As autumn tips the balance between light and dark, Art Enables invites you to explore new harmonies of color and feeling. Step inside and discover "Jamila Rahimi + Jessi Binder: Equinox," "Michael Schaff: Peace Is Flowing Like a River," and "Good Vibes Only"—three exhibitions celebrating balance, reflection, and joy. From radiant abstractions to tender tributes and pure joy on canvas, our November exhibitions are a reminder that beauty thrives this time of year.

Join us for a festive opening reception for all three shows on November 8, from 5 to 7 p.m. Free and open to the public.

JAMILA RAHIMI + JESSI BINDER: EQUINOX
November 8, 2025 – January 24, 2026

The equinox—the time of year when day and night are of approximately equal length—is referenced for this exhibition of work by Art Enables artist Jamila Rahimi and visiting artist Jessi Binder. Though the artists are not precisely yin and yang, the title is a nod to the ways in which their works seem to be opposite sides of the same, energetic coin. Both artists create abstract paintings that are alive with crowds of colorful, organic shapes, obscuring or subtly revealing discernible subjects through abstraction. The works feel decidedly related to each other, although Binder’s work is often effusively bright, and darkness dominates in many of Rahimi’s paintings. “Light” and “dark” have been used countless times as symbols of “good” and “bad,” day and night. But Rahimi’s and Binder’s work, especially viewed together, offer a conversation of dualities and inversions that cannot be contained in such simple parameters.

Image: Left: Jessi Binder, "Corrective Experience"; Right: Jamila Rahimi, "Tulips" and "Cherry Blossoms"

MICHAEL SCHAFF: PEACE IS FLOWING LIKE A RIVER
November 8, 2025 – January 24, 2026

Art Enables is honored to present a small survey of the work of Michael Schaff (1945 – 2025), an artist with a decades-long history of exceptional artistry and participation in a rich community in Washington, DC. This exhibition shares a blend of the mixed media drawings he made at Art Enables as well as the bold acrylic paintings he favored in his “Friday class” painting group. No matter his medium, Schaff constructed his scenes through layers of gestural mark-making that imbue his subjects with incredible movement, energy, and emotion. Schaff keenly observed and transposed the details of his subjects with the determination of a caffeinated pointillist, urgently and confidently translating scenes to reveal their maximal energies. He evoked the canny gestural lines of Cy Twombly and the urgent dynamism of Joan Mitchell, all while being unknown to the wider art world, and famous within his own deeply connected DC community of artists, housemates, friends, and neighbors. 

Image: Michael Schaff, "Josephine"

GOOD VIBES ONLY
November 8 – December 23, 2025

If we may be frank, we’ve noticed a lot of bad vibes out there lately. We spend a lot of time thinking about what’s going on in the world and our place in it, but for our last studio show of the year, the artists of Art Enables are serving up strictly good vibes. We’ve got rainbows and smiling animals, nostalgic throwbacks, blue skies, and even a unicorn. Take a moment to soak up the positivity—these good vibes are for everyone.

Artwork detail: Josephine Finnell