Anila Quayyum Agha houston
Anila Quayyum Agha works with mixed media; creating artwork that explores and comments on global politics, mass media, and social and gender roles in our current cultural and global scenario. As a result her artwork is conceptually challenging, producing more complicated weaves of thought, artistic action and social experience. www.anilaagha.squarespace.com
Are We Tuned In?, Mixed media, 41 x 41 in.
Anne Longo Lubbock
I began this body of work by thinking about the conflation of images and information, how including printed material within an image changes how we read image and print. Maps became a prime source material for me because much of my work has been about place, environment and how one situates oneself in a space. Experimenting in collage, painting and photography I discovered that the map is an interesting way to break down the image, to disintegrate the edges. Information asserts itself into the image without completely distracting from the presence created by the image. The information becomes the image and the viewer’s emotional and intellectual relationship to the content shifts with distance, recognition, and assimilation.
Homeplace #2, Pigment print and mixed media, 35 x 24 in.
Barry Stone austin
Fisherman, Texas Parks and Wildlife Expo, Austin, TX, 10.7.2007, Highway 71, Austin, TX, 10.12.2007 was taken near my home in Austin, Texas and is part of an ongoing and multifaceted project entitled Highway 71 Revisited. The series includes, among other subjects, photographs of my family, strangers under highways, fake flowers, abstracted galaxies made from flour, field recordings, and collage. I am an Assistant Professor of Photography at Texas State UniversitySan Marcos. www.barrystone.com
Fisherman, Wildlife Expo, Austin, TX, 10.7.2007, Highway 71, Austin, Texas, 10.7.2007 Ink jet print, 24 x 36 in.
Beau Comeaux dallas
I practice the art of discovery during exploration under the quiet cover of the still night. The pace is slowed, the mood settled, and the liminal spaces normally unattainable are made available. A presence, felt but not seen, emanates from the shadows, from around corners, and from behind structures. I take ownership and control of semi-inhabited spaces through acquisition and manipulation of digital captures. Focus, light, and color are twisted beyond their quotidian existence in order to transform the spaces depicted into fantasies wrapped in spatial ambiguity. Pulled into these fantastic spaces, one often finds oneself unnerved and uncertain about exploring the spaces and their ominous overtones. As much about definitions as exclusion, their voyeuristic implications are undeniably tempting. Perspective shifts, color mutates and lighting and focus, seemingly self-aware, further heighten disorientation, provoking a deeper examination of the spaces depicted. Within the confines of the image, the observer becomes both servant and master; contributing to meaning and narrative. By using the photograph as an extension of the imagination, I provide a framework in which the viewer can operate, supplying his or her own particular narrative to my suggestive imagery. www.beaucomeaux.com
Kudzu, Lambda print, 43 x 68 in. Courtesy of the artist and Marty Walker Gallery
Carolyn Zacharias McAdams Valley View
I live and work in rural north Texas. I use the living landscape I observe through my windows as my visual vocabulary. Threatening weather and withering trees become metaphors for my emotions and anxieties. Animals play the part of alter egos and small houses hold secrets and shames I would never speak of. While the paintings often refer to a vast landscape, they are small in scale. The viewer must look closely to see details that hint at meaning, like peeking into a shadowbox to find what hides inside the corners or placing your ear close to another’s lips to hear the secret. Colors are unreal and saturated, often used directly from the tube. The color serves to draw in the viewer and heighten the tension and anxiousness of each piece. In the end these paintings are my personal release, my therapy and my healing.
Separation Anxiety (detail), Oil on panel, 20 x 26 in.
Catherine Colangelo houston
In my current work, I use obsessive patterning and text from my dayto-day life to explore aspects of my personal identity as a mother, wife, worker and artist. My work is created using gouache and graphite on paper and is inspired by illuminated manuscripts, Indian and Islamic miniatures, and the work of outsider artists of all types. www.catherinecolangelo.com
Transformer, Gouache and graphite on paper, 73 x 39 in.
Celia Eberle Ennis
Referencing the work as “artifacts” or “fake artifacts” is intended to emphasize the illusion of multiple hands and approaches, multiple sources and time frames. This opens the door to the pursuit of meaning on many levels and allows for a collision of materials and methods. The use of traditional materials mimics historicity. celiaeberle.googlepages.com
Shadow, 2008, Bone, coral, jet, 7 x 4 ¼ x 3 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist and Road Agent
Charlotte Smith dallas
My recent paintings and installations continue my exploration of materials, shapes and painting processes. Paint drops stack up and form complex piles and rhythms. These pieces are a new and strange form of abstract pointillism. The strangeness and density of the stacked dots intentionally draws in the viewer. These new pieces are purposefully obsessive. They also push the boundaries between painting and sculpture. www.charlottesmith.info
Yellow Line (detail), Acrylic paint and piles on wood panels, 36 x 28 in.
Christie Blizard lubbock
remembering that captian beefheart was inspired by the sound of the windshield wipers in his car is very interesting to me. I am not sure what to do with this but I thought I would share it with you. www.christieblizard.com
Everything Can’t Happen at Once
Gladys Poorte austin
My work explores the area where the ordinary and the obscure coexist. Commonplace objects (tools, toys, containers, etc.) sit in groups with seemingly unrelated objects. Some seem to be lying in random groupings; others seem deliberately arranged in unnatural ways. These combinations of objects and their environment point to narratives and landscapes. I approach my work in a very intuitive manner, hoping that it will tell its own story. www.gladyspoorte.com
Commander of Light, 2008, Oil on wood, 31 x 48 in.
Harmony Padgett Arlington
I blur the line between what is hard and rough, and what is soft and sensual. I carve out beauty hidden within a very ordinary material, and put something private and provocative on display in an abstractly beautiful way.
One State of Content, 2008, Oil on hand-carved wood, 48 x 48 x 2 in.
James Talbot austin
My work is the way I show my love. If through it I can remind you of your essential magnificence; if I’m able to nudge you into remembering that there’s more than meets the senses; when I can, if even for a moment, help you to suspend the here-and-now; and if somehow I reawaken you to the magic that’s all around us, so you might feel that child’s sense of awe/wonder/joy; then I’ve succeeded as an artist. www.talbotworld.com
Holy Land, Loomed, wrapped, and fringed seed beads, brass, wood, 53 x 30 x 3 in.
Jamie Panzer austin
In the best case scenario you would serendipitously happen upon my images/objects; huh? art forms? artifacts? Born of abstract notions which entertain the idea of striking an equilibrium between gravity and levity. As my work evolves I continue to reject visual repetitiousness but embrace conceptual redundancies. Answers in search of questions? The message is the medium? Hypothesis without the limits of verification. Holistic Reductionism. Mechanism/Organism. Micro/ Macro. This world is cruel. This world is sublime. This world is ridiculous. Good day. www.ismism.net
Digital Homeostasis - Index, Wood, wax and paint, 21 x 12 x 12 in.
John Spriggins dallas
In looking at the issues that surround communal identity, I came to the conclusion that memory and history are paramount. We each need to be able to identify ourselves with someone or something, which helps us to build associations. Associations of religion, ethnicity, gender, age, and culture help us define ourselves. Moreover, we can build a sense of community from these associations. Memory is vital in that it perpetuates recall and discourse through communal reflection. This dialogue is what develops history. History in the sense that we want to find our place within the grand scheme of life, in addition we all seek a source of pride. We then have a place in which we may always be able to return physically, mentally, or spiritually. johnspriggins.tripod.com
Inwood, Acrylic and newsprint, 72 x 48 in.
John Swanger austin
John Swanger makes abstract, process-based paintings. His work is rooted in experiences of seeing, contemplation and meditation. www.johnswanger.org
August 7 Blue, Oil on paper on canvas, 36 x 36 in.
Jules Buck Jones austin
For the last several years, animals have become the central focus of my work. From an early age I have enjoyed drawing animals and have been fascinated with the natural sciences. I create large-scale paintings and drawings using various forms of abstraction and representation to build up forms. I use animals in my art as vehicles to deliver thoughts on evolution, classification, mutation, and extinction. I aim to mix the metaphorical and mythological qualities animals possess with the more ecological or biological issues their imagery suggests. This mix, teamed with expressionistic and illustrative execution, provides plenty of potential content within the work, but allows room for the viewer to engage and respond freely. www.julesbuckjones.com
Warthogramhawk, 2008, Mixed media on paper, 84 x 72 in.
Justin Parr
san antonio Art is and could be nothing. Art is and could be everything. You kind of want it to be nothing, and everything, together. Its beautiful, really.
Haircut in West Texas, Video using photo stills
Kana Harada DALLAS
My work is the embodiment of the sound of heaven, the spirit of the earth, the universe that resonates within me and the tremendous joy of being a part of it all. The inspiration for this particular series is the spirit of the trees I have encountered in the lush forests at the foot of Mt.Fuji and across the U.S. I wanted to express their peaceful, serene embrace and the awe I have felt in their presence. Working with foam sheets, which I hand-cut, enables me to create the kinds of lines and shapes I want, and, especially with my series of black pieces, the pliable softness and lightness of the material creates an unexpected contrast to the hard iron-like appearance. www.kanakanakana.com
Umbrella, Foam sheet and mixed media, 40 x 25 x 25 in.
Keith Allyn Spencer EL PASO
In an environment always on the edge of falling apart, things are held together with spit, grit, and the coping strategies you use to reap time, to make options, to retain hope. This use of available resources engenders hybridization, juxtaposition and integration. While things might be created via slapdash, using whatever is at hand, attention is always given to nuances and details. Appearance and form take precedence over function. A system of taste that is intuitive and sincere not thought out and self-conscious is foremost. By putting together or creating an environment sated with color, texture and patter; a rampant decorative sense draws its essence within the world of the tattered, shattered and broken. www.keithallynspencer.com
Untitled (Kriss Kross), Mixed media on board, 72 x 54 in.
Kim Cadmus Owens DALLAS
I examine how digital technologies affect an individual’s perception of and relationship to his or her physical environments and result in a sense of place. Specific environments and structures that I encounter stimulate questions surrounding issues covered by the media via satellite, internet, and even cellular phone. We are all in a constant state of reconciling techno-mediated experiences with those that are corporeal in nature. Although cell phone signal loss, choked internet bandwidth, and digital broadcast disruptions are commonly perceived as daily nuisances, I see them as fodder for investigation into an increasingly complex and hyper-visual contemporary experience. My working process turns the visual evidence of the digital into a formal language that acts as a connective fabric between experienced reality and a techno-mediated reality. Using a computer to convert and process imagery, I expose the encoding of the digital image to reveal inherent abstractions within it. The shapes, colors, and space result from a transformation of visual information into code. This digitally generated imagery is then juxtaposed with the painting process, an empirical process which enables me to viscerally reconcile seemingly disparate experiences directly. www.kimcadmusowens.com
National, DVD projections
Marc Burckhardt AUSTIN
Marc Burckhardt’s work combines traditional Western European genres, techniques and symbols with contemporary themes to explore the nature of our modern cultural identity. Utilizing the visual baggage we all carry with us when responding to this seemingly familiar iconography, his work calls into question our mythic relationship to moral, social and political ideals, and with nature itself. These carefully crafted works combine old world methods with sometimes disturbing juxtapositions of imagery to reawaken the viewer’s awareness of our constructed reality www.marcart.net
Mirror I, Oil and acrylic on wood panel, 10 x 8 in.
Mary Stengel austin
I am very interested in using memory to recreate spaces where I have spent a significant time in. Though fantasy and imagination contribute to the subject matter’s spatial existence, my goal in the end is to achieve the closest representation of the space I can remember it to be and have felt like. More importantly, these drawings act as a timeline of where I was at a particular point in my life. www.marystengel.com
Bedroom, Ink on paper, 27 x 34 in.
Mona Marshall austin
I have always loved falling asleep with the sound of wind and rain at my window. Of course what we find beautiful and nourishing and can also be frightening and destructive. Recent events, some weather related, some man made, have cut through the thin veneer of normalcy we want so to believe in. This drawing is a visualization of such as a freak energy which rips through our lives and then dissipates, leaving us to pick up the pieces.
Funnel, Acrylic and encaustic on prepared paper, 54 x 52 in.
Morgan Sorne austin
The tears of the Earth and the hopes of a child are as onevagrants, silently moving across the burdens of the world and our babels reach inward toward the sky hoping, yearning, wanting the secrets of a salvation that is altogether chemical and all in all illogical hear the mantra of a thousand voices of steel humming as one as the prophets had foreseen www.sorne.com Sons of the Star (detail), Installation with 9 painted figures, dimensions variable
Olga Nicolaevna Porter houston
I am inspired by living, moving scenes. Shapes and forms stay suggested and open, leaving room for the viewer’s interpretation. My intent is to capture an experience, a state of mind, rather than a mere likeness. What is impossible in real life becomes visually essential.
Traffic, Oil on linen, 58 x 46 in.
Peter Leighton austin
There was once a time when ancestral histories were neatly impressed into family scrapbooks or carefully slotted into slide projector carousels, precious silver halide bets placed on the future, silent assumptions that more generations would most certainly follow the current one, and that these generations would be better off and most eager to one day look back and reflect with interest upon the circumstances of their forebear’s distant past. No One To Play With and The Last Photograph are two such images. These are photographs, however, without provenance, discarded memories summoned up from the dust bins of the twentieth century simply by the luck of the draw. These are images of the rarest kind, images from which the threads of cautionary tales and fanciful dreams are spun, images that, by belonging to no one, belong at once to anyone who is open to embrace them as their own...
No One to Play With, Pigmented ink/digital, 15 x 12 in.
Raychael Stine dallas
I am interested in the medium of paint as paint; in its literal attributes (paint as an object) juxtaposed with its role in creating imagery and telling a story. This creates a natural, multilayered tension: tension within the composition, tension between physical surfaces, and tension between the characters within the narrative. The tension itself is my central preoccupation.
The Annunciation, Acrylic and oil on canvas, 24 x 20 in.
Raymond Uhlir austin
Through the combination of various influences from popular, sacred and historical culture, I create a personal mythology of allegorical characters. These characters serve to critique and question the hierarchical status quo of our society, the conflicts between religious belief and scientific fact, and Western consumptive attitudes. Using gouache or enamel on paper and canvas, and a painstaking masking process, I endeavor to recreate the flat, seductive appearance of a cartoon cell married with the compositional complexity of a history painting. By combining these disparate styles of working, I attempt to expand the dialectal possibilities of painting for those of us who experienced our first tastes of visual culture in Saturday morning, Technicolor motion www.raymonduhlir.com
Wild Beasts 2, 2008, Oil enamel on canvas, 21 x 28 in.
Ryan Lauderdale austin
As a child in rural Oklahoma, life consisted of very little in the form of cultural stimuli. Outside of school, evangelism and music were the basic choices of escape with each offering different paths to an extremely elusive freedom. These two worlds became increasingly at odds with one another as I grew into adolescence, one provided a source of rebellion and the other repentance for such offenses. The memories of this youth, with its real and imagined cultural histories, serve as the basis for my current studio practice. My drawing work uses found web images from a Baptist church camp I attended throughout my middle school years, group photos of church youth groups from various summers throughout the last 25 years. The images themselves are much like fossil castes, impressions left from past events that I slowly fill in with a mixture of intentional and automatic gestures. The resultant filling is a stew of album cover design, Nintendo color fields, medieval and mayan archaeology, and prog-rock black-light experiences. These interests are all contemporaneous to the week spent at summer church camp, but more about the cigarettes behind the tabernacle than the sermon. Inevitably, my current self is at play here too and with it comes massive nostalgia for some sort of idyllic pastoral youth. A revisionist history results, connecting disparate fragments of images, music, and ideology into a new worldview. The term “regressive-juvenilia” comes to mind here and this has become a vital tenet of my work. With the current global political climate in a state of endless chaos, the inevitable approaching environmental genocide, and the forward thinking modernism of the last century rusting over, turning to a more naïve (and sillier) time becomes almost necessary for the generation that thought we’d be driving solar cars. In my own way I am holding vigil, creating a venerated image of something lost in hopes of saving it.
The Progression of Forgan Baptist Youth (1989), Ink, felt tipped marker on paper, 28 x 20 in.
Susan Cheal Denton
I’m interested in history; that of the past and also the history we are making. What civilizations contribute in the way of material culture, especially art and craft traditions, architecture and design tells us about their values, their aesthetics and their beliefs. Recently, I have been especially fascinated by non-Western history, immersing myself in motifs drawn from such diverse sources as Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcut prints, traditional Chinese landscape paintings, Tibetan Thangka paintings, and Middle Eastern textile and carpet designs. These serve as source material and a beginning point for me when creating my paintings. I never know, though, how the painting will unfold. That part of my process is the most frustrating but also the most exciting. It’s like solving a puzzle, or finding an answer to a problem that I didn’t even know existed; just me, jumping into the deep.
Stance, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.
William Rosshirt austin
My current work in oil uses loosely defined depictions similar to mycelial growth as a metaphor for the complexities of human interactions defined as “systems,� where growth occurs in the presence of affecting factors, perversion or inhibition in the presence of others, or through proximity to competing systems. The series title, Transitional Foundations, refers to pattern consistency of foundational elements from the subatomic to the cosmological scale. www.willrosshirt.com
Underlying Structure #6, Oil on canvas, 84 x 42 x 2 in.