By Jimmy Keller
(Image above by Amanda Besl)

Welcome to Hive Highlights; a weekly exhibits roundup from Buffalo Hive. This showcase is meant to point you to gallery openings, ongoing exhibits, closings, artist talks and happenings in the visual arts community of Western New York for the week/end ahead. These lists are not designed to be comprehensive, instead providing a keyhole into the creative hum of our region. 

1. Amanda Besl: Temple of Hortus,  on view at UB CFA Gallery
   OPENING RECEPTION, Thursday, March 27, 2025 @ 5-8p
   201 Center for the Arts, Buffalo, NY 14260 (Second Floor)

A cultivated multimedia exhibition by artist Amanda Besl creates a lively garden within the UB Gallery space. Between the carefully curated paintings, drawings, sculptures and film, the work intends to question our take on the humble house plant, which we may or may not overlook. This exhibition dives into the realities of our relationships with plants and what they mean to us vs. what we mean to them. Besl plays with scale as she invites the viewer to walk among the works and throughout the exhibition, think about the idea of invasiveness or natural vs artificial. This exhibition is curated by Anna Wager, UB Art Galleries curator of exhibitions.

Learn More: https://www.buffalo.edu/art-galleries/exhibitions/2024-25/amanda-besl-temple-of-hortus.html

2. Eyes as Big as Plates, on view at Cathy and Jesse Marion Art Gallery
   ONGOING through Sunday, April 13, 2025
   SUNY at Fredonia, Fredonia, NY 14063

In this photographic exhibition at SUNY Fredonia, the subjects form a dialogue with the viewer as they become one with their environment. In the case of artists Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen, the environment includes remote landscapes across Austria, Faroe Islands, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Norway, Senegal, South Korea, Tasmania and the United States. This is a fascinating exploration connecting a unique story and identity to locations around the world, brought to WNY.

Learn More: https://www.fredonia.edu/about/art-gallery/exhibition

3. Tracing Threads Through Time: The Artwork of William C. Maggio, on view at Burchfield Penney Arts Center
   Last Days to View, Open through Sunday, March 30, 2025
   1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14222

From early career to recent works, this exhibition takes the viewer through the progression of Maggio’s art career. This exhibition is made up of textures and facades, abstracted black and whites, the remnants of constructing and deconstructing, layered and scraped away. Check out Tracing Threads Through Time for the final few days through this Sunday. 

Learn More: https://burchfieldpenney.org/exhibitions/exhibition:1-1-tracing-threads-through-time-the-artwork-of-william-c-maggio/