Summer’s in full bloom at Newport Art Museum, where most of the first floor has been given over to a colorful botanical group exhibit. What are gardens, after all, besides humans mucking around with nature to suit their own purposes? Beth Galston’s Luminous Garden (Wave) is a room-sized environment featuring LEDs embedded in forms cast from seedpods, while bees – those essential pollenators – are the subjects of Thea Dodds’ 130 portraits. Joo Lee Kang’s intricate ballpoint drawings are another highlight. A lot of the work is photographic, and displays a range of approaches. Mary Kocol presents flowers suspended in melting blocks of ice, while Steven Duede presents seductively large, straightforward photographs of lushly colored compost.
pictured: Mary Kocol