browngrotta arts’s “Art in the Barn” Continental Drift: Encounters, North and South opens in just three weeks. When you travel to Wilton, Connecticut to see it from October 17th through 25th, 2026 there are several other stops worth adding to your trip. And, worth noting, the exhibition will take place just a week before peak leaf peeping here in Connecticut.

One of Wilton’s secret gems is Weir Farm National Historical Park. It is the only National Park Service site dedicated to American painting. The site was home to three generations of American artists including Julian Alden Weir, a leading figure in American art and the development of American Impressionism. At the Burlingham House Visitor Center you can learn about American Impressionism and the three generations of artists that inhabited Weir Farm, then explore the Weir House, Weir and Young Studios, and 60 acres of idyllic and inspiring landscape including gardens and a pond. The Farm welcomes plein air painters. On exhibit now is the The Big Truth: Julian Alden Weir and His Branchville Farm. Weir debuted his new Impressionistic painting style, influenced in part by the work of his friend Childe Hassam, in an 1891 exhibit at a gallery in New York City. (Weir Farm National Historical Park, 735 Nod Hill Road, Wilton, CT 06897.)

The Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield Connecticut is just up the road from browngrotta arts. It’s currently celebrating its first decennial, a recurring survey it plans to celebrate every 10 years. The series will spotlight current artists and practice emerging from Connecticut. As the museum points out, Connecticut has been the home to many art notables, including Annie and Joseph Albers, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Jasper Johns, and Sol Lewitt. (We would add Sheila Hicks, Edward Steichen, and Gutzon Borglum to that list.) The exhibition’s title, The Aldrich Decentennial, I am what is around me, is excerpted from the American poet Wallace Stevens’s poem “Theory,” 1917. The 39 artists in the decennial range in age from 30 to 80 and work in a variety of media — much to discover. (Through January 10, 2027; The Aldrich Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877.)

Greenwich, Connecticut, between New York and Wilton, is home to the recently renovated Bruce Museum. The Bruce features an engaging space and consistently significant exhibitions including Jeremy Frey, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Leonardo Drew. Entering the museum, visitors see King Nyani, a massive gorilla sculpture by Gillie and Marc and the luminous thread sculpture, Plexus No. 43, by Gabriel Dawe. Currently on display is Jo Sandman: What Remains, 30 works that trace the connections between the Boston-based artist’s use of found objects – including discarded fax and parchment paper, linen fabric, tape, tin foil, and x-rays — unusual methods, and archaeological themes. (Through January 17, 2027; Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT 06830.)

Last but not least, you’ll find work by 44 artists from North and South America, Europe, and Japan in Continental Drift: Encounters, North and South, at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT. On view: October 17th – October 25th, 2026. Opening Reception: Saturday, October 17th, 11 am to 6 pm. Gallery Hours: Saturday, October 17th, 11 am to 6 pm; Sunday, October 18th, 11 am to 6 pm; Monday to Saturday, October 19th to 24th, 10 am to 5 pm; Sunday, October 25th, 11 am to 6 pm. (Safety Protocols: No narrow heels, please. We have barn floors.)

See you in October!

We’re just one month away from the opening of Continental Drift: Encounters, North and South (October 17–25) at browngrotta arts. The exhibition uses the concept of “continental drift”—the tectonic separation and reshaping of landmasses—as a metaphor for how artistic traditions migrate, collide, and transform across the Americas. The survey brings together museum-quality art textiles, three-dimensional sculptures, and fiber works from emblematic artists across the US, Canada, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia, along with works by artists from outside the hemisphere whose encounters with North and South American land, art, and culture have shaped their practice.

Materiality is a central concern for many of the artists in Continental Drift. Rosana Escobar of Colombia explores the qualities of raw fique fiber and its affinity with horsehair. Trine Ellitsgaard, a Danish artist who has lived in Mexico since 1990; incorporates agave and espadín regularly in her work. The production of mezcal in Mexico generates significant agave waste, but the material has other uses—Ellitsgaard has worked with artisans in Oaxaca and the US to turn agave into fiber, spinning it into rugs, bags, and other artworks. Renowned Colombian artist, Olga de Amaral, studied architecture in Bogotá and then at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the US. She uses gesso, paint, and plaster to create sculptural surfaces and gold leaf to achieve resonant reflective effects — blurring the line between textiles and architecture.

Technical exchange is another way art practice moves among continents and artists. Andean weaving traditions influenced the iconic style of American artist Sheila Hicks. During a Fulbright scholarship in Chile in the 1950s, Hicks studied and photographed indigenous weavers and archaeological sites in the Andes, learning native techniques like the four-selvage panel and discontinuous warp. American James Bassler lived full-time in Oaxaca, Mexico in the 1970s, an experience that gave him direct exposure to indigenous weaving traditions and profoundly shaped his practice. In Chile, Carolina Yrarrázaval has studied textiles across diverse cultures, with particular attention to pre-Columbian techniques.

A third form of influence among the artists in Continental Drift is a mentorship of sorts. Gyöngy Laky, Lia Cook, and Tim Johnson are among the many artists working across mediums who point to the teachings, writings, and work of American artist Ed Rossbach as revelatory. Rossbach’s research in the 1960s into historical textiles and baskets, including Pre-columbian textiles, opened up areas of innovation and experimentation in the work and teaching of UK artist Tim Johnson. In his current basketwork, Johnson pursues interests similar to Rossbach’s, drawing on the study of ancient techniques and artifacts as inspiration for contemporary making and innovation. For Federica Luzzi of Italy, Lenore Tawney provided that inspiration. Ferne Jacobs took workshops with Tawney and Olga de Amaral in the course of establishing her uniquely personal sculptural approach to textiles. Leon Niehues admired the sculptural work of Dorothy Gill Barnes and John McQueen, who used natural materials from their respective environments—Ohio and New York—to sculpt objects using basket techniques, an approach that left its mark on Niehues’s own work.

The geography and culture of North and South America offer another source of artistic impact. After the destruction of his kiln in Japan, Yasuhisa Kohyama found a guidepost in the American Southwest, which led him to create nontraditional, asymmetric forms suggesting windswept canyons and rock towers. Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila have traveled throughout Venezuela, encountering materials and a diversity of people, customs, and ways of life; back in the studio, they translate this cultural and material richness into textile qualities that merge traditional processes with contemporary perspectives. Polly Sutton and Mary Giles sought basketmaking knowledge from Native Americans—the Salish tribes in Sutton’s case, and the Apache and Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Giles’s. Joe Feddersen, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and Dawn Walden, an Ojibwe descendant and member of the Mackinac Band of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, continue Native American traditions while bringing a contemporary and distinctly personal perspective to the objects they create.

Whether the influence is material, cultural, geographical, or some combination of all three, the artists in Continental Drifthave each brushed against something from North or South America, and their work has been transformed as a result. The exhibition reveals these transformations in intriguing ways—well worth seeing and comparing in person, online, or in print in the Continental Drift catalog.

Make an appointment here: https://browngrotta.com/exhibitions/continental-drift-encounters-north-and-south. Order a catalog on our website after October 15, 2026.

browngrotta arts’ upcoming exhibition, Continental Drift (October 17 – 25) is falling into place. Continental Drift, Encounters, North and South uses the concept of “continental drift”—the tectonic separation and reshaping of landmasses—as a metaphor for how artistic traditions migrate, collide, and transform across the Americas. The survey brings together museum-quality, art textiles, three-dimensional sculptures and fiber works from emblematic artists across the US, Canada, Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. Also included are works by artists outside the hemispheres whose encounters with North and South American land, art, and culture impacted their art practice. We are excited about the number of new artists that will be included, two of whom we will profile today — Rosana Escobar of Colombia and Ximena Ibáñez of Argentina.

We learned about Rosana Escobar’s work last year when we served as jurors for Fiber 2025 at the Silvermine Art Gallery in New Canaan, Connecticut. Escobar’s work in that exhibition was awarded the Grand Prize and it occurred to us then that she would be an ideal addition to the North/South hemisphere exchanges exhibition that we had planned for the fall of 2026.

One of the works that Escobar exhibited at Fiber 2025 explored the potential qualities of fique, an agave plant endemic to the tropical Andes, today used primarily to produce coffee bags. “Through the process of dyeing and weaving,” Escobar said, “I explore the material as a body, and the use of color to create rhythm and new patterns, aiming to reclaim the value of the fiber beyond its use as a packaging material.” In her work for Continental Drift, Índigo Espina, Escobar’s investigationsinto fique and its proximity to horsehair, continue, in a work that blurs the line between animal and plant. Caminos is made using wild straw from the Paramos, a pristine ecosystem in the high altitudes of Colombia. The fiber has been used traditionally in bundles to make the hidden core of baskets. This piece exhibits the fiber in its natural length, smell and plasticity, and the complexity of the coiling technique. The name “caminos” which means paths in Spanish, is connected to the paths they follow to make the harvesting process a regenerative practice. 

We discovered Ximena Ibáñez’s work online. The artist’s mother is Spanish; her father is Argentinian. She was born in the Netherlands, but she lives and works in Buenos Aires. Ibáñez’s artistic practice delves into an exploration of the tensions between rootedness and estrangement, understood not only as physical conditions but as emotional and existential states. Through ceramics and embroidery, techniques that privilege touch and memory, the artist constructs sensory landscapes in which textures evoke both fragility and the resilience inherent to the human condition, and where the house appears as a metaphor.

Atalaya, which will appear in Continental Drift, belongs to the Atavistic series. This series brings together a group of sculptures that combine ceramics and handwoven textiles that explore the archaic relationship between humankind and its environment, focusing on the house or home as a sacred space. Through fired clay and woven fibers—simple yet noble materials whose manipulation has been essential to the development of ancient civilizations—Ibáñez seek to evoke collective memories and ancestral gestures. These pieces engage in a dialogue between the fragile and the enduring, the intimate and the universal, the earthly and the sacred, revealing how the creation of shelters transcends time and becomes a symbolic act of belonging and rootedness.

Earlier this summer, Ibáñez’s work appeared in the two-person exhibition at Dos Tres Gallery in Buenos Aires. In Regresarás solo y en un barco prestado, translated as You will return alone and in a borrowed boat, she and sculptor, Federico Rolla, invited viewers to take a journey through a mythical and profound world, reminiscent of The Odyssey, exploring the return to home. The artists’ message: all beings must at some point abandon their place of origin to begin the journey through life, but they will carry with them hear the voices of the place to which they promised to return.

Join us in October to see an intriguing grouping of works on which the North and South America have left an imprint.