‘Spectral Garden’

beca acosta

lena Hawkins

March 13 – April 12, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, March 13, 6-9 PM

Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 2-7 PM

Curated by Sally Beauti Twin

Spectral Garden brings together the work of sculptor Beca Acosta and painter Lena Hawkins in an exhibition that moves between the earthly and the ethereal.

Beca shapes with metal and ceramic, depicting forged limbs, suspended skulls, and flora with teeth. Her sculptures are absurdist, tender, rigorously made, and often funny. Like a dream, they occupy space with full conviction.

Hawkins grounds her practice in intimate gouache paintings that function as spiritual records. Working sometimes plein air, she channels the spirit of a place and the unseen forces that inhabit it, weaving archetypes, celestial symbols, and figures from folklore into luminous, densely layered scenes. Her works draw on her study of the Hermetic arts to render the extramundane visible alongside the everyday.

Beca and Hawkins together create a strange and beautiful garden that invites viewers to explore the space between the corporeal and the otherworldly.

Artist Bios:

Beca Acosta integrates metal fabrication, ceramics, kinetic sculpture, interaction, and microscope photography. A Brooklyn based, native of Dallas, Texas, she is Chicano and Puerto Rican. Beca investigates how bodies intersect with mobility, freedom, and sexuality. Her work has been exhibited at Washington State University, John St. Gallery, Flashburn film festival, Dank, Brooklyn Metal Works, Amos Eno Gallery,Underdonk Gallery, and POWRPLNT, and published in Precog Magazine. Beca has been a visiting critic at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design and invited to discuss her practice at FEMEETING in Windsor, Canada, and LASER (Leonardo Arts and Sciences Evening Rendezvous) in NYC. In 2024, she received a STEAM plant grant to create microscope photography, which she exhibited at Pratt Institute. Currently, Beca is focused on the overlaps between the arts, sciences, and the existential politics of our contemporary climate. The plants focus on the ties between the exotic and the exoticized, creating an organic objectification that combines flora and fauna asking questions about evolution and mutation, creating an impossible, speculative present.

Lena Hawkins studied art and design, earning a Foundation Degree from Central St. Martins College of Art in London, UK. She went on to earn her Bachelor's degree in Fine Art from Parsons New School for Design, graduating in 2010 from the Integrated Design Program. During and after college, she became an active member of the DIY art scene in Brooklyn. Art spaces including the Bushwick Trailer Park, Silent Barn, Flux Factory, and the Sunview Luncheonette helped shape her art practice as an emerging artist.

Since 2012, the foundation of Lena's art practice has been her intimate gouache paintings - sometimes painting plein air, channeling the place that she paints and the different spirits that dwell there. She records places and personal moments to share how experiences interconnect us. She uses archetypes and symbols in her paintings like the fountain, the man smoking in the corner and a body in a bardo state - suggesting ancient tongues whispering in peculiar colors.

Her works embody experiences of community, travel and the beauty she sees in everything from loss to ecstatic visions or a peaceful night skyline; all deeply personal yet universal. She studies the Hermetic arts - astrology, tarot and mediumship, to inform her visual record of the extramundane - mystical encounters alongside everyday moments.

In addition to her gouache paintings, Lena has researched, designed and produced an annual Zodiac Moon Calendar since 2014. The Zodiac Moon Calendar is an 11x17" Risograph printed poster featuring her unique art on the reverse for display at the end of the calendar year. The 2026 edition's reverse art is an original design for the Tarot Card of the year, the Wheel of Fortune - the Zodiac Moon Calendar is made as a guide for Witches, Hermetics, and Moon Gazers!