Arts District After Hours

Francois Ghebaly presents Rapido (July 18–August 15, 2026), historic works by Alexis Smith (1949–2024). The show is anchored by Rapido, a 1975 installation in which a model train travels continuously around an otherwise empty gallery, exhibited for the first time since UC Santa Barbara. A second gallery debuts never-before-shown works on paper from 1972–74—early 'one of a kind books' pointing toward Smith's signature concerns of narrative, popular culture, and literary appropriation.

Jul 18 - Aug 15

Rooted in memories of Port Arthur, Texas, Evita Tezeno's new collage paintings honor the Creole communities that shaped the Golden Triangle of Southeast Texas. Coming Home: A Gathering of Voices expands her signature autobiographical practice into multi-figure compositions alive with Zydeco energy, domino slapping, and home-cooked meals—scenes of quilting, family dinners, and public gatherings where collective memory is threaded into joy.

Jun 14 - Aug 15

Death as ordinary, recurring, and intimate—this is the terrain of Bucket of Birds, Shannon Cartier Lucy's new body of oil paintings. Surrounded by chickens for several years, Lucy has confronted an accumulating grief that attaches itself to larger questions about survival and humanity's disconnection from the ecosystem. Birds replace her usual human protagonists, occupying her characteristic psychological terrain: uncanny, deadpan, holding humor and unease in equal tension.

Jun 6 - Aug 15

Esther Pearl Watson creates vivid paintings that weave autobiography, folklore, and science fiction into richly imagined narratives. Inspired by her life in the Mojave Desert, childhood memories, and her late father’s fascination with UFOs and angels, she populates colorful landscapes with desert wildlife, cowgirls, celestial phenomena, and everyday Americana. Blending humor, nostalgia, and personal history, her work explores memory, resilience, family, and the ways imagination transforms lived experience.

Jul 11 - Aug 21

Night Gallery presents Rare Earth (June 6–August 15, 2026) at Night Gallery North, a group exhibition gathering thirty-four artists whose work finds renewed life in the landscape—a subject as ancient as image-making and as urgent as the present moment. A curatorial continuation of the gallery's 2022 exhibition Shrubs, it includes March Avery, Hayley Barker, Cynthia Daignault, Jane Freilicher, Samara Golden, Wanda Koop, Jake Longstreth, Hayal Pozanti, and Lisa Williamson, among others.

Jun 6 - Aug 15

Francois Ghebaly presents All Signs Fail, a large-scale installation of new sculptures and images by Los Angeles artist Patrick Jackson. The exhibition unfolds in four parts: a 44-foot billboard of eyes reprinted from an AIDS Healthcare Foundation campaign, fifteen altered bus shelter movie posters screenprinted with seasonal symbols, a readymade statue of a mother holding her child, and a monumental scaffolding structure enclosing a meditative, memorial-like home visitors can walk through.

Jul 18 - Aug 15