2023

Exhibitions & Events

January 6

What’s Going On.

January 6 - January 29, 2023

What’s Going On is a juried, multi-media arts exhibit of works responding to Marvin Gaye’s 1971 song of consciousness raising and protest. The exhibit will focus on the art and activism of socially engaged artists both in and beyond Boston.

The beauty of Marvin Gaye's song is its gentle, lyrical celebration of the power of personal, internal change; its embrace of love and understanding:“...War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate,” he sings.“Come on talk to me, so you can see what's going on.”

“Our invitation for artists to submit their work to What's Going On encouraged their interpretation in the broadest terms possible: a call for imagery that reflects on, responds to, generates, and celebrates a spiritual awakening that will displace violence and heal our communities. Our aim was to attract artists from diverse communities throughout the country, and from Boston neighborhoods including Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, and Dorchester.As curators, we sought to achieve Violence Transformed’s overall desire to document and celebrate the transformative power of art and the ways in which art, artists and art-making can foster resistance, resilience, healing and recovery.”

- Ellen Jacob and Hakim Raquib

Violence Transformed is an annual series of visual and performing arts events that celebrate the power of art, artists and art-making to confront, challenge and mediate violence. Violence Transformed events include visual arts exhibits and music, dance and theatrical performances hosted by multiple venues in Boston and beyond. Since 2015, Violence Transformed events have also included artist-led workshops for health care providers and provider-led, trauma-informed workshops for artists and activists working with individuals, families and communities impacted by violence and the risk of violence.Based primarily in the central and surrounding neighborhoods of Greater Boston, and drawing upon the creative energies of artists throughout New England, Violence Transformed documents the ways in which our diverse communities harness art’s potential to effect social change and materially transform our environments. Violence Transformed represents a vibrant collaboration among artists, activists, museum professionals, academics, and community service providers from diverse segments of the greater Boston area. Our work is made possible by the tremendous volunteer energy and creative gifts of our participants, by grant-funding for many of our workshop initiatives and, primarily, by donations from those who support our mission.

January 14

Piano Craft Gallery & The Artz Over Anxiety are pleased to present:

"Good Anxiety vs. Bad Anxiety"

Join us this evening for art making, light refreshments, and a presentation and dialogue led by $weetss

The ArtZ Over Anxiety is an organization dedicated to developing, encouraging, and inspiring those, with and without mental health issues, using art as a medium. My delivery ensures the ability to cope and focus by engaging in interpretation of the Art with imagination to redirect the thinking of the mind.

February 3

TWINS, TWILIGHT, AND APPLE TREE

This solo exhibition by artist Zhiqian Wang brings together works in installation, painting, sculpture, and video to explore how we use language to gauge reality and create meaning in our world. Centered around the title’s three themes of doubleness, belief, and knowledge, Wang’s exhibition crafts a playground for the imagination and a game of choose-your-own-adventure. Inviting viewer participation, the works ask us to consider the limits of human reasoning in explaining our universe, and the role of individual agency in creating new possibilities.

Zhiqian Wang is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculpture, painting, video, sound, performance, and installation. Her current practice examines and expands our conception of material reality via ordinary language, narrative, and cinematic devices. Through her interests in physics and philosophy, she investigates concepts such as randomness, causality, rationality, games, and knowledge.

February 11

Piano Craft Gallery Director Jamaal Bonnette is pleased to present:

"Black History Blend"

February 18

Piano Craft Gallery and The ArtZ Over Anxiety are pleased to present:

"Comfort Village Where Dreams Live to Die"

Join us this evening for art making, light refreshments, and a presentation and dialogue led by $weetss

The ArtZ Over Anxiety is an organization dedicated to developing, encouraging, and inspiring those, with and without mental health issues, using art as a medium. My delivery ensures the ability to cope and focus by engaging in interpretation of the Art with imagination to redirect the thinking of the mind.

March 3

Stuck and Strung

Stuck and Strung is a collaboration between Boston-area artist Sable Matula and Brooklyn-based painter Torey Akers. Across a variety of disciplines, Matula and Akers meditate on the visual and affectual impacts of gesture in space. Matula's  slinking sculptural swathes hint at themes of transmutation and hybridity, 

while Akers's drawings, paintings, and Victorian-inspired reliefs identify the weird and the wild aspects of pandemic-era intimacy. Stuck and Strung threads devotion through action, speaking the slow choke of time into a tactile plane. 

Torey Akers is a Brooklyn-based artist and writer who has shown her work across the country. She received her MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2016, and has attended artist residencies at Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, Arts, Letters & Numbers, AIR Studios Paducah, and Penland School of Craft.


 Sable Matula is a Boston-area based artist who primarily works with discarded materials. She received her MFA from Boston University in 2015. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including The Boston Globe.

March 18

Piano Craft Gallery is pleased to present:

Hip-Hop Dance/Movement Therapy

Explore yourself in this immersive Hip-Hop dance movement therapy class led by licensed dance therapist, Yaya.

Saturday March 18th 5:30-7PM

INSTRUCTER BIO

Yaya enjoys stepping and dancing who is currently a dance and step coach. She holds three World of Step championships titles in USA, Peru, and Africa.

Yaya is a graduate student at Lesley University in the field of clinical mental health counseling; specializing in dance movement therapy, with a strong focus on grief, behavior, and trauma.

She is a strong believer that dance movement therapy has a unique ability to reach those that don’t communicate through verbal words.

REQUIREMENTS: Please come prepared with the following.

  1. Journal and writing utensil

  2. Yoga Mat

  3. Bottled Water

  4. Active/Comfortable Wear

March 31

BPS ARTS

Piano Craft Gallery director and Boston Public Schools high school art teacher, Althea Bennett, curates, "BPS Senior Art Showcase," in partnership with BPS Arts.  This exhibition highlights the creative talents of Boston's next generation of artists and leaders.  High school seniors from across the city in Boston Public Schools are coming together to exhibit their most recent and best work.

April 28

There’s Not Much Time

artwork by: School of the Museum of Fine Arts Intermediate Studio Seminar featuring:

Lola Butan

Miguel Caba

Ian Choi

Sophie Feinstein

Diana Gateno

Quinn Hoerner

Faatimah Musa

Louisa Najar

August Sunseri

Kip Tran

Professor: Eva Lundsager, TA: Cassidy Westjon

Intermediate Studio Seminar is a year-long course taught by Eva Lundsager (with teaching assistant Cassidy Westjon) that allows undergraduate students to establish an independent and interdisciplinary studio practice, all the while fostering growth and community through meaningful interaction.

April 8

Piano Craft Gallery & The Artz Over Anxiety are pleased to present:

"Sharing is Caring"

Join us this evening for art making, light refreshments, and a presentation and dialogue led by $weetss

The ArtZ Over Anxiety is an organization dedicated to developing, encouraging, and inspiring those, with and without mental health issues, using art as a medium. My delivery ensures the ability to cope and focus by engaging in interpretation of the Art with imagination to redirect the thinking of the mind.

April 15

Almost vintage fashion pop up

Joy can be found on the block of our girlhood memory. It sounds like ‘Miss Mary Mack, the tap, tap, tap from the double dutch rope, and the soft scratch of chalk on the asphalt as the hopscotch squares are drawn. It feels like the wind hitting your legs as the rope whips by in time with the heartbeat. It feels like wrung out ab muscles from the laughing as you make it through the chant and your body gets the rhythm in your hands, head, and feet. It smells like summer time, spring and now and laters (the red kind).

Joy can be found in the memories of our bodies moving to the music at that 8th grade dance full of nerves, at the house party that felt like the floor was going to fall out from under us, at the club for some birthday that has long passed. It feels and sounds like vibrations, music of a time, heartbeats, and folding fabric adjusting to the movement of bodies. It smells like sweat, alcohol and your favorite auntie’s cigarettes.

Joy can be found in the gaze looking at these future generations as we think about our ancestors. It sounds like missing Rs and Ls and lisps from the gap in the front teeth. It sounds like ‘mama’ in the middle of the night. It smells like the changes of the bodies we  have ushered in this world and held in one way or another for eternity.

Joy can be found in our 40, 50, 60 year old Black bodies, that have been built back after being pulled apart when making way for future generations. It sounds like groans, whispers, laughter, and catching up.

Black joy is everywhere. Black joy has always been and will always be.

In Unadulterated Black Joy, a group exhibition by Black mothers and artists, Alison Croney Moses, Ekua Holmes, L’Merchie Frazier Tanya Nixon-Silberg, and Zahirah Nur Truth, we bring this joy to the front for all to see as an act of resistance self-preservation, play and the invitation to center self-care.

The one month exhibition is a culminating event of  multi-year community based art making with Black mothers from 2020 to 2022, creating space for grieving, community, love, joy, and support. The artists provided works inspired by joyful memories of their own girlhood, their children’s lives, and their experiences as adults and are accompanied by video documentation of community gatherings.

May 6

The Piano Craft Gallery and BENCILS LIVE are pleased to present:
"Just Give It a Year!"
(w/ Maz, Ras & Denizen)

BENCILS LIVE Presents: "Just Give it a Year!" with Live Performances by Maz, Ras & Denizen is a one-time event that aims to highlight and capture the revolutionary energy felt by the artists and hustlers of Boston, MA alike.

While putting this event together; Ben realized something. This event was bigger than himself. By RSVPing to "Just Give it a Year" (free btw), you've become a part of something larger than the event. You've joined the revolution.

If you're ready to revolutionize your life, improve your standards, and reach towards true satisfaction in life: the crowd at BENCILS LIVE is one you want to be a part of.

Taking place at the "Piano Craft Gallery" (793 Tremont St.); an attendee of BENCILS LIVE: "Just Give it a Year", upon entering the venue, should expect to walk into an immersive underground art gallery filled with live music and the people who make the culture of Boston what it is.

IF YOU LOVE THE CULTURE OF HIP-HOP + BOSTON, MA. THIS IS THE SPOT FOR YOU!

June 2

The Piano Craft Gallery is pleased to present:

Intersections: Artistic Dialogues in Boston’s Graduate Fine Arts Community

Curated by: Kamal Ahmad

June 2, 2023 through July 3, 2023

Opening Reception: Saturday June 3, 2023 5-8PM

Open gallery hours weekly:

Fridays 6pm - 8pm, Saturdays Noon - 5pm, Sundays Noon - 5pm

A groundbreaking collaborative exhibition, Intersections: Artistic Dialogues in Boston’s Graduate Fine Arts Community, brings together unique artworks of graduate students and newly minted masters of fine art from Boston. Over 45 participating visual artists from the classes of 2023 and 2024 represent the fine art graduate programs from Boston University’s School of Visual Arts, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Lesley University, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Showing works in painting, drawing, sculpture, print media, and installation, this group proudly shows the vital cross-section of the Boston area arts community engaged in studying art at the graduate level – its discourses, methodologies, and possibilities.

Intersections is the third collaborative event held during the 2022-2023 academic year. Last September, students and faculty across studio art disciplines gathered in the 808 Gallery at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts to introduce themselves and get to know each other. In March of this year, Lesley University’s low residency MFA program hosted a PechaKucha event, in which students shared a single work in a pop-up exhibition to generate conversation. Creative community and fellowship are essential to an artist’s life, as it’s not an easy or predictable path. As Faculty, we feel that our students should have the opportunity to get to know their peers at neighboring institutions.

Curator Kamal Ahmad visited the studios of each of the artists in the exhibition. A multidisciplinary artist himself, working in painting, video, and print media, he holds MFA degrees from Boston University (Painting, 2016) and MassArt (2019) and embodies the inter-institutional and interdisciplinary spirit of this exhibition.

Boston University’s School of Visual Arts is happy to extend its yearly summer exhibition partnership with Piano Craft Gallery by welcoming students from neighboring institutions in Boston. BU SVA Director Dana Clancy notes, “This exhibition is the culmination of a year of in person connective community events between studio MFA programs in Boston. As such, it represents the excellent work of impactful graduate art programs in the city, which draw students from many regions in the US and the world and change the fabric of Boston arts for the better. Josephine Halvorson often speaks of the power of proximity, and in bringing these artists together side by side and in dialogue we hope new relationships will endure beyond this locale.”

This collaboration between schools echoes the collaborative spirit of Boston Young Contemporaries (BYC), a New England MFA juried exhibition, formerly hosted by Boston University from 2006-2018 when gallery renovations and the ensuing pandemic paused it. By welcoming all students who wish to participate, Intersections: Artistic Dialogues in Boston’s Graduate Fine Arts Community is an inclusive and contemporary approach to a large inter-institutional group exhibition.

Josephine Halvorson, Professor of Art and Chair of Graduate Studies in Painting at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts

MFA Programs represented:

Boston University MFA Painting

Boston University MFA Sculpture

Boston University MFA Print Media & Photography

Lesley Art & Design’s MFA in Visual Arts

MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art at SMFA at Tufts University

Massachusetts College of Art and Design - 2D

Massachusetts College of Art and Design - 3D

Featured Artists Included:

Abbi Kenny

Adrian Johnston

Alyssa Grey

Ava Xu

Catherine LeComte

Cody Bluett

Danielle Richard

Dara Morgenstern

Darci Hanna

Davit Botch

Delaney Burns

Ellen Weitkamp

Emily Rice

Faith Baum

Hadis Karami

Huakai (Sebastian) Chen

Jacob Salzer

Julia McGehean

Katalina Simon

Leah Naxon

Lindo Obobaifo

Mae-Chu O'Connell

Magda León

Megan Arné

Pardis Alipour

Patrick Brennan

Ran He

Ry Beloin

Sakshi Doshi

Sayak Mitra

Sharon Stanczak

Sidharth Shah

Sohyoung Park

Sophie Thervil

Stephanie Petet

Stephanie Williams

Téa Chai Beer

Yana Nosenko

Yingxue (Daisy) Li

Yolanda Yang

Yukai Chen

Zo Watts

June 10

The Piano Craft Gallery and The ArtZ Over Anxiety are pleased to Present:

“Believe in Yourself”

The ArtZ Over Anxiety is an organization dedicated to developing, encouraging, and inspiring those, with and without mental health issues, using art as a medium. My delivery ensures the ability to cope and focus by engaging in interpretation of the Art with imagination to redirect the thinking of the mind.