Framed

Imagined Universes + Playing House: Two Ladies Rule

If the Guerilla Girls reunited and visited Houston this week, they’d be ecstatic. Especially because of these two shows. Houston Museum of African American Culture‘s solo for Houston artist Tara Conley, “My Life as a Doll,” offers an ambitious installation that reprises an exhibition originally presented at DiverseWorks in 2011. HMAAC’s more pristine interiors, Museum District digs and diverse audience, plus the addition of a documentary film by Sharon Ferranti (Telling the Truth in an Imaginary Place, detailing the ideas behind Conley’s candy-colored, albeit complex narrative), make this a unique experience. Kudos, too, to HMAAC for looking outside the lines and extending the conversation about equality to the women’s movement. (Through March 29 — and possibly beyond.)

Over on Colquitt, Nicole Longnecker Gallery stages the contemplative, obsessively beautiful drawings of Amy Lin, a Carnegie Mellon grad currently based in D.C., who is making her Texas debut. Evoking undersea kingdoms or life in a buoyant cosmos, these meticulous colored pencil works are harbingers of more to come from this talent who has 3-D portals planned for the future. Lin is paired with Houston printmaker Cathie Kayser, whose hermetic worlds enveloped in encaustic possess a Wunderkammer vibe. (Both shows through March 21.)