A Garden Without a Gate
a national exhibition juried by Cicely Carew + Kate Holcomb Hale
on view
on view
February 20 – March 29, 2026
reception
Friday February 27, 6–8 pm, rsvp
Artists:
Nina Bellucci, Ai Sogawa Cambell, Jana Cariddi, Elaine Chao, Catherine Chattergoon, Marcy Chevali, Sally Chapman, Beth Galston, Audrey Goldstein, Barbara Gooding, Lu Heintz, Feng Hui, Vanessa Irzyk, Elizabeth Joo, Elissa Lincoln, Ariana Martinez, Meghan Morris-Weberling, Dean Mulone, Maggie Nowinski, Claire Pellegrini, Caitlin Perrigo, Frankie Pittorf, Alicia Renadette, Corran Shrimpton, Sok Song, Natalie Sullivan, Orli Swergold, Victoria Xu
Gallery 263 is pleased to present A Garden Without a Gate, juried by acclaimed local artists Cicely Carew and Kate Holcomb Hale. This national exhibition responds to the reality that our experiences are most often rendered within a neat rectangle: a canvas, screen, or mirror. This exhibition asks instead what life lies beyond the frame, while alluding to the strength and resilience of nature.
Ranging fabric, multimedia, ceramic and installation, these artworks forge a presence of their own. Deviating from the rectangle invites viewers to interact with artworks in relation to their own body as they enter a layered, textured space where works sit on the floor, hang from the ceiling, and climb up the walls.
Featured artists experiment both thematically – rooting in culture, memory and healing – as well as physically, through the use of live plants, found objects, and banal materials like mirrors, sequins, string, and wood. Ariana Martinez’s sculpture Ghost Affliction [vasoconstriction ritual with backstroke] is a tactile translation of her own bodily sensations while swimming in the cold waters of Lake Michigan to manage neurological illness. Ai Sogowa Campbell’s work is shaped by her Japanese heritage and Zen Buddhism’s philosophy of time as an eternal present. “In making art, I seek not only to hold fleeting moments but to create spaces of connection — between past and present, absence and presence, the personal and the universal,” she writes. Together, 28 artists hailing from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York and Texas craft a celebration of the unconstrained.
preview
About the jurors
Cicely Carew is a Boston-based artist, educator, and mind-body facilitator whose multimedia work centers radical joy and liberation. Her artistic practice spans immersive installations, collages, sculptural assemblages, painting, printmaking, and video/sound meditations, united by a vibrancy of color and multi-dimensional layering. Her pieces invite viewers to ease into a realm of healing and play. Carew’s recent installations and public art commissions include Ambrosia, 5,000 sq ft installation at the Prudential Center, the solo exhibition BeLOVEd at the Fuller Craft Museum, and a Foster Prize exhibit at ICA Boston. Locally, she has served as an Artist-in-Residence at the Shady Hill School, taught mixed media and printmaking for the New Art Center and Maud Morgan Arts, and taught screenprinting at Lesley University. Carew completed her MFA at Lesley Art + Design and her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art + Design.
Kate Holcomb Hale is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who lives and works in greater Boston, MA. Kate’s practice uses sculpture, painting, video and craft to reimagine how we can soften and modify our world to accommodate our most vulnerable members of society and ease the load of care work. Collapsing kitchen tables, knotted handrails and resting columns act as vehicles to consider vulnerability, futility and the invisible labor of caregiving that occurs in domestic and public spheres. This body of work was conceived after a period of intense caregiving in which she lost her mother, father and brother in quick succession. Her installations combine playful colors, softness, familiar forms and humor to create receptive spaces for empathy and healing. Kate received her MFA in critical theory and studio art from Maine College of Art. She has exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, including at The Danforth Art Museum, Zabludowicz Collection, Praise Shadows Art Gallery, LaiSun Keane Gallery, Spilt Milk Gallery, and the Portland ICA.