry, Carry, Bear, Take, Yield” (2025) by AJ Liberto looks like a mini architectural temple constructed with felled maple and rocks. Harrison Tenzer’s “Untitled” (2025) from his Projections series is a swirling oceanic vision that recalls Hokusai’s iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” (1831). Note: This show is Bill Arning’s swan song presentation before he closes his storefront gallery in Kinderhook next month!