Exhibit

The painterly colors are as bright as a tropical sun in some of the artwork in the "Contemporary Latin American Art Exhibition" at the Columbia Art Center. Although the subject matter of all four artists tends to be puzzling, it's easy to enjoy their otherwise baffling imagery. The two most colorful artists in this exhibit curated by Marcel Wah are Jose Acosta and Jacqueline Matute. Acosta's acrylic and mixed media paintings are densely conceived compositions in which humanoid figures, natural references and pure bursts of color hold your attention.

Photographer Janet Bradley's exhibit opens Saturday, Sept. 1, at 9 a.m. in the Hollingsworth Gallery at the National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop. Visitors can enjoy her "peaceful moments" captured as images of flowers, birds, mammals and scenery as they view her exhibit. A resident of Maryland for the last 40 years, Bradley describes photography as an "addiction" that does require a part-time job to support. Exhibit runs through September, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, except for federal holidays.

Art exhibit -- The 49 West Coffeehouse, Winebar and Gallery in Annapolis will present Karma's Awakenings by artist Kasey Wells through April 30. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to midnight weekdays and 7:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. weekends. 410-626-9796. Nature exhibit -- McBride Gallery will exhibit Americana by Carol Dyer and Lou Messa from Sunday through May 11 at 215 Main St., Annapolis. An artists' reception will be held from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

In anticipation of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, the Laurel Museum is opening a mini-exhibit Sunday, Sept. 9 that includes former Laurel Mill superintendent George Nye's handwritten account of the battle. The exhibit includes a letter Nye wrote to his wife, Charlotte (Charlie), on Oct. 1 shortly after the battle; Nye's war belt and buckle; and his 1879 diary, which references the Battle of Antietam. Antietam was the bloodiest single day in American military history, with more than 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded.

There is so much constant movement in our world that it takes an artist to translate some of that motion into a lasting image. In the aptly titled exhibit "Motion" at the Artists' Gallery in Columbia, painters Rana Geralis and Nancy Lee Davis encourage you to linger and look at the animals, people and cars that ordinarily don't slow down for inspection. This pairing of two artists is at its most concentrated in the side-by-side installation of two very small works that amount to portraits of individual animals: Columbia resident Geralis has a watercolor, "Paint Pony," and Clarksville resident Davis has an oil painting, "Cow Eating.

The National Park Service is marking Black History Month with an exhibit on a 200-year-old "slave village" that archaeologists found at the Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick. The temporary exhibit opened Monday at the park visitor center and will be up through the end of the month. Spokeswoman Tracy Shives says the exhibit uses written materials and artifacts such as buttons and pottery pieces to explain how the community of up to 90 slaves was uncovered and how they lived. - Associated Press div.talkforum #creditfooter { display: none; }

Painters traditionally have placed human figures within realistic landscapes that seem like psychologically suitable backdrops, but the group exhibit "The Body and Beyond" is notable for how many of its artists have figures and abstracted landscapes melting into each other. That's one of the reasons why you may find yourself lingering before some of the paintings in this exhibit of contemporary Chinese art in Howard Community College's Rouse Company Foundation Gallery. Upon walking into the gallery, you're immediately facing such paintings.

An exhibit at the Johns Hopkins Evergreen House that was thrown into doubt this week is back on, but without two artworks at the crux of a dispute between the artist and the curator. The two large pieces in question — one depicting a cross, the other a mosaic of the word "Jew" — were offered as part of an outdoor exhibit by Fells Point artist Loring Cornish called "In Each Other's Shoes," to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington.

If there were a dress code for visitors to the current exhibit in Howard Community College's Rouse Company Foundation Gallery, it would stipulate that people must wear blue jeans when going to see Julie van Hemert's "Peopled Jeans. " That's because the artist uses blue jean material for her wall-hanging fabric art. Van Hemert does not significantly alter or transform this material. Instead, she typically clusters a few pants legs together in order to suggest that several close friends are, er, hanging out together.

For more than 40 years, Georgia O'Daniel Baker deftly designed the costumes for productions at Towson University, regional theaters and beyond. Now an emeritus professor at the school, Baker is the subject of an exhibit that includes more than 50 costumes and sketches. "From the moment Georgia discussed her retirement last year, we felt we had to do a retrospective of her work," said Jay Herzog, head of Towson's theater department. Growing up in the Midwest, Baker took sewing classes in high school and also did some acting.