January 8th, 2026 — Tonight kicks off the start of three art openings in New York City for Civitella alum Esteban Cabeza de Baca (CRF 2024) (January 8th), Michelle Segre (CRF 2016) (January 16th), and Elisa D’Arrigo (CRF 2013) (January 16th).
Esteban Cabeza de Baca
Drawing on deep ecological and cultural currents, Esteban Cabeza de Baca’s paintings and bronze sculptures imagine a future where nature, history, and collective resilience meet. His new solo exhibition Pollinators opens January 8th at Garth Greenan Gallery, an exploration of hybridity, ecology, and creative power.
Esteban begins by making observational en plein air paintings of sites in the American West and Southwest, and then subverts this art-historical tradition through a host of interventions such as superimposing motifs inspired by graffiti and Mesoamerican petroglyphs, and infusing his artworks with in situ materials. In this way, he fosters alternative ways of making and seeing, upending European frameworks of mastery and possession.
A leitmotif of these new paintings is the pollinator—a bright-green, pod-shaped figure modeled after a Maize God depicted on a 500–900 CE Mayan whistle. An avatar of the unruly natural forces that move freely across manmade borders, the pollinator evokes productive forces of hybridity, regeneration, and resilience signaling a path forward for humankind.
His cast-bronze forms, developed from burnouts of plants native to the Northeast United States, are an extension of his 2022 monumental large-scale bronze “Host”. Like so much of his work, they present a strangely optimistic portal to a world shaped by Indigenous knowledge where classifications merge and fresh possibilities surface. Esteban joins Brooklyn Rail contributor Gaby Collins-Fernandez for a conversation on the exhibition on Zoom on February 12th. On view through February 21st.
Michelle Segre
Michelle Segre’s Nebula, opens January 16th at Derek Eller Gallery—her sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. Nebula is a singular monumental sculpture, cosmological, skin-like, and bursting with color. Standing at over ten feet tall, it’s comprised of some of Michelle’s signature materials like those she worked with in Studio 6 while in residence at Civitella—yarn, wool, ceramic, acrylic polymer, and wire.
Conceived of during the last several years as a positive and rather humorous antidote to this apocalyptic moment, Nebula posits an alternative to earthly boundaries. The word itself denotes “nebulae,” which can originate from substances expelled by the explosion of a dying star (i.e., a supernova) or can exist as a region where new stars are born. Michelle lives and works in New York City and Mount Washington, MA. An opening reception will be held on January 16th from 6-8 PM. On view through February 14th.
Elisa D’Arrigo
Out of Hand: New Ceramic Sculpture, an exhibition of new sculptures by Elisa D’Arrigo, opens at George Adams Gallery on January 9th. The presentation highlights D’Arrigo’s singular approach to clay, showcasing works whose animated presence emerges directly from the improvisational process by which they are made. This exhibition marks Elisa’s first solo show with the Gallery in New York and features eight new works completed within the past year.
Elisa’s practice begins with her acute sensitivity to the physical and expressive capacities of her materials. Under her hand, clay becomes a responsive substance—capable of suggestion, gesture, and humor. The artist describes her method as “a dialogue with the piece, a dialogue with myself,” through which unexpected images surface and are absorbed into the final form.
Hunched, twisting, and caught mid-motion, Elisa’s forms take on an anthropomorphic charge, evoking the awkward, vulnerable ways bodies occupy space. Her layered glazing technique creates surfaces that function almost as skin, subtly shifting the emotional tenor of each piece. Elisa lives and works in New York City. An opening reception will be held on January 16th from 6-8 PM. On view through February 14th.
