Also on view during last weekend’s Upstate NY Art Weekend (see my previous review for The Lockwood Gallery show), and continuing through August 6, is The Summer Show at Carrie Haddad Gallery in Hudson. With work by Alaina Enslen, Anthony Finta, Jenny Nelson, Dora Somosi, and Susan Stover, the overall impact of the exhibition is one of painterly exuberance, albeit often in materials other than paint. In different ways, the artists transform observed or actual elements, bringing their personal lives, emotions, and observational responses into their working processes, so that as we walk through the gallery we feel a lively conversation among simpatico friends with contrasting ideas. On entering the exhibition, we are met with Jenny Nelson’s large energetic and color-orchestrated canvases painted with gestural strokes that simultaneously illuminate and obfuscate her constantly editing process. These paintings radiate the positive, the sheer joy of painting, and a love of life. We next discover the collaged paintings of Alaina Enslen. Made with torn fabric, pigmented beeswax and damar resin, these paintings, with their reduced palettes and matte surfaces, exude feelings of quiet nostalgia and contemplation, despite their active surface textures. It is not surprising that Enseln’s fabrics were chosen partly for the history and memories of their original uses, and that the artist’s global travels and experiences as a child filtered through her as she worked. In the back room are Anthony Finta’s grid-based paintings of soft color and sun-filled light, becoming geometric interpretations to observed landscapes, architectural facades, or window views.