One New Year’s resolution that’s totally achievable in Pittsburgh is to see more art. As everyone recalibrates from the holidays, the galleries are opening again and the events season is getting back into gear for what promises to be a great winter season of show openings. Art shows are a wonderful way to socialize during the winter months, often with a complimentary glass of wine and a plate of charcuterie. Take a friend or meet some new ones at these Pittsburgh art shows by local, national, and international artists.
Pittsburgh Art Shows Open This Winter
Tara Fay Coleman – Pageant Queen
Bottom Feeder Books (415 Gettysburg Street)
Tara Fay Coleman’s most recent exhibition and most personal body of work yet draws inspiration from the late Lorraine O’Grady’s Mlle Bourgoise Noire and the tradition of Black beauty pageants. With the artist’s combination of wry confessional vulnerability and humor, Coleman’s Pageant Queen is a must-see, and open to the public during Bottom Feeder Books’ open hours through January 25.
Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes – Tells
April April (409 South Trenton Avenue)
Hong Kong-born, New York-based Marisa Kriangwiwat Holmes’s photography is on display at Pittsburgh newcomer April April’s third exhibition in their Regent Square space. Kriangwiwat Holmes explores the connection between photography and memory in ghostlike images on matboard, including material from her past like personal letters and artifacts.
Karl Mullen – A Clarion Call
ZYNKA Gallery (904 Main Street)
In ZYNKA Gallery’s first exhibition of 2025, Karl Mullen displays his paintings at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. Mullen said that “We are all bombarded nonstop with bad news, insufferable political jockeying, advertisements for things we do not need, and the inhuman acceleration of daily life. And so I paint, mark make, and create images, not only as a refuge but a bulwark against an avalanche of lies and despair.”
Dï – Marred
Wick Monet (5404 Walnut Street)
Mysterious neo-expressionist painter Dï will be putting on a solo exhibition at gallery and project space Wick Monet on Walnut Street. The saturated colors in Dï’s work will bring a pop of brightness to the grey, snowy winter. The show opens on January 25th and will be on display through the spring.
Priya Suresh Kambli and Vivian Poey – Passages
Silver Eye Center for Photography (4808 Penn Avenue)
This dual exhibition examines immigration and migration through images from each photographer’s life. Priya Suresh Kambli’s work came out of a question asked by her three-year-old son. Did she belong to two different worlds, since she spoke two different languages? This question led her to examine her own dual identity with a child’s curiosity. Vivian Poey’s work draws from her complex, multinational path as a a US citizen, born in Mexico of Cuban parents living in Guatemala and Colombia before moving to the U.S. Both use photography to understand themselves and the world around them more deeply. Passages is open through February 8.
Harrison Apple, Théo Bignon, Clint Fisher, Theodoor Grimes, Jules Malice, Amanda Pickler, Nica Ross, Janie Stamm, Mary Tremonte, True T Pittsburgh, Jimmy Wright, and huny young (Curated by Hannah Turpin) – When the Lights Come On
Brew House Association (711 S 21st St)
This group exhibition, subtitled “Queer Nightlife as Emergent Space” looks at the underground world of nightclubs as places for magic, connection, and self-discovery. The show features a lineup of multidisciplinary artists including musicians and performers from Pittsburgh’s own queer nightlife scene. This includes curator Hannah Turpin, whose cocktail popup Shag has emphasized the glamorous aesthetic of the queer underground. When the Lights Come On will be on view at Brew House from January 23 to March 22.
Story by Emma Riva
Photo of work by Priya Suresh Kambli, courtesy of Silver Eye Center for Photography
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