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Kingston Gallery 450 Harrison Avenue, No. 43, Boston, MA 02118
Exhibition Dates: December 3-27, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, December 4, 2026, 5-8pm
Artists Talk: Saturday, December 12, 2pm
Mira Cantor: Mirror, Mirror
Nat Martin: A Clutter of Roses
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BOSTON, MA — This December Kingston Gallery is pleased to present in the Main Gallery Mirror, Mirror, an exhibition of virtuosic new paintings and drawings by Mira Cantor, work which considers the incredible colors of skin, the intimacy of portraiture, and the courage it takes to look at one another. In the Project Space is A Clutter of Roses, the latest iteration of the ever-intriguing work of Nat Martin, bringing together old and new pieces, each shown only once, reflecting the artist’s interest in discovery, impermanence, and the ever-changing relationship between art and everyday life.
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Main and Center Gallery: Mira Cantor — Mirror, Mirror
Ivory, sienna, honey, umber, almond, amber, bronze, chocolate, olive, copper. These colors offer endless possibilities on a painter’s palette. What happens when we encounter them as the way we identify another person? Through this work, Cantor asks us to consider how we can admire a color in paint while allowing that same color on skin to become a source of prejudice. Drawing from Greek and Roman portraiture, Renaissance artists, Picasso, and Van Gogh, Cantor works with live models to explore the presence and inner life of each sitter. The space between artist and model becomes an intimate place where both people participate in the making of an image. For Cantor, this exchange is essential: a photograph cannot replace the experience of sitting together, observing, and being observed. It is a conversation without words.
Growing up in New York City during segregation, Cantor was forced to confront the uncomfortable truth of how race shapes our daily lives—where we belong, how we are treated, and how we see one another. Those experiences continue to inform her work and the questions she brings to portraiture. “Racism has lurked through my life like an unhealed sore,” Cantor shares. “Looking at each other takes courage.”
Mirror, Mirror invites us into that conversation. The drawings in this exhibition are busts of our contemporaries nodding to history. The paintings are framed in gold leaf, emphasizing each human as a special being. Through the particular colors, expressions, and presence of each individual, the exhibition asks us to look closely and consider everything we bring, consciously and unconsciously, to the act of seeing.
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Project Space: Nat Martin — A Clutter of Roses
Beginning as a photographer, Martin has always been interested in the possibility of blending art and everyday life. The artist works by collecting materials throughout the day, working at odd times in a home studio, and with his kids as subjects and collaborators, reacting to and using the stuff around him. Children’s art, toys, kitchen objects, boardgames, to-do lists, cakes, clocks, leftovers, vacuum-sealed bags and plastic drink cups were all starting points for recent pieces. Says Martin: “I also like the effect of putting together visually disparate objects for a cluttered, domestic effect. I want everything to look different in style and material, which keeps me in a playful and experimental mode.”
Baby Shoes, 2026, for example, are antique stilt feet, collaged with foam and wire, and hung to look like a totemic remembrance of actual baby shoes. Martin works on an intimate scale: the walls of the gallery could resemble a household bulletin board with the aforementioned reminders, receipts, kids’ drawings - now transformed into works of art - all vying for space in the viewer’s eye and mind.
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Exhibition Dates: December 3-27, 2026
Opening Reception: Friday, December 6, 4-8pm
Location: Kingston Gallery, 450 Harrison Ave, #43, Boston, MA 02118
For press inquiries please contact marketing@kingstongallery.com
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