Two major Museum Exhibits
After Venus: Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg: May 16 – August 30, 2026
Forest Bathing: Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art: June 27 – December 6, 2026
Babs Reingold, a St. Petersburg. Fl based contemporary artist whose work bridges ecological awareness, material sensitivity, and conceptual inquiry. Over several decades, she has developed a practice centered on the relationship between humans and the natural world, using visual language to explore fragility, strength, interdependence, and transformation.
Reingold’s artistic history reflects a steady evolution from more traditional forms into installation-based and conceptual work. Early in her career, she engaged with painting and object-making.
In the 1990s, Reingold produced a body of work centered on women bodybuilders, marking a distinct and more figurative phase in her career before her later shift into installation and ecological themes.
These works typically took the form of drawings, paintings, and mixed-media pieces that focused on the highly sculpted female body. Rather than presenting bodybuilders purely as symbols of strength or spectacle, Reingold approached them as complex figures that challenged conventional ideas of femininity.
More recently, Reingold’s work has shifted toward immersive installations that incorporate sculpture, drawing, and found materials. This transition has aligned her more closely with movements such as Minimalism and Conceptual Art.
Her installations are defined by the use of organic materials; wood, paper, silk, stone, and even human hair. Rather than dominating the space, they tend to exist in quiet balance. Forms are frequently suggestive of natural systems: nests, trees, root structures, or fragile networks that appear to grow, erode, or shift over time. Light and shadow also play a crucial role, subtly altering the perception of each piece.
Today, Reingold’s work is recognized for its meditative quality and its contribution to environmentally engaged contemporary art. By combining conceptual rigor with material choices, she has built a body of work that encourages reflection on both the physical environment and our place within it.
Her work is in the permanent collections of the Newark Museum, NJ; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL; Burchfield Penney Art Center Museum, Buffalo, NY; Leepa Rattner Museum of Fine Art, Tarpon Springs, FL; Hillsborough Community College, Tampa, FL; and Savannah College of Art and Design, GA. Reingold has an MFA in painting from SUNY-Buffalo and a BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art. •
After Venus
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL – Solo exhibit of works from the 90s of Women Bodybuilders juxtaposed to iconic male masterworks and ancient symbols of women and fertility.
May 16 – August 30, 2026
on canvas, 72w x 112h inches
oil on canvas
Oil and modeling paste on canvas on cradled board
From 1990 to1998, Reingold delved into the world of women’s bodybuilding with After Venus, finding a sense of empowerment in the chiseled bodies of female weightlifters that strikingly contrast the soft, curvilinear female ideals of the past. Reingold brings together appropriated art, historical images, ancient fertility symbols, and the recent history of women’s bodybuilding to create a series that investigates the gendered power of muscularity. The series includes large-scale drawings, paintings, monotypes, and encaustic collages, many of which have never been publicly exhibited. At a time when human bodies are increasingly policed and regulated, After Venus unabashedly expresses a woman-centered strength that actively works against easy objectification.
The exhibition’s title draws inspiration from Upper Paleolithic-era “Venus” figurines that have been found throughout Europe and Asia. This notably includes the Venus of Willendorf (c. 30,000 BCE) discovered in 1908 in northern Austria. Accompanying After Venus will be select objects from the museum’s collection, examining the history of these diverse, enigmatic figures. •
Forest Bathing
Includes the series “Hair Nest” and “Lost Trees”at the
Leepa Rattner Museum of Art, Tarpon Springs, FL
June 27 – December 6, 2026
Reingold will have a significant upcoming solo exhibition at the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art titled Forest Bathing, opening June 27 through December 6, 2026.
At the core of Forest Bathing is an immersive installation environment that brings together two of her ongoing series, Hair Nest and Lost Trees.
Silk organza, cotton organza, yarn, thread, graphite on panel prepared with modeling paste, wood stumps and branches,
old pails, various stones and polished glass, enamel paint, upcycled cast paper bricks from junk mail and old files. About 32 x 26 feet
60 w x 84 h x 52 d inches
Graphite on paper and modeling paste on panel
Graphite on moleskin paper, 5×8 inches
The work itself centers on sculptural forms made from salvaged wood, silk organza, graphite drawings, and even the artist’s own collected hair. These materials are transformed into tree-like structures, and ground-based installations that evoke what she calls a “ghost forest.” Visitors move through arrangements of wrapped branches, stitched translucent columns, and rooted forms set in stone-filled containers, creating a spatial experience, with sound, that balances fragility with endurance.
Conceptually, the exhibition will engage with climate change, ecological loss, and the emotional resonance of nature. The Lost Trees series pays tribute to individual trees as living systems marked by damage, growth, and survival, while Hair Nest introduces a more intimate, bodily dimension—using hair as a material that carries both personal and symbolic weight. Together, these elements emphasize interconnectedness between human life and environmental systems. •
