Exhibitions

Here We Have Idaho: Material Matters is the first exhibition within a new Boise Art Museum program that showcases Idaho-based artists whose artworks broaden the boundaries of contemporary art. This program reimagines how the Boise Art Museum engages with artists and artists engage with our community, while highlighting the role of art and artists in reflecting important ideas of our times.

The Last Supper features nearly 1,000 hand-painted ceramic plates, illustrating the final-meal choices of people on death row in the U.S.  Artist Julie Green (1961-2021) spent twenty-two years creating this large-scale art installation by painting images of the final meals on found ceramic plates with cobalt blue mineral paint and then re-firing them in a kiln.  Boise Art Museum is the first to showcase all available plates created by the artist.

Hector Dionicio Mendoza was born in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico, and grew up with an appreciation for faith, ritual, and the environment. The artist’s multimedia artworks blend ideals of geography, memory, and labor and use cardboard boxes, cinder blocks, and other recycled materials, along with plants and natural imagery, to draw out these associations. Mendoza’s grandfather, a fifth-generation curandero (shaman) of Afro-Caribeño lineage, who practiced alternative healing traditions, was a pivotal influence on his artistic concepts, materials, and imagery.

Tea is the second-most highly consumed daily drink in the world, after water. While enjoying tea is a social custom — a pot almost always holds enough for at least two cups — it can be experienced in solitude to delight in the ordinary moments. It is a source of hospitality and a gesture of friendship. Sipped across the globe, tea has played an important role in shaping cultures, economies, and customs throughout history.

For thousands of years, the rainbow has been a cross-cultural symbol of hope, positivity, and a bit of magic. Dedicated to the celebration of rainbows, Spectrum showcases interactives inspired by the rich and numerous colors of our world. Participatory stations throughout the ARTexperience Gallery encourage visitors of all ages to create a rainbow block print, match colored fiber to emotions, build a colorful town, and more.

Visual Language: The Art of Abstraction presents a selection of abstract, non-representational artworks from Boise Art Museum’s Permanent Collection. A cross-section of abstract artwork, created by the most significant American abstract artists working from the 1980s through the early 2000s, features Color Field paintings, lyrical abstraction, and minimalism.

Myths, Fables, and Fortunes is a journey of discovery focused on the natural environment of the Northwest. Drawn from the Museum’s Permanent Collection and spanning over six decades, the exhibition highlights our shifting perspectives and connection with the land during a period of dramatic change and development.