ArtHouston Magazine issue#19

ARTS + CULTURE + DESIGN + REVIEWS

“ I am deeply moved by the heartfelt words and testimonials we have received as we celebrate our 10th anniversary. Please read the accolades on the next pages.”

In 2014, we unveiled the inaugural edition of ArtHouston to our city’s dynamic art community.

As we commemorate our tenth year, the timing feels impeccably right to unveil a fresh logo—a sleek, globally aligned “ah”—imbued with graphic simplicity while staying true to our original fonts. This emblem embodies the streamlined clarity and immediate impact demanded by the digital age. As we evolve and adapt, our essence as ArtHouston remains unaltered.

Should this evolution evoke unease, we invite you to contemplate the significance of our AH symbol. In written form, “ah” signifies a sound made in conversation, serving to acknowledge, highlight, or express surprise or relief. Drawing from German, English, French, and Latin roots, “ah” transcends language barriers. In Chinese, it is the quintessential interjection, conveying a spectrum of emotions from astonishment to elation. In French, the word “ah” also can express a variety of emotions, including: surprise, pleasure, admiration, and triumph. Britannica Dictionary defines “ah” as an expression denoting pleasure and relief—a sentiment we aim to evoke in our continued journey with ArtHouston.

I’m excited for the next ten years of ArtHouston and all the outstanding art we’ll continue to share.

Yours faithfully,

John Bernhard

Photo by Hall Puckett

“

I

AM A FIRM BELIEVER

in the concept of building complete communities, and ArtHouston is definitely a crucial component of that mission.”

–Sylvester Turner

FORMER MAYOR, CITY OF HOUSTON

“ F O R A DECADE, WE LOOK F O R WARD to another issue of ArtHouston. It has a classy layout, is well written and provides extensive coverage of the Houston arts scene. This periodical has no equal in our city. The editors select articles that are of interest to art lovers of all types. Each issue serves as a fresh educational tool that identifies artists and their work that we are not familiar with. ArtHouston continues to fill an art press vacuum that exists in our area.”

– Gus Kopriva

PRESIDENT, REDBUD ARTS CENTER

“

THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS,

HOUSTON would like to extend congratulations to ArtHouston Magazine on their Tenth Anniversary of covering the arts in Houston. Their comprehensive coverage of art in our city, across its many museums and galleries, captures the vibrancy and creativity that Houstonians are so fortunate to enjoy.”

–Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

“ARTHOUSTON IS ONE OF THE

LEADING

VOICES for local Houston art news and information and has been one of our biggest media supporters of the Bayou City Art Festival for many years. We are so fortunate to have an outlet dedicated to covering all of the arts in the Houston community in an artfully beautiful print and online format for all to access.”

–Kelly Batterson

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BAYOU CITY ART FESTIVAL

“THE A RTS ECOSYSTEM IS NOT JUST

ONE of Houston’s defining features, it is also an economic driver. An art city includes quality publications, like ArtHouston, that explore the work of creatives and the arts ecosystem. ArtHouston’s consistent coverage of all arts disciplines within our city is an asset that is valued by many. A decade of service is what we have received from John Bernhard and ArtHouston and we look ahead to the next decade.”

–Necole S. Irvin

DIRECTOR, MAYOR’S OFFICE OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

“ A RT H OUSTON MAGAZINE IS A VERY DESIRED and sought-after publication, everybody is happy to take a copy. We love the design, the articles, everything, it is very well done! And since there is hardly any art-critic or reviews about the exhibitions in Houston, it is most important to have a magazine that is dedicated to do just that.”

–Sonja Roesch

DIRECTOR, GALLERY SONJA ROESCH

“ArtHouston’s 10th anniversary is a testament to the magazine’s enduring commitment to showcasing the vibrant art scene in Houston. With its stunning visuals and insightful content, the magazine has quickly established itself as an indispensable resource for both art enthusiasts and professionals. John Bernhard has curated a masterpiece that elevates the city’s artistic profile to new heights.”

–Mimi Sperber OFF THE WAL GALLERY

“THE SPRAY-PAINTED ARTWORK ON THE COVER created on canvas, incorporates the aesthetics of many of my Houston murals done over the years. It celebrates ArtHouston, our city, and its vibrant, diverse people. I am excited about the next 10 years in Houston and with the magazine!”

–Sébastien “ MrD1987 “ Boileau ARTIST

“ArtHouston magazine has been a beacon of artistic excellence for a decade, and its dedication to highlighting both emerging and established artists has enriched our cultural landscape. Congratulations to John Bernhard; your commitment to art and creativity continues to inspire and elevate us all.”

–Joanne King Herring

“ArtHouston has defied trends in the publishing landscape of the past decade by providing Houston’s creative community with a quality paper magazine. I like paper because the images reflect light to my eye rather than shining light through yet another screen. It is a very thoughtful and valuable part of Houston’s sprawling art scene across all disciplines. Spotting the newest issue found in and around our city’s art spaces is always a welcome sight for me. I like to read it and look at the pictures. We have John Bernhard to thank! ”

–Jack Massing

“THE HOUSTON ARTS ALLIANCE IS COMMITTED to recognizing and empowering the arts community in Houston and the region, emphasizing the economic vitality of our city’s arts sector. The voices in our community are critical, including the exemplary ArtHouston magazine, showcasing, celebrating, and promoting our artists and arts organizations. Recognizing that, we congratulate ArtHouston on celebrating its 10th anniversary.” –John Abodeely “ A rt H ouston is the P remier G uide to Houston’s robust performing, visual and cultural arts community. ArtHouston has single-handedly transformed H-town into Arts-town. Cheers to another decade capturing Houstonian’s love of the arts! ”

“ I MET JOHN BERNHARD IN 2014 WHEN he was on the verge of creating the inaugural issue of ArtHouston Magazine. His charismatic charm and enthusiasm for this nascent arts publication was evident from the beginning. Even more so was his keen curiosity about my own interests in Outsider Art. John’s generous invitation to me to contribute an article to the second issue of ArtHouston was an important support of my writing that meaningfully contributed to the creation and publication of my book Outsider Art in Texas: Lone Stars. I am most grateful.”

–Jay Wehnert

–Robin Cavanaugh

“ THE MENIL COLLECTION congratulates ArtHouston—a valued arts and culture publication for Houstonians—on a decade of robust reporting. Here’s to another 10 years of impactful coverage! ”

–Menil Collection

“ THANK YOU A rt H ouston for 10 years of exceptional coverage of arts news and conversations with Houston’s incredibly talented artists. The broad range of art and talent in Houston is world class and that message is shared better with ArtHouston’s contribution.”

–Steve Stephens

CEO, AMEGY BANK

AMERICAN SOCIALITE, POLITICAL ACTIVIST, PHILANTHROPIST, DIPLOMAT

“ART GUY”

CEO, HOUSTON ARTS ALLIANCE AUTHOR

CMO, HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON

PUBLISHER’S

EDITOR’S

Commissioned by ArtHouston for our 10th-anniversary issue, the French-Houstonian urban artist, renowned for his iconic H-Town murals, Sebastien Boileau, aka “Mr.D1987,” crafted a vibrant festive graffiti masterpiece, which perfectly encapsulates the spirit of our decade-long celebration.

Blind

Mural

Navigating

Sculpting

McClain

PEARL ANNIVERSARY Visual and Literary Arts

FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY

The Meni Collection

This fall, the Menil Collection unveils Fragments of Memory , an evocative exhibition featuring drawings from its permanent collection. This showcase delves into how the echoes of the past shape the present, highlighting the profound ways in which 20th- and 21st-century artists weave personal memories and historic events into the fabric of their work.

Memories have a deeply personal nature, and their material form is often fragmentary and ephemeral—snapshots, collages, notes, and the like—and deeply imbued with emotional weight.

In the hands of the artists whose work is included in this exhibition, the past remains alive and replete with possibility. Past events are revisited in different ways, creating alternate perspectives, and understanding. Wardell Milan’s (b. 1977) Pulse, recently acquired by the Menil, recalls a deadly mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub that targeted the city’s queer and Latin American communities. The artist’s decision to remember the victims in a vibrant dance celebration is a staunch message of resistance against calculated violence.

Houston artist Gael Stack (b. 1941) layers texts and images to form the visual ground of her compositions, such as Untitled (for Tim) , 1985, acquired by the museum in 2013. Culling from notes, scribbles, and doodles, often from her family and friends, Stack’s work presents a swirl of consciousness as chaotic as it is contemplative.

Also included is At My Door , a 2013 series featuring six works of a fractured landscape by Luc Tuymans (b. 1958). The scene of a figure photographing a waning sun atop a distant horizon is portrayed through multiple perspectives—all similar but distinctly different. For this artist and others in the exhibition, the idea of the fragment surfaces in their exploration of vision, identity, and elegy.

Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute, said, “The artists in this exhibition demonstrate a desire to say more than what personal ephemera, historical accounts, and selective memory leave behind. We hope that these works, many of which are new additions to our collection, will encourage visitors to reimagine how fraught memories and contested histories are accessed and how these recollections impact our present.”

Women in the Visual and Literary Arts (WiVLA), founded in 1994, celebrates its 30th anniversary as a Houston-based arts organization for women. With over 100 members, WiVLA fosters inspiration and learning across creative disciplines. It hosts workshops, exhibitions, and literary readings, featuring biennial collaborative exhibitions where visual or performance artists team up with literary artists. Each April, WiVLA awards $1,000 grants to two women, totaling $52,000 to 52 recipients. This year’s events include the anniversary celebration on October 24, two literary events, the Collaboration exhibition at Sabine Street Studios, and a holiday party.

ISLAMIC ARTS FESTIVAL

University of Houston

Society

Expands Cultural Horizons with New Initiatives

In a momentous move, the Islamic Arts Society is set to significantly broaden its cultural offerings by adding a film festival, comedy show, and Sufi music entertainment program to the existing two-day visual art display. This expansion marks a pivotal milestone in the organization’s history, coinciding with transitioning from a suburban location to a prime spot in the heart of the city at the University of Houston.

This year, the 11th anniversary of the Islamic Arts Festival, the largest celebration of Islamic arts in America, promises to be a unique and memorable event. November 9-10, 2024.

info@IslamicArtsSociety.org

From left: Gael Stack, Untitled (for Tim), 1985. Oil on paper. Luc Tuymans, My Door I, 2013. Watercolor on paper. Photos by Paul Hester

GAUGUIN’S WORLD

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Assembled from collections around the world, the exhibition features more than 150 of Gauguin’s paintings, sculptures, prints and writings.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the only U.S. venue for an ambitious exhibition of the work of French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Organized by independent curator Henri Loyrette, former director of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and leading scholar of 19th-century French painting, the exhibition offers new perspectives on Gauguin’s life and work, his artistic networks and influences and his contemporary legacies, both artistic and historical.

“20th-century European and American art would never have developed in the ways that it did were it not for Gauguin,” commented Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “He was the key predecessor to the different strands of modernism that developed through Picasso and Matisse, challenging what he perceived as a culture that had reached a dead end and renewing it by exploring and embracing non-Western art. Gauguin was controversial in his own time and remains so to-day. The scope of this exhibition, and the thoughtful, wide-ranging perspectives on Gauguin’s work offered by the catalogue’s authors, promise to illuminate the artist in all of his artistic complexity.”

“ Gauguin’s Wor ld will offer an exceptional opportunity to understand the astonishing range of the artist’s achievement,” noted Ann Dumas, MFAH consulting curator for the exhibition. “Fusing influences as diverse as European Old Masters, Peruvian

potters and Egyptian tomb painters, Gauguin created not only sumptuous and richly colored paintings, but also developed entirely original methods of print making, and sculptures in wood and ceramic, dissolving conventional boundaries between art forms. His influence on avant-garde has been profound and continues in our own time.”

Gauguin’s World chronicles what curator Loyrette characterizes as Gauguin’s “inner quest for elsewhere” through an expansive survey of his work, from its Impressionist beginnings in Paris, through a period of exploration to Denmark, Brittany, Provence and Martinique, to its culmination in his last years in Oceania, where he created some of his most iconic paintings. While Gauguin’s World is a comprehensive survey of Gauguin’s prolific career, Loyrette underscores that the show’s narrative is constructed from the perspective of the artist’s last works: “When Gauguin landed in the Marquesas in September 1901, he knew that he had reached his journey’s end; he had at last found his ‘true homeland,’ the place to which he had always aspired. In the twenty months before his death, he continued to develop his art while, in his writings, he set out to review his career as a whole. This is the starting point for an exhibition that reveals that introspection and the art that preceded it, returning to the questions that haunted him as an artist – the challenges that he set himself and solved in his quest for his own identity.” On view November 3, 2024 through February 16, 2025.

Paul Gauguin, Three Tahitians, 1899, oil on canvas, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, presented by Sir Alexander Maitland in memory of his wife Rosalind 1960.

CUTTING ARTS FUNDING:

A DANGEROUS PATH FOR HOUSTON’S FUTURE

From our Publisher

In an effort to reduce Houston’s projected $187 million budget deficit, city officials led by Mayor John Whitmire have begun cutting funding for public art. This decision, though financially motivated, threatens to undermine the cultural and economic vitality of our city.

In July, the City Council approved a $15 million contract with the Houston Arts Alliance for the conservation and management of public art, down from an initially proposed $25 million over five years. This vote marks the beginning of a broader effort to slash expenditures on public art, partly by reducing the mandated spending on art in city construction projects.

Historically, the Houston Arts Alliance has received city funding to administer arts and culture grants, curate public art collections, and support local artists and nonprofits. A 1999 ordinance requires 1.75 percent of some city construction project costs to be allocated toward public art integration. This ordinance is now under review for potential amendments to reduce spending further.

Mayor Whitmire has declared that all options are on the table for balancing the budget, however, cutting arts funding is a misguided approach. While public art allocations represent a small fraction of the overall budget—just over $13 million in Fiscal Year 2023—the benefits of these investments are substantial.

Public art enriches our community, enhances mental well-being, supports educational initiatives, and boosts local economies by attracting tourism and stimulating spending in surrounding businesses. It improves the quality of life for Houstonians and visitors, critical to attracting and retaining a talented workforce and the companies that employ those individuals. Public art is a social good, and it’s good for the economy. It creates a sense of place and pride in neighborhoods all over the region. It is necessary. And these concerns, as much as the budget, are also the job of our elected officials.

As the city navigates its financial challenges, it is crucial not to undervalue the arts, particularly when the financial need so far outweighs the city’s spending on the arts. And our elected officials have yet to propose any other items for reduction. Reducing the city’s modest arts investment is the only thing discussed so far. Balancing the budget should not come at the expense of the arts, which are essential to building a vibrant, inclusive, and thriving city.

The long-term benefits of investing in the arts far outweigh the short-term savings of budget cuts.

Our community’s cultural, educational, and economic health depends on it. It’s imperative that we raise our voices and advocate for the preservation and support of our city’s arts programs before it’s too late. JB

LIVING WITH THE GODS

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Longtime museum director Neil MacGregor revisits the themes of his influential 2017 BBC radio series and book of the same title based on the collections of the British Museum, as guest curator of this expansive exhibition featuring the MFAH collections and significant loans. Exploring spiritual belief and practice over 6,000 years through some 200 objects, the exhibition Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs and Peoples will present works from the MFAH collections in the context of their original, spiritual intent, and will feature unprecedented loans from the Prado and the Maharaja’s City Palace, Jaipur, and significant objects from more than a dozen public and private lenders internationally. Displayed in dialogue across a suite of nine galleries, the works in the installation will explore elemental themes: the cosmos, light, water, fire; the mysteries of life, death and evil; the divine word; and pilgrimage.

On view October 27, 2024 – January 20, 2025

Celestial Conch Shell with Skulls Huastec, Veracruz (Northern), Mexico, AD 900–1521

Conch shell, 16 3/4 x 8 x 8 1/4 in. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by James C. Flores in honor of Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. at “One Great Night in November, 2007”

Little is known about the mysterious Huastec culture that developed on the west coast of Mexico. Like the ancient Mayas and Aztecs, warfare was central to their society.

The Celestial Conch Shell bears images of warriors and gods engaged in ferocious battle. The skulls at the top represent trophy heads and indicate sacrifice and death. The perforations may represent constellations of stars.

The conch, a marine snail, was an important food source for the coastal peoples of Mexico. Its large attractive shell was made into musical instruments, objects of personal adornment, and ceremonial implements. The shell was a vessel to hold liquids as well. With a hand inserted into the opening, it was also employed as a weapon in combat.

DESIGNING MOTHERHOOD

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft

Human Reproduction through a Design Lens

Designing Motherhood, is the first exhibition of its kind to consider the arc of human reproduction through a design lens. The exhibition originated in Philadelphia at the Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Center for Architecture and Design. HCCC’s iteration of Designing Motherhood will be the first mounted in the Southern United States and the first to extend the contents to highlight the craft perspective on the topic. Featuring over 60 craft and design objects and prototypes from the past 50 years and the work of more than 20 contemporary artists, the show traverses themes ranging from the DIY culture of parenthood and health activism to reproductive access and equity, parental leave, and the work-life balance of artist-mothers.

Designing Motherhood invites audiences to consider why and how designs have been developed to facilitate reproductive health, and to ponder the political, economic, and social implications of medicalizing reproduction. The exhibition explores experiences of (in)fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, parenthood, and early childhood through blown-glass weaning vessels and hand-carved rocking chairs to art jewelry inspired by breast pump flanges, pacifiers, and nipple shields.

“Handcrafted objects are the intermediary space between the womb and the world. From handwoven swaddling cloths and knitted baby blankets to embroidered baby carriers and basket-woven bassinets, craft is often the first human experience of the material world,” notes HCCC Curator and Exhibitions Director Sarah Darro. “HCCC’s presentation of Designing Motherhood draws out the intertwined properties of labor, care, embedded history, material intelligence, and intergenerational knowledge shared by craft and parenthood, ultimately asserting such reproductive experiences as forms of craft themselves.”

With the aim of spotlighting contemporary experiences around human reproduction, this multivalent project consists of a traveling exhibition, a book published by MIT Press, an Instagram account, a design curriculum, a Narrative Portraiture project, and ongoing public programs with community partners across the globe. “Our aim was to have this exhibition speak to all visitors in some way,” states the Designing Motherhood curatorial team. “We wanted to showcase the beauty, elegance, and ingenuity of so many quotidian objects related to the arc of human reproduction, and for our visitors to stop and contemplate the social and cultural context surrounding these designs.”

For more inf ormation, call 713-529-4848 or visit www.crafthouston.org

On view: October 5, 2024 - January 11, 2025

Crochet Breastfeeding Demonstration Set, 2021. Knitted in Greenwood, Nova Scotia.

Photo by Erik Gould.

Left: Alison Croney Moses, My Belly, 2021, Part of the series My Black Body Cedar wood, milk paint.

Photo by Stephen Tourlentes.

The Art of Dreams, Visions, Other Worlds

ROBERT CRAIG BUNCH

Robert Craig Bunch has interviewed sixty current Texas artists, focusing on painters, printmakers, sculptors, photographers, and others whose work, broadly speaking, is inspired by dreams, visions, myths, and imagined worlds. This book promises to expand readers’ concepts of the boundaries currently being explored by Texas artists.

Texas A&M University Press

Ballads of East and West

RAQIB SHAW

Raqib Shaw combines references to Western historical works of art, specific locations, and self-portraiture to create subversive fantastical scenes that reflect his own lived experience. He is concerned with the production of beauty; fusing motifs and influences from both Asian and Western traditions. The jewel-like surfaces and dense compositions of his paintings evoke both beauty and violence. Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Meiji Modern

CHELSEA FOXWELL

AND BRADLEY M. BAILEY

This publication takes a fresh look at the art of Japan’s Meiji era (1868–1912), through a vivid selection of approximately 175 objects including newly discovered prints, photographs, textiles, paintings, and craft objects. Featuring motifs such as the sea and nature, Buddhist deities, contemporary life, and mythical animals. Japanese Art Society of America

Hello We Were Talking about Hudson

STEVE LAFRENIERE

Neither a comprehensive oral history nor a biography, this reader is an intimate collection of anecdotes, reflections and musings that cohere to form a narrative portrait of the visionary “artists’ dealer” behind the revered Feature Inc. gallery–the mononymous Hudson (1950–2014). Published on the 10th anniversary of Hudson’s death, this book is a record of Hudson’s resounding cultural impact. Soberscove Press

Home, Heat, Money, God

KATHRYN E. O’ROURKE AND BEN KOUSH

This book provides a thematic analysis of modern architecture throughout Texas, illustrated with stunning photographs showcasing works by both famous and lesser-known architects. The relentless ambition and strong sense of place found in Texans have made them particularly receptive to modern architecture’s implications of newness, forward-looking attitude, and capacity to reinterpret historical forms in novel ways. University of Texas Press

ZODIAC: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR AI WEIWEI

In this beautifully illustrated and deeply philosophical graphic memoir, legendary artist Ai Weiwei explores the connection between artistic expression and intellectual freedom through the lens of the Chinese zodiac. Contemplative and political, Zodiac will inspire readers to return again and again to Ai Weiwei’s musings on the relationship between art, time, and our shared humanity. Ten Speed Graphic

SURRENDER to the DRIFT

BY MORGAN CRONIN

In his novel “Drift of Fate,” John Bernhard begins by situating readers in the heart of West Texas. We are introduced to Brett Beasley, a wandering man in the throes of divorce and tragedy. Brett, a middle-aged Ad-Executive and former Navy SEAL originally from Houston, finds himself stranded in the West Texas desert near the fictional town of Yellow Spring. In Yellow Spring, Brett meets a fellow traveler, a beautiful young woman named Kathy, who is set on hitchhiking to California. For the few days that Brett is stranded in Yellow Spring, he and Kathy foster a passion and romance that, little do they know, sets in motion the story and unfolding of their interconnected lives.

When we meet Brett in the middle of the West Texas desert, we are presented with a mirror that reflects not only the vast landscape, but the complex interior of Brett’s inner life. “I had almost become a living corpse, alive only under the influence.”

This is a man who has suffered some blows from a brutal divorce. Understandably, Brett feels as barren as the terrain, that is until he meets Kathy. “Kathy was a complex woman, a blend of society and artistry.” It is Kathy who gives Brett a glimmer of hope and serves as a North star, always too far to touch, but bright enough to navigate in the dark.

After Yellow Spring, we follow Brett to sunny San Diego where he reconnects with his Navy SEAL friends and starts a new

life and career as a writer, drawing inspiration from greats like Hemingway. In writing Brett contextualizes his past experience. He produces a best seller that opens doors, bestows new opportunities, and puts his life on a different path.

Through a series of fortunate twists, Brett finds his way back to Kathy and their story unfolds with a poignant realization— life’s crucial moments often defy our expectations, and destiny has a way of revealing itself in unexpected ways.

The novel’s strength lies not only in its narrative arc but also in the layers of inspiration that influenced its creation. The first layer, a deep love story, serves as a guiding light for those in pursuit of love. Bernhard’s prose delicately captures the enduring strength of love, urging readers to fearlessly chase their dreams. Through Brett’s journey, love emerges as a transformative force that transcends time and circumstance.

“Drift of Fate” by John Bernhard takes readers on a journey through an intricate tapestry of love and marriage, the storm of divorce and grief, and the foundational pillars of life that inevitably lead each of us to our fate and fortune. Though there may be missteps along the way, these are the footprints that guide us toward our most profound experiences. “Drift of Fate” succeeds not only as a love story but as a nuanced exploration of the human experience.

Salustiano is an internationally renowned Spanish painter. His paintings are a distinct mix of Renaissance inspiration, incredible realism, and striking imagery.

www.salustiano.com

Raqib Shaw

An amazing mindboggling work of art is the luminous painting by Kolkataborn, London-based artist Raqib Shaw, which merges fable, history, and autobiography. It was part of The MFAH summer exhibition www.mfah.org

Salustiano, Love is Pop , 2023, Color pencil on canvas

Clovis Postali

Wildly sunny landscapes, intriguing abstracts and environment statements portrayed as mountains covered in ice are the most frequent themes in Clovis Postali’s oil and acrylic paintings. His works convey not only present-day issues, but also celebrate his love for our world and life itself. www.clovispostali.com

Clovis Postali, City vibe , 2024, Oil on canvas

Raqib Shaw, The Retrospective 2022, acrylic liner, enamel, and rhinestones on aluminum, photo

White Cube

Architectureartwork

The Centennial of the Original Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Building

BY ÉAMON Ó CAOINEACHÁN

2024 marks the centennial of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). The original building, now named the Caroline Wiess Law Building, first opened to the public on April 12th, 1924. Designed by Houston architect William Ward Watkin in the Greek Neoclassical style – MFAH is the first art museum built in Texas.

Houston commercial photographer, Frank J. Schlueter, visually captured the historic moment of visitors attending its grand opening in 1924. Schlueter’s photograph portrays the museum’s southern facade which overlooks Hermann Park. The scene of museum visitors coming and going is reminiscent of today–a father holds his son over his shoulder, a mother leads her daughter by the hand, a museum attendant watches at the doorway, visitors gather on the steps, while a couple strolls past where Albero folgorato (Lightning Tree) (2012) stands today.

One of the major Greek Neoclassical features of Watkin’s original design is the eight Ionic columns. The ornamental, spiral-scroll volutes magnificently crown the columns – a Houston Parthenon.

Although MFAH is not situated on the highest citadel point of a city, the way the Parthenon sits on top of the

Acropolis in Athens, the building is the artistic apex of Houston’s Museum District.

Over the past one hundred years, Houston has dramatically changed around MFAH, but what has remained constant is the civic ideal carved in stone over the entryway of the museum’s southern facade, “Erected by the people”, and still one hundred years later “for the use of the people.”

The architect of MFAH’s original building, William Ward Watkin, established himself as a seminal figure in Houston history. As the first chair of Rice University’s Architecture Department, Watkin physically represented his theory before his students’ eyes with the many buildings he designed around campus.

He also designed other architecturally significant buildings in Houston: Miller Outdoor Theater (1922), Houston Public Library (1926) Ritz Theater (1926), and Wilson Stationery and Printing Company Building (1932). However, the MFAH neoclassical symmetry and geometry is his crowning architectural achievement.

Watkin’s aesthetic philosophy has its own perceptual symmetry and geometry, which parallels how his vision of architecture relates to beauty as he expressed: “Through all ages men have found in architecture the permanent expression of the beauty of their character and of their spirit. The architect of today, so far as in his power lies, is expressing the beauty of his age. This beauty is the first measure of all architecture. It shall make our cities beloved; our colleges and schools inspiring; our homes charming and precious. Neither the complexities of modern demands nor the confusion of modern avenues of artistic expression should lead the architect away from the ceaseless search for the beauty that is possible of attainment in each of his buildings.”

Watkin’s search for beauty is evident in each of his buildings in Houston, especially the Museum of Fine Arts.

As Houstonians celebrate the MFAH centennial by visiting in 2024, there will undoubtedly be a familiar scene as depicted in Schlueter’s photograph from 1924 – a father holds his son over his shoulder, a mother leads her daughter by the hand, a museum attendant watches at the doorway, visitors gather on the steps, while a couple strolls past.

As the son of an Irish architect and artist, I was surrounded by books of architecture and art growing up, the way the live oak trees surround MFAH. It was the first museum I visited in Texas, which is fitting since it is the first art museum in Texas. As I amble around MFAH today, its exterior masonry is indeed an architectural marvel–I am always awestruck at the artwork within this work of art.

While gazing at the Ionic columns by the Lightning Tree –lightning strikes – I reflect on the shared parallel between the architect’s name and the architecture of the building. The poet in me notes the alliterative quality of William Ward Watkin, and I wonder about the meaning of Watkin’s name.

William is Anglo-Norman and means “resolute protector”, Ward in Old English means a “guardian of the watch,” while Ward in Old Irish means a “poet and storyteller”, and Watkins from Middle English means “powerful ruler.”

I realized standing by the Lightning Tree that the MFAH’s original architecture could be reimagined as a symbolic reflection of the architect’s name–like William, it is a “resolute protector” of the arts – like Ward, it is a “guardian of the watch” and a “poet and storyteller”, and finally– like Watkin, it is a “powerful ruler” – old, and wise – its hallowed walls know – the architect in the architecture echo.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1924

Courtesy MFAH Archives

Photo by F. J. Schlueter

BLIND FOLLY

THIS EXHIBITION MARKS THE INAUGURAL SURVEY OF TACITA DEAN’S OEUVRE

BY ARTHUR DEMICHELI

The Menil Collection proudly presents Tacita Dean: Blind Folly, the first major U.S. museum survey of the celebrated British European visual artist Tacita Dean. Dean, who resides in Berlin and Los Angeles, is renowned for her unique, unmediated, and chance-based drawing processes across various mediums, including film and printmaking. Blind Folly —a playful British phrase connoting foolishness— aptly captures Dean’s approach to art, where she allows the inherent behaviors of her mediums to dictate the results. Emphasizing the role of chance and fate in creativity, Dean describes her process as “how to find by not looking.”

From top: Tacita Dean, The Montafon Letter, 2017. Chalk on blackboard, 144 × 288 in. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. Tacita Dean, The Wreck of Hope, 2022. Chalk on blackboard, 144 × 288 in. Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris. Photos by Fredrik Nilsen

The exhibition will feature Dean’s monumental blackboard drawings, which explore the fragility of nature. Highlights include white chalk renderings of melting icebergs and avalanches, echoing the sublime narratives of Romantic painting. Equally captivating are Dean’s large-scale “portraits” of trees, where she envelops cherry blossoms, Jacarandas, and ancient oaks in intricate hand-drawn marks. The display also includes carbon paper lightning drawings, cloud formations on Victorian-era slates, and rarely shown studio drawings on paper, found postcards, and albumen photographs.

A separate gallery will showcase a rotating selection of Dean’s 16mm films, illustrating her concept of “drawing with light.” Among these is her newest film, Claes Oldenburg Draws Blueberry Pie (2023). The exhibition spans Dean’s three-decade career, highlighting themes of obsolescence, environmental fragility, and the creative struggle.

Rebecca Rabinow, Director of The Menil Collection, expressed her excitement, stating, “The Menil is proud to have worked closely with Tacita Dean, an artist we deeply admire. Over the past seven years, she has visited the Menil several times to develop an extraordinarily beautiful and thought-provoking exhibition that includes recent pieces created specifically for it. We look forward to sharing her work with our visitors.”

Michelle White, Senior Curator at The Menil Collection, added, “Weaving together an array of subjects, from classical mythological narratives to natural phenomena, Tacita Dean’s work presents a poignant and urgent reflection on experience in an increasingly virtual and ecologically volatile world. In this anxious moment, she shows us the power of analogue through the act of drawing.”

Tacita Dean: Blind Folly promises to be a landmark exhibition, offering visitors a profound exploration of Dean’s influential and thought-provoking art.

This highly anticipated exhibition, organized in close collaboration with Dean, will be on view from October 11, 2024, through April 20, 2025.

Below from top:

Tacita Dean, The Green Ray, 2001, 16mm color film, silent, 2 minutes, 30 seconds. Film still courtesy the artist Tacita Dean, Found Postcard Monoprint (Blue Glacier), 2016. Found postcard with printer ink, 5 1/2 × 3 9/16 in.

Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris. Image courtesy of the artist

HOUSTON: TEXAS’ MURAL CAPITAL

Houston has emerged as a cultural hub with over 850 murals, making it a premier destination for street art alongside cities like Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Celebrating its 188th anniversary, Houston proudly showcases the work of acclaimed local artists such as Daniel Anguilu, Gonzo, Sebastien “Mr. 1987” Boileau, Case MaClaim and Emily Ding. These vibrant murals not only enhance the city’s aesthetic but also reflect its rich artistic diversity and dynamic community. Houston’s commitment to cultural expression through murals has solidified its place on the national and global street art map. Discover two inspiring Nonprofits behing these murals: Street Art for Mankind (SAM) , a non-profit organization

who harnesses the power of art to drive social change. Collaborating with over 80 international street artists, SAM curates large murals, interactive exhibitions, and live performances globally to unite communities around human rights. www.streetartmankind.org

Culture of Health - Advancing Together

(CHAT) , a Houston-based nonprofit who empowers immigrant and refugee communities through art, education, and social services. Since 2019, CHAT has created 17 murals in Gulfton area, fostering community development and promoting aesthetic and social improvements. www.maaa.org

To view a map of all these wonderful murals throughout Greater Houston visit: www. houstonmuralmap.com.

Case MaClaim, Social Equity

Mario Enrique Figueroa Jr., “Gonzo247”

Sebastien Boileau, aka “Mr.D1987”

Daniel Anguilu

Jesús Sanchéz, CHAT project “Celebration of Diversity”

Celebrating the acquisition of some 300 Cuban photographs from the Chicago-based collectors Madeleine and Harvey Plonsker, Navigating the Waves: Contemporary Cuban Photography traces the medium’s evolution in Cuba over nearly six decades, from promoting the Revolution following Fidel Castro’s 1959 overthrow of the Batista

government, to engaging in social and political critique in more recent times as the triumph of the Revolution increasingly gave way to economic hardship and political repression. Particularly in the years after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuban photographers created powerful personal expressions by exploring individual identity, the body and

NAVIGATING THE

WAVES

spirit, Afro-Cuban heritage, and the margins of society, all while navigating the fluctuating prescriptions and proscriptions of official cultural policy.

“With the acquisition of the Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, now boasts the most complete collection anywhere of post-Revolution

CONTEMPORARY CUBAN PHOTOGRAPHY AT THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, HOUSTON

BY ARTHUR DEMICHELI

Cuban photography, with an emphasis on the years since 1990: nearly 700 works by more than 80 Cuban artists,” commented Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

S eptember 29 , 2024 M arch 16 , 2025 through

This exceptional collection masterfully chronicles the evolution of Cuban photography, starting with the “epic” generation who indelibly defined the image of the Cuban Revolution.

From left clockwise:

Osvaldo Salas, Five Points of Fidel (Cinco puntos de Fidel), 1982, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of the estate of Esther Parada.

Jorge Luis Álvarez Pupo, Wandering Paths No. 15 (Caminos errantes No. 15) , 2009, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection.

Alberto Korda, Heroic Guerrilla (Guerillero heroico) , 1960, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by Dan and Mary Solomon.

Previous spread:

Raúl Cañibano , from the series Country Land (Tierra guajira ), 2009, inkjet print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Madeleine P. Plonsker Collection.

CY TWOMBLY

30 YEARS GALLERY ANNIVERSARY

BY SABRINA BERNHARD

During the spring of 2025 , the Menil Collection will celebrate the anniversary of the opening of the Cy Twombly Gallery with special related programs about the work of the American artist Cy Twombly (1928–2011), and the art and architecture of this groundbreaking building, designed by the artist and Renzo Piano to permanently house a retrospective exhibition of Twombly’s paintings and sculptures.

The upcoming programs are free and open to the public.

Book Launch: Why Cy by Tacita Dean

Signing with the artist

Sunday, February 9, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

Artist Talk: Tacita Dean

In conversation with Thomas Adès and Sarah Rothenberg

Copresented with DACAMERA Monday, February 10, 7:30–8:30 p.m.

Trio Concert: Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble

Thursday, February 27, 7 p.m. Friday, February 28, 7 p.m.

Lecture

Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Associated Director Emerita, Conservation and Research,

Whitney Museum of American Art

Thursday, March 13, 7 p.m.

Curator Talk: Michelle White Sunday, March 16, 3–3:30pm

Lecture: Cy Twombly: Senses of Time

Mark Haxthausen, Menil Drawing Institute Research Fellow Thursday, March 27, 7 p.m.

Neighborhood Community Day Saturday, April 5, 1–5 p.m.

For more details on these programs visit: menil.org

Cy Twombly, Installation view, photo by Paul Hester

B e a r i n G WITNESS

PANDEMIC LAMENTATIONS: THE MULTI-LAYERED ART OF LYDIA BODNAR-BALAHUTRAK

BY ANNA TAHINCI, PHD

In history and in art history we need to know the what and the when , in order to better understand the why and the how . Engaging with Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s artworks is a deeply humanistic intellectual and intuitive experience for the viewer: it is an invitation to zoom in and out, to get closer and deeper, to combine the “micro” (the details) with the “macro” (the big picture). Thought-provoking and poignant, her artworks have multi-layered meaning. This essay was inspired by weekly conversations with the artist during the COVID-19 pandemic and it was written as a way of unfolding layers of meaning and sharing keys to open doors of appreciation.

ARCHIVES AND ARCHAEOLOGY

As a Ukrainian-American artist, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak has multiple belongings instead of a unique identity. She is weaving into her art images and words, individual memories and collective memory, family stories and history. In her Pandemic Lamentations a curated selection of articles from the Houston Chronicle and The New York Times lays the ground for drawing, painting and selected words to be embedded. This sophisticated use of the collage technique allows for fragments of recent pivotal events to become the foundation and the activator of memory, but also serves as a reminder that events can repeat themselves. The front page of Sunday’s

New York Times on May 24, 2020 was a mass memorial, a grim marker for the “incalculable loss” of 100,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent articles and headlines remind us of “The Human Toll” and provoke a compassionate expression of grief and sorrow: “Does the President Feel Your Pain?” Powdered charcoal gets blocked in to create shades of gray, echoing the colors of the newspaper, the shadowy nature of current events, and reminding us of André Gide’s quote “The color of truth is gray.”

The confusion of the pandemic becomes readable in the viewers’ eyes. Like a palimpsest, where the original writing

Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, installation views of Lamentations , 2024, at Wright Gallery, Texas A&M University. Photography courtesy of the artist

Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s art is political and poetic in an Aristotelian sense. ” “

has been effaced to make room for later writing, traces remain to be deciphered. The artist is an archivist of the Present, dealing with headlines and events as they unfold, drawing analogies and making connections. The viewer is invited to become an archaeologist of the future, to unearth fragments of the past that activate memories, and to bring to the surface stories of longing and loss, of destruction and creativity, of the regeneration of life.

POLITICS AND POETICS

In his Politics Aristotle described the practical science concerned with the noble actions or happiness of the citizens. In his Poetics Aristotle defined poetic art as the mimetic (imitation of life) use of language, rhythm, and harmony and the poet as a maker. Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s art is political and poetic in an Aristotelian sense. Images and words (the visual and the verbal) inform each other. Earth, fire, ashes, and thorns become powerful poetic metaphors of suffering, but also evoke the healing power of nature. The timely and the timeless are present side by side and remind us of the core of our common humanity in a deeply existentialist way. As a starting point, the collage of political events is an encouragement to the viewer to appreciate the power of written words and to understand the mechanisms behind the dissemination of narratives.

LIFE AND LOSS

The gates in the center of Part 3, in between life and loss, pay tribute to first responders and serve as an entry point for viewers to process the surrealist landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic. The midsection of the gates is meant to be mounted in the corner of a gallery space to reflect an intuitive understanding of spirituality and to translate the idea of folding and unfolding, both conceptually and aesthetically. “Warned”, “uncounted”, “exposed”: newspaper headlines remind us of “2020 the longest year”, of “the race for the vaccine” and of 2021 as “a year for healing”, “a year for change”, reminding us of what was before and the hope that came after vaccines becoming available. There are sporadic fires and smoke as a reminder that the fire is still burning, that the pandemic is not yet under control.

Constantly seeking to make sense of complex past and present socio-political situations, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak reminds us of the laborious process of Sisyphus, pushing his rock up the hill, repeating the action over and over with remarkable rigor and self-determination. In his 1942 philosophical essay “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus saw in the mythological hero who finds meaning in his effort an existentialist metaphor for the human condition: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” One must imagine Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak happy!

Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, And Europe Was Silent , 2015, oil, chalks, print media collage on paper, 48 x 96 in. Opposite page: Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, Pandemic Lamentations, Part 3, (detail), 2022, charcoal, pastel, print media collage on paper, 52 x 288 in.

Melissa Molano

Jane Eyre

BY ÉAMON Ó CAOINEACHÁN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY HALL PUCKETT

Airing Out Her Eyre: Houston actress reflects on her role of Jane Eyre at the Alley Theatre

The stunning success of Jane Eyre, which ran this past spring, was a must see at the Alley Theatre. Jane Eyre was particularly special for native Houstonian Melissa Molano, who portrayed Jane Eyre–one of the most beloved literary figures on the Alley Theatre’s historic stage.

Jane is the heroine of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, Jane Eyre (1847). The Gothic story is framed within a Victorian context and is told by Jane through a unique first-person narrative. This intimate lens of Jane’s female gaze was a revolutionary perspective during the time of its publishing because it painted a vivid picture of the protagonist’s world.

There have been many fine performances of actresses portraying Jane on stage and screen throughout the years. Some notable mainstream performances are Zelah Clarke (1983), Charlotte Gainsbourg (1996), Samantha Morton (1997), Ruth Wilson (2006), and Mia Wasikowska (2011). Melissa Molano now adds her name to the history of Jane Eyre right here in the thriving live theater community of Houston in 2024.

Each actress has their own vision of how to artistically embody the emotional and psychological life story of their own interpretation of Jane. For Houstonians to have one of their own starring in the lead role was a significant moment for Molano.

I asked the actress a couple of questions pre-show and a reflective two part question post-show that reveals artistic insight into her portrayal of Jane Eyre.

As Houston audiences had the chance to see the show last spring, Molano’s answers will interest theatergoers as they continue to follow her promising career.

In our initial correspondence in April, Molano expressed that she is “in the thick of it”, but she wanted to “sit down and give thoughtful answers” that many Houstonians will find intriguing.

The two questions that I asked Molano before her performance and the one reflective question I asked after her performance –book end her experience of portraying one of the most fascinating literary figures from one of the greatest books of world literature.

ÉAMON Ó CAOINEACHÁN:

One of the quotes that resonates regarding artistic expression is from the Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, who asks “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Although separating the artist from the art is tricky, if we apply that creative and intimately connected idea to your acting of “How can we know the actress (Molano) from the acting (Jane)?” - I think Houstonians would like to know what was your process of getting in touch with Jane? What was the moment where you began to feel a connection between yourself and the character? In essence, when did you feel you understood her and she understood you?

MELISSA MOLANO: For me it was reading the novel. I was hooked. I cried in moments and my heart warmed in others. It made me reflect a lot on my own life’s journey. Jane and I share the same appreciation for beauty in nature and quiet moments, the same seeking to belong and curiosity about the world. We also share a strong, fierce independent spirit. A lot of times as a woman and an actress people want to tell you who they think you are or who you should be and I’ve always listened to people with an open mind but done what I wanted in the end, and that’s a lot of what Jane does. She follows her heart in the end even if other people have big opinions about it, and I love that about

Melissa Molano as Jane Eyre in Alley Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre.

Photo by Lynn Lane

her. She follows her joy and that’s something I always aim to do. As far as my portrayal, I feel like with this story I’ve also found these bits of humor and what I like to call “moments of girlhood” that are not in the novel but are just part of life and being a young woman building a life in complicated systems and experiencing new love and discerning trust. For example, the moments of over the moon excitement when you’re alone but very much undercover whenever your crush is around. It’s been fun to find those moments in her story. Those discoveries and the secrets between Jane and the “Reader” versus how she shares to a person she runs into in the halls of Thornfield.

ÉC: You capture Jane’s fierce independence and her fearless presence in the photo that the Alley Theatre has presented. From your perspective, what is the importance of portraying Jane for audiences in today’s world?

MM: Thank you, I appreciate that. At the risk of sounding trite, I really do think there’s truly something for everyone in any social location in Jane Eyre’s story. Something important to me is for people to experience a young person who is dealt difficult cards in life, making her own decisions and her determination to be seen as an equal human being to those around her despite systems and experiences relentlessly treating her as an inferior–the power of that. She doesn’t let the past define her. She doesn’t let other people define her even if she’s crazy in love with them. She does what’s best for her even if it’s painful at first, and she has her own back. Also, along with that she exemplifies grace, forgiveness and resilience. Jane defies the illusions of “being stuck.” She keeps moving forward. I could go on and on. She’s so empowering, and I hope other people can take a piece of that fiery spirit with them and be inspired to keep going and follow their own hearts after seeing the show.

v v v

Several months have passed, and Melissa and I have kept in contact. She has had the much-needed time to reflect on her historic portrayal of Jane Eyre—the waves she made in her spring role still ripple into a Houston summer. Rather than ask her a series of typical follow-up questions, I felt that Houstonians would be intrigued to hear what she learned from portraying Jane Eyre. This offers an opportunity for readers to perceive her words and feelings pre-show relative to her words and feelings post-show, framing her own sui generis portrait of Jane.

ÉC: What did you learn from portraying Jane and how did it impact your own life?

MM: That’s a great question. What did I learn . . . The themes of coming of age, resilience, courage, faith, survival, betrayal, forgiveness and love are timely and timeless. I learned I can carry an epic eight times a week while corseted. I learned that it’s really a special thing to connect with an audience the way Elizabeth Williamson’s adaptation allowed me to. It was very true to Charlotte’s work in that way. Having that first person relationship to the reader and audience. It somehow still felt so intimate even though I was talking to seven hundred people like they were my very best friend. I’ll never forget it. I didn’t know what to expect. It was intimidating to me to take on a well known literary character and story. It’s also intimidating to do a twoplus hour show and never leave the stage the entire time for the first time. Taking a Victorian dress on and off by myself while monologuing in a dialect that is not my natural voice. Ultimately in this case with this task of doing this play, the character Jane empowered and strengthened me through it because ultimately–she decides who she is despite what others say and systems dictate. She falls hard more than twice and gets back up, so have I and so will I. I went all in.

Then to be received so well, it meant the world. I was so overcome by the audience’s response. I was so overcome by playing out her journey and her now being part of my journey. She’s such a symbol of resilience and being true to herself. It was really something special we all–the team, the audience–shared together. I was so grateful to be so supported. I never felt alone out there. There’s really so much I could say. It was healing, transcendent, and FUN! In the end it made me braver. It’s made me love this art form more than I already did. It made me want to tell every person “you can do it!!!” and encourage them to follow their heart. It’s made me forgive anyone who has tried to make me feel less than. We, humans, have more in common than we don’t. You don’t expect a 19th century novel about a Victorian orphan girl to remind you of that in 2024 but it surprisingly does.

v v v

As fire needs the air to burn bright–sometimes a character such as Jane needs the right actress to breathe her own “fiery spirit” fervently felt by the actress and audience. The native Houstonian, Molano shined brightly in the Alley Theatre’s spotlight–airing out her Eyre.

GE METRY F PASSI O N o THE

Arielle Masson’s Artistic Journey

BY SABRINA BERNHARD

In the heart of the Houston Heights , Arielle Masson lives her lifelong dream of being an artist. She found her sanctuary in a dirt-floored barn behind her house, which she transformed into her art studio. Arielle moved to Houston in the 1980s to join her parents, as her father took the last post of his geology career. She quickly fell in love with the city and the opportunities it offered her.

Right away, Arielle’s soft spoken French accent put me at ease as the conversation began to take off. She struck me as a free spirit, but with a steadfast attention to detail. As she pulled out a stack of 75 paper pieces from her Domino series, I couldn’t help but notice the inspiration and obsession of the vesica piscis, two overlapping circles, in each painting. My

eyes wandered to other pieces hanging on the wall or leaning against tables from other series. The vesica piscis was that point of connection. In some paintings, it was harder to find, you could only spot the middle almond, but it soon became an addiction to find the next.

Arielle is no mathematician, but her interest in finding order led her to an enthrallment with geometry. The vesica piscis, in Italian, the mandorla, has become a meditative fixation that Arielle treats as a seed to creating a lattice on canvas or paper. The single module and her expansive creative mind led to the most varied patterns in her paintings.

This meticulous attention to detail and passion for order extends beyond her compositions to the very materials she

Arielle Masson in her studio in Houston

Photography by Frank Hernandez

uses. As she pulled containers of all shapes and sizes off the shelving, I knew instantly what I had smelled when I walked in the door – pigments from around the world. Arielle doesn’t just paint, she makes her own paint too. She collects loose powder pigments from around the world every time she travels. She is drawn to the colors of the earth, notably influenced by her father’s passion. For her paper pieces, she strictly paints with homemade gouache paint on handmade paper from India. Her perfectly blended mixture creates the vibrant, deep colors found in her works. Her large canvas pieces use a similar concoction; however, egg tempera is added to the paste.

Arielle has had an extensive educational background, from Hispanic literature to linguistics to astrology and shamanism. Her fine art education started at a young age in Brussels, Belgium and continued here at The University of Houston and The Museum of Fine Arts. She never stops learning new things and that innate yearn has led to a successful, lengthy teaching career. For over 25 years, she has taught painting and drawing at The Glassell School of Art. Her calm, patient disposition delivered art history and art technique so clearly to me that I knew how great of a teacher she must be in the classroom.

At a young age, Arielle was fortunate to travel the world with her parents due to her father’s career. This early exposure to new countries and cultures helped shape who she is and the art she makes. Two noteworthy artists that influenced her into the painter she is today are Hilma af Klimt and Robert Powell. In 1986, Arielle first visited the U.S. and stumbled across a gorgeous exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that showcased three of af Klimt’s paintings in the exhibition The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 . When Arielle saw her paintings, she

told herself “This is what I want to do”. In 1995, Bob Powell, mathematics professor, taught geometry at Project Row House, notoriously to John Biggers, but also to Arielle. His philosophical connection to geometry affirmed all of Arielle’s goals and ideas. He was able to “support a philosophical framework through geometry” and that was a true aha moment in her career. These two individuals had such a strong influence on her, she noted “If someone thinks like me, then what I am thinking is alright.”

After years of perfecting her craft, Arielle’s astounding artistic methods have earned her exhibitions across Mexico, France, and the United States. In 2013, she showcased Earth Chronicles at the Museum of Anthropology in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. This solo exhibition featured 13 large pieces ( Earth Chronicles and Morphic Resonance ) and 9 smaller paintings ( Domino Series). The photos from this show were astounding; the scale of the large pieces seemed to float effortlessly through the museum. One of her sizable Earth Chronicle pieces hangs in her studio, towering over our conversation and offering a glimpse into the grandeur of that exhibition.

Arielle Masson: Chaotic Nodes will be the first exhibition in a new series celebrating the Glassell School of Art faculty. Old and new pieces will be showcased on all three floors of the Glassell. The opening reception on September 7th, from 6-8 pm, is free to the public. This exhibition is a testament to Arielle’s lifelong dedication to her art, her profound influence as a teacher, and her unceasing pursuit of creative expression. It promises to be a captivating and inspiring exhibition, highlighting the remarkable journey of an artist who has seamlessly blended geometry, color, and personal history into her work. On view Sept 7 - Oct 6 Artist talk: Sept 21 Artist Workshop: Oct 5

Arielle Masson, installation view at Glassel School of Art.

Arielle Masson, Earth Chronicles a Xalapa, 2013, Museum of Anthropology in Veracruz- Mexico

Arielle Masson, Domino 59 , 2015, Gouache on handmade paper, 22x22 in.

ArtFusion

RODOLPHE MEYER, AI STYLIST

UNDER MANY INFLUENCES

BY JOHN BERNHARD

The artist’s work showcases a remarkable diversity in style and subject matter, seamlessly blending traditional and contemporary artistic influences. The pieces range from dark and gothic themes to modern abstract and collage techniques, each marked by a distinct texture and depth that enhances the visual narrative.

In some works, the embrace of fantasy elements is evident, employing dramatic compositions and vivid colors to convey movement and intensity. These paintings often carry a sense of timeless epic and raw power, reminiscent of classic high fantasy art but with a modern twist.

Other works experiment with fragmented, abstract forms, using layering and mixed media to explore complex emotional landscapes and identities. This method suggests a modernist influence, focusing on the deconstruction and reconstruction of images to capture deeper meanings.

The inclusion of iconic and pop culture characters is handled with finesse, bridging fine art and commercial art. These representations are characterized by dynamic shading and dramatic contrasts, spotlighting the iconic qualities of each figure while introducing a richer, textural approach that moves beyond typical illustrations.

Some pieces evoke a sense of introspection and melancholy through the use of stark contrasts and saturated colors, reminiscent of street art and expressionism. The bold and expressive use of paint and color schemes in these works aims to provoke an emotional and reflective response from the viewer.

Rodolphe Meyer’s latest work, “Digital Verses,” is a captivating exhibition where poetry meets paint, and historic conversations between poets and painters are imagined. In this unique display, he delve into an alternate artistic universe, where famed poets of the past meet contemporary painters of their time. These

All AI images by Rodolphe Meyer collaborative visions offer a new perspective on both the written and visual arts, exploring how poetic texts might inspire pictorial masterpieces. Rodolphe Meyer explains, “This series ‘Digital Verses’ is more than just a fusion of poetry and technology; it’s an invitation to rediscover the classics through a new visual prism, enhancing our understanding and appreciation of poetry.” He continues, “By opening new perspectives on how

AI can enrich art, I hope to inspire a renewed appreciation for the timeless beauty of poetry.”

Overall, the artist’s work is a rich tapestry of modern and historical influences, from expressionism and pop art to digital illustration, creating a unique and compelling visual experience that engages a wide range of audiences.

Enjoy a glimpse of “Digital Verses” on the following pages:

DIGITAL VERSES CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, MEET MARY CASSATT

To the Reader

Stupidity, delusion, selfishness and lust torment our bodies and possess our minds, and we sustain our affable remorse the way a beggar nourishes his lice.

Our sins are stubborn, our contrition lame; we want our scruples to be worth our while –how cheerfully we crawl back to the mire: a few cheap tears will wash our stains away!

Satan Trismegistus subtly rocks our ravished spirits on his wicked bed until the precious metal of our will is leached out by this cunning alchemist:

the Devil’s hand directs our every move –the things we loathed become the things we love; day by day we drop through stinking shades quite undeterred on our descent to Hell.

Like a poor profligate who sucks and bites the withered breast of some well-seasoned trull, we snatch in passing at clandestine joys and squeeze the oldest orange harder yet.

Wriggling in our brains like a million worms, a demon demos holds its revels there, and when we breathe, the Lethe in our lungs trickles sighing on its secret course.

If rape and arson, poison and the knife have not yet stitched their ludicrous designs onto the banal buckram of our fates, it is because our souls lack enterprise!

But here among the scorpions and the hounds, the jackals, apes and vultures, snakes and wolves, monsters that howl and growl and squeal and crawl, in all the squalid zoo of vices, one is even uglier and fouler than the rest, although the least flamboyant of the lot; this beast would gladly undermine the earth and swallow all creation in a yawn;

I speak of Boredom which with ready tears dreams of hangings as it puffs its pipe. Reader, you know this squeamish monster well, -hypocrite reader, - my alias, - my twin!

The poem is an English translation of Charles Baudelaire “Au Lecteur” (To the Reader) by Richard Howard – 1982. This poem is the preface to Baudelaire’s famous collection “Les Fleurs du mal” (The Flowers of Evil), which explores themes of decadence and eroticism, combined with an acute awareness of the darker sides of human nature.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a French poet who also worked as an essayist, art critic, and translator. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhyme and rhythm, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics, and dealing with themes such as spleen, beauty, eroticism, and decadence. These themes reflect his complex view of modernity and urban life.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.

AI image by Rodolphe Meyer

DIGITAL VERSES WALT WHITMAN MEET WINSLOW HOMER

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths--for you the shores acrowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Walter Whitman Jr. (1819-1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse.

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general.

AI image by Rodolphe Meyer

SCULPTING ILLUSIONS

The Multifaceted Artistry of Morgan Robinson

BY WILLIAM HANHAUSEN AND JOHN BERNHARD

May marked a remarkable debut for Morgan Robinson, an Oklahoma native turned Houstonian, whose exhibition and artist’s talk at Avant-Art Gallery captivated audiences. Renowned for his mesmerizing works that intricately blend wood and metal, Robinson is an illusionist who manipulates sleek three-dimensional forms through a fusion of surrealism, pop, and hard-edged neo-realism. Avant-Art Gallery Owners and Co-Founders Abbigail Haley and Ally Ondarza reflected on the exhibition’s impact, remarking, “The first time we saw Morgan’s

sculptures, they left a profound impression on us. It’s a rare talent to infuse such harmony and life into a sculpture, making his art both captivating and unforgettable. His work is a testament to his extraordinary talent and vision.”

Morgan Robinson is a multifaceted abstract sculptor, entrepreneur, and self-made master. To him, being “polyphasic” means excelling in multiple genres, including sculpting, creating furniture, and designing jewelry. For those familiar with Robinson, the idea of his multitasking prowess comes as no surprise. He

centers his work on images encountered in various objects, crafting specific forms inspired by the world around him. For instance, he once described how the conjunction of lines in a mother’s shoulder holding her baby influenced his practice, translating into the contours of Japanese ebonized wood. Robinson explains, “I make forms and give them function.”

Robinson’s ability to interpret the natural wonder of ordinary things, combined with his unique perspectives, is why his work is highly regarded in today’s contemporary art world. His geometric forms, crafted with a degree of illusionism, make a metal band appear to arch away from the wall, transforming paintings and furniture into sculptures.

Born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Robinson spends most of his time in his studio in Houston’s Heights neighborhood. After studying at the University of Central Oklahoma, he moved to Japan to learn traditional woodworking methods at The Cultural Studies Institute in Nara, Hashimoto, and Wakayama. In Japan, Robinson’s artistic expression soared to new heights, inspired by the breathtaking beauty and spiritual depth of his surroundings.

The time spent immersed in Japanese culture, with its rich traditions and deep connection to nature, profoundly transformed him. Walking through tranquil gardens and forests heightened his senses and revealed a harmony between humanity and nature. These experiences became the muse for Robinson’s sculptures, which evoke a sense of connection as if translating the soul of the natural world into physical form.

Upon returning to the US, Robinson established his woodworking studio, merging Eastern philosophies of minimalism and sculptural form into functional, beautiful artistic statements.

The perceived beauty suggests a more insightful, meaningful spirituality. To quote John Ruskin, “Fine art is that in which the head and the heart of a man go together.”

Morgan Robinson’s dedication to the rigorous discipline of sleek three-dimensional forms reminds us to appreciate the dimensions of life normally again. “How awful life is,” Cezanne once wrote, offering advice to painters who lost their way: “Paint normally.” Perhaps we can better understand Robinson’s work, from the earliest to the most recent, by viewing them as “normal.” “Normal” is when perception subtracts the things that are not of interest to us. We cease to exist when we stop being significant to others.

Robinson’s artistic journey is illustrated by numerous exhibitions over the decades, balancing the weight of illusionist abstraction. He has had more than 40 solo exhibitions, educated for nearly 20 years, and been a tireless arts advocate. His sculptures, furniture, and installations are in permanent private and public collections, including the Oklahoma Contemporary, Sculpture Park Oklahoma City, and the Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition.

Morgan Robinson’s artistry transcends mere visual appeal; it invites us into a realm where form meets function, and nature intertwines with imagination. His works challenge us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, urging us to reconnect with the intrinsic beauty of the world around us. As Robinson continues to evolve and inspire, his legacy in the art world remains a testament to the enduring power of creativity and the profound impact of a single artist’s vision on the tapestry of contemporary art.

Previous spread: Morgan Robinson, Interlaced, 2023, photo by Ben Ehrlich

Left page: Morgan Robinson, Wishbone, table + (8) Swish chairs, 2017, photo by Lance Gerber

Below from

“ IMAKEFORMS ANDGIVETHEMFUNCTION. ”

left: Morgan Robinson, Wish, 2021, photo by Ben Ehrlich. Morgan Robinson, Nestle, 2021, photo by Jonathan Burkhart

M A K

S p a c e f o r E a r t h

Artist Karim Oyarzabal Explores Space, Finds Earth Invaluable

BY SARA HENDERSON

Early in 2024, French Villa Albertine artist Karim Oyarzabal prepared for a journey into space by settling in Houston for 3 months for a residency. He quickly realized that striving for progress is also an opportunity to reinterpret history. By the time he unveiled his hand-lettered and illustrated mural, “Marianne is Speaking” (Marianne Parle), in the French Consulate’s sitting room, Karim had already begun planning his next year’s return to Houston.

Karim is currently seeking to raise funds to publish a 100-page collective collection of graphic novels for Houston and International educators, aiming to bridge cultural and educational gaps based on his research while in Houston. Each chapter will deal with a scientific matter related to Humans in Space. Rice Space Institute has agreed to act as his scientific advisor, and other institutions should follow up such as the French Aerospace

Agency CNES. Karim is currently writing the first pages of this collective work. He will be joined by eight other French authors from his CESAN network. CESAN is a top comics school in France.

In addition, Karim is also working on a Space-related exhibition with Houston-based Yvonamor Palix Fine Art. At its core lies an ambitious animation that would be translated into paintings or etchings on satellite parts. Karim has already collected parts from the French Aerospace company Thales Alenia Space and is looking for others in Houston. The non-politically correct working title of such work is: « From the Big Bang to our Space Techno Civilization: what if we were just harmless Space cancer cells, or in other words, « nature-dirt».

“The imagination is an innate gift, but it needs refinement and cultivation; this is what the humanities provide.” – Martha Nussbaum

Villa Albertine is a research-based program with an educational focus, supporting artists as cultural ambassadors. Texas and France have a historically significant, albeit brief, relationship marked by rich cultural exchanges. The Rice Space Institute encourages interdisciplinary collaborations akin to a great art collection and its curator, or a chef and a sommelier, fostering novel pairings that open minds.

With the assistance of Bettina Gardelles, Cultural Attaché and Director of Villa Albertine Houston, Karim immersed himself in Houston’s scientific community. He interviewed scientists on the verge of Mars exploration, astronauts, and space enthusiasts, aligning his mission with the arts, science, and education communities.

The French Consul General in Houston, Valerie Baraban, notes, “The future of democracy relies on students’ educational rigor.” This sentiment is echoed in the strong professional relationship between David Alexander, leader of the RSI crew, and Alison Weaver, director of the Moody Art Center. Karim embodies such “educational rigor” as exemplified by his strong scientific academic background and his original and rich career.

Karim’s Houston endeavors’ first results have already been translated into the “Back Down to Earth” Paris Workshop, involving 12 CESAN and 12 Rice students. This event took place in Paris this last month of May, a few weeks after Karim’s return to his home town. It originated when Karim met Houston comics author and RICE Professor Christopher Sperandio. CESAN and RICE plan to continue next year in Paris, but also in Houston with

Right page: KarimOyarzabal,fromtheseriesAL’AbriTranquilles, 2024 exhibition at the Consulate General of France, Houston, in collaboration with Villa Albertine. Previous spread: KarimOyarzabal,atworkonMarianneisSpeaking, a 2024 mural at the Consulate General of France, Houston.

a special collaborative exhibition during the RICE Comics Sans Frontiers Festival in March 2025.

Reflecting on his artistic journey, Oyarzabal states, “As my theater work became difficult, I started drawing again. And as narrative art is an essential part of my practice, I dived into comic book projects. And finally, there’s the temptation of animation… sound, music, and voice... Ambition is synonymous with life, with strong emotions. Embrace life. Don’t be shy.”

Karim’s NASA experiences, including visiting mission control and meeting astronauts, re-ignited his connection with science. His collaboration with RICE Professor of Biosciences Scott Solomon, PhD, showcased their shared message from different perspectives: in space, we realize Earth is our oasis, one we are destroying. His mission transcends partisanship, aiming to unite everyone in preserving our planet.

Karim’s multidisciplinary background in mathematics, finance, performance art, civil engineering, and illustration made him a standout candidate for the Villa Albertine residency. Selected from about 900 applicants, he exemplifies cross-cultural, interdisciplinary collaboration. His friends and supporters eagerly anticipate his next steps, as Karim aims to leave a lasting legacy in Houston that benefits all, as all his many projects to return to Houston take shape.

In the words of Picasso, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.” Through his art, Karim Oyarzabal invites us to rethink our relationship with nature and our planet, reminding us that art and nature, though different, reveal profound truths about our existence.

M C CLAIN GALLERY

ELEVATING ART IN HOUSTON AND BEYOND

INTERVIEW BY JOHN BERNHARD

Opposite from left:

Co-Directors

Hélène Schlumberger and Sharon Graham

McClain Gallery is renowned for its dedication to exhibiting and acquiring museum-quality modern and contemporary art. In an insightful interview with ArtHouston, founder Robert McClain, along with Co-Directors Sharon Graham and Hélène Schlumberger, delve into the gallery’s dynamic program. They discuss their representation of significant twentieth-century figures while nurturing the talents of emerging artists, including a strong commitment to many Texas-based artists.

JOHN BERNHARD: How has Robert McClain, since beginning his career as an art dealer in 1980 and founding McClain Gallery in 2000, balanced a commitment to local and regional artists with an evolving national and international outlook?

ROBERT MCCLAIN: We have always seen ourselves as a Houston-based gallery but with a national outlook. Over time that became an international perspective, but we have always maintained a commitment to local and regional artists as well. We feel a responsibility to inform and educate our audience through a balanced program featuring artworks that run the gamut from emerging to established to blue chip artists.

JB: Can you discuss the balance between representing established twentieth-century figures and committing to younger generations of artists, particularly those based in Texas?

SHARON GRAHAM: We have artists on our roster that have been with McClain Gallery for decades and some that we’ve only come to work with in recent months. The gallery-artist relationship is so important and our goal is to cultivate those relationships and provide support in any way we can to each artist that we work with. As a Houston-based gallery, maintaining these relationships with local artists is essential. Since the pandemic, we have tried to take a step back and look at our artist roster as a whole and identify gaps that we needed to fill esthetically and socially. A goal of our programming is to exhibit 20th century artists and a younger generation of artists together in order to contextualize the work within the canon of art history.

JB: Your exhibition program includes survey and group shows that explore contemporary themes within historical contexts. Can you provide an example of a recent exhibition that successfully achieved this?

HÉLÈNE SCHLUMBERGER: Our recent exhibition Strangeness, Tone, Translucency (April – June, 2024) was a broad investigation of collage and took as its founding principle an interest in material and transformation. While I curated it, I let a strong bend toward assemblage pull the works toward one another like a thread. An older generation of collage artists (Dorothy Hood, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Robert Motherwell) were represented alongside artists working today nationally and in Houston: Nari Ward, Salle Werner Vaughn, Delita Martin, Jodi Hays, Nathaniel Donnett, Carl E. Hazlewood, and Radcliffe Bailey (who is sadly no longer with us but whose work is so relevant). A show like this allows us to

foreground our roster artists and, like Sharon mentioned above, contextualize their work within a broad field. Strangeness, Tone, Translucency was also an opportunity for us to bring in new artists to the gallery and build connections across state lines and generations. Our point of view remains that of a local gallery, but our ability to bring works together of national and international stature, most by living artists and others by icons of the 20th century, shapes our global presence.

JB: As secondary market specialists, McClain Gallery is known for its discretion and expertise. Can you share some insights into the process of sourcing and researching high-quality artworks for your clients?

RM: The artworld is complex and in many respects arcane. That is especially the case with the secondary market. Over many years, we have fostered working relationships with dealers, museum professionals, auction houses, and collectors to stay informed. We engage whoever and wherever good works and good insight are available. Research, constant contact, and travel to the major global art markets is vital. It is a very competitive landscape. A bit of luck always helps when locating a rediscovered masterwork.

Robert McClain posing in front of Ultra Spheroid Glo-Pod (Iridescent Lilac), 2015, Blow-molded acrylic

JB: How do you approach educating and guiding both new and seasoned collectors in the art world? Are there specific strategies or programs you use to engage and support them?

RM: We have always prided ourselves in our interest in building relationships with new collectors. Besides presenting a specific artwork, it helps the new collector to understand how that artist is part of a great tradition or important current themes in contemporary art. An artwork is rich in so many ways, as a personal expression of the experiences of the artist, its connection to art history, of the place and the zeitgeist of the times. When a new collector embraces the many ways in which they can enjoy an artwork and the world it references, then a dialog and relationship can flourish. We are fortunate that collectors who began very modestly now bolster their passion by requesting our assistance in finding important artworks for their collection.

SG: As an art educator in the early years of my career, I have always loved starting from the very beginning with someone who has a budding interest in art. Art History has been a passion of mine since college and our inventory

of works by blue chip artists is a valuable tool in beginning the conversation about collecting. Walking through an art fair with a client is a crash course in learning to look at art and identify what they like. This can be a valuable tool for us to advise their collecting. I often tell my clients: If you can’t stop thinking about something you’ve seen at a gallery or a fair, it may be meant to be. As with our artists, our relationships with clients are immensely important. When a new or seasoned collector finds a piece they love, it’s thrilling for us as well!

HS: I find that focusing on the gallery’s strengths and know-how is the best way to approach any collector. I work hard to understand and interpret the work our artists make in order to do their practices justice; this allows me to pass on that knowledge and understanding to the collector. The biggest asset a collector can have is a belief in the work of artists and why it is worth engaging with in the different ways the gallery makes room for. We build trust with our clients thanks to that discernment, but also our expertise in practical matters –logistics, art handling, presentation… They all play a big role in our day-to-day.

“ The artworld is complex and in many respects arcane. ”

–Robert McClain

JB: With over three decades of experience, what changes have you observed in the art market, and how has McClain Gallery adapted to these changes to continue providing market-savvy advice to your clients?

RM: The most significant change is how global the art market has become over the last 20 years with the years since the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, representing an unprecedented growth in collecting all over the globe, and with it, prices. When the conversation became one of art as an asset and part of an overall investment portfolio, for better and worse, the market exploded. It created exciting opportunities for artists. It made many works too expensive for museums. It created speculation. We are now going through a reordering of the market in which more focus is on the passion of what an artwork can invoke and on collectors who buy for that reason and not as a commodity. This I find healthy.

From top: Installation view of Ted Stamm.

Photo by Lawrence Knox Installation view of Strangeness, Tone, Translucency

Photo by Tom Dubrock

WHAT IS

ART THERAPY?

BY JEAN TARAS, M.A., ATR-P

If I had a dollar for every time that question crossed my path. According to the American Art Therapy Association, it’s defined as “a mental health profession that enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.” However, this definition merely scratches the surface of the profound impact art therapy can have.

From my perspective and personal journey, art therapy goes beyond textbook definition. It’s about expressing emotions without the constraints of words and navigating those feelings through creative channels. Unlike traditional therapies that

heavily rely on verbalization, art therapy offers a unique pathway to uncover, rationalize, and process deep-rooted pain, trauma, or thoughts. It’s a journey of self-expression, with art as the modality – a vehicle for exploration and healing.

In the mid-1940s, the roots of art therapy took hold in England, with Adrian Hill emerging as the trailblazer and founder of the field. However, my passion for art therapy was further fueled by the remarkable stories of individuals who left an indelible mark on its history.

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, an inspiration to me, courageously taught art to Jewish children in a concentration camp, Terezín, during the Holocaust. Her legacy deeply moves me.

Left: Jean Taras, Falling to pieces after loss, papier collé

Right: Jean Taras, Defining art therapy, mixed media

CONTRARY TO COMMON BELIEF, ARTISTS CAN BE THE MOST CHALLENGING RECIPIENTS OF ART THERAPY. “

Jean Taras, Working with materials outside of my comfort zone , quilling.

When I share the concept of art therapy, I reflect on how she profoundly impacted those children’s lives. Art, for them, was more than expression; it became a powerful distraction from the surrounding evil. And, even more astounding, some of the drawings from these children were recovered after the Holocaust and exhibited to the public at the Jewish Museum in Prague (holocaustedu.org). Dicker-Brandeis, amid harsh conditions, embodied compassion through art therapy, transcending limits and defying boundaries. Exploring the history of art therapy reveals stories that shaped the field and showcases the limitless potential of creativity in healing.

In the realm of art therapy, numerous misconceptions prevail, with the primary myth being the belief that one must possess artistic ability to engage in the therapeutic process. Interestingly, some of my most successful clients have candidly admitted their limited artistic abilities, humorously cautioning me about their proficiency, or lack thereof, in drawing a straight line – a sentiment I cherish. In response, I often assure them that they are precisely the individuals I consider my ideal clients.

Contrary to common belief, artists can be the most challenging recipients of art therapy. This paradox unfolds as artists often grapple with the traits that define their creative nature, such as perfectionism, visionary thinking, and some stubbornness in their artistic methods. The struggle with unfinished projects, aversion to imperfections and flaws, and occasional bouts of self-deprecation are commonplace challenges. Furthermore, artists may find it challenging to embrace critiques, which are not always perceived as kind, positive, or welcomed.

Regrettably, the prevalent misconception that art therapy is exclusively tailored for skilled artists has dissuaded many from exploring its transformative potential. It is crucial to dispel these myths and recognize that art therapy is a welcoming space for individuals of all artistic backgrounds, promoting healing and self-discovery beyond the boundaries of artistic expertise.

As an artist and art therapist, I’m convinced that passion is our guiding light in life. Art has been my lifelong passion, dating way (way) back. Fond memories arise of drawing hours on end with my brother, unknowingly using art as my therapy – a way to absorb my mind and escape the challenges of childhood.

Think back to those moments in class when doodling on your notebook became a refuge from the teacher’s lecture. Surprisingly, that act was a form of art therapy, a method of distracting the mind and allowing thoughts to flow.

Art therapy, beyond canvas and paint, is a dynamic process that engages the mind, offering a sanctuary for thoughts to converge and surface. Whether through intentional creation or spontaneous doodles, art becomes a conduit for expression, providing a canvas for the mind’s intricacies.

My journey as an artist and art therapist has taught me that art is not confined to the realms of skill and technique; rather, it is a universal language that speaks to the depths of our being. It is a tool for self-discovery, healing, and, most importantly, a means of connecting with our inner selves. So, the next time you find yourself lost in a sketch or doodle, remember that you are not just creating art – you are engaging in a therapeutic dialogue with your own mind.

Hana Zieglerová (1933-1944), Driveway to a house .

Milena Deimlová (1932-1944) Heads, trees, fruit, house

These undated (1943-1944) watercolor on paper, 6 x 8 in., were created during the drawing classes in the Terezín Ghetto organized between 1943 and 1944 by the painter and teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944); in the Jewish Museum in Prague’s collection since 1945.

galleryLISTINGS

AEROSOL WARFARE

2110 Jefferson 832 748-8369

ANDREW DURHAM GALLERY

1821 W. Alabama St. 713 522-2336

ANYA TISH GALLERY

4411 Montrose Blvd. 713 524-2299

ART MACHINE GALLERY

1502 Sawyer Street, #215 281 513-1691

ART OF THE WORLD

2201 Westheimer Rd. 713 526-1201

ARTIQUE

1024 Studewood St. 281 467-6065

ART LEAGUE BAYTOWN

110 W Texas Ave. Baytown

281 427-2222

ARCHWAY

GALLERY

2305 Dunlavy St. 713 522-2409

John Slaby, Phone Prison, Oil on Wood 24x12 in.

ARDEST GALLERY

25200 Grogan’s Park Drive The Woodlands 832 296-6723

ARDEN GALLERY

239 Westheimer Rd. 713 371-6333

ART LEAGUE HOUSTON

1953 Montrose Blvd. 713 523-9530

ASHER GALLERY

4848 Main St. 713 529-4848

ASSEMBLY GALLERY

4411 Montrose Blvd. #F 713 485-5510

AVANT-ART GALLERY

2625 Colquitt St. 713 657-5802

BARBARA DAVIS GALLERY

4411 Montrose Blvd. #D 713 520-9200

BISONG GALLERY 1305 Sterrett St. 713 498-3015

BOOKER LOWE GALLERY By Appointment 713 880-1541

CASA RAMIREZ FOLK ART 241 West 19th St. 713-880-2420

CATHERINE

COUTURIER GALLERY

2635 Colquitt St. 713 524-5070

COMMUNITY ARTISTS

4101 San Jacinto, Suite 116 713 523-1616

DAVID SHELTON GALLERY

3909 Main St. #B 832 538-0924

DEAN DAY GALLERY

2639 Colquitt St. 713 520-1021

D.M. ALLISON GALLERY 2709 Colquitt St. 832 607-4378

DEBORAH COLTON GALLERY

2445 North Blvd. 713 869-5151

DEVIN BORDEN GALLERY

3917 Main St. 713 529-2700

DIMMITT CONTEMPORARY ART 3637 W Alabama St. #160 281 468-6569

ELLIO FINE ART

3201 Allen Parkway, #180 281 660-1832

GALLERY SONJA ROESCH

2309 Caroline St. 713 659-5424

THE GITE GALLERY 2024 E. Alabama St. 713 523-3311

GALVESTON ART CENTER 2501 Market St. Galveston 409 763-2403

GLADE GALLERY 24 Waterway Avenue The Woodlands 832 557-8781

HARAMBEE ART GALLERY 901 Bagby St. harambeeartgallery.com

JOSH PAZDA HIRAM BUTLER 4520 Blossom St. 713 863-7097

HEIDI VAUGHAN FINE ART 3510 Lake St. 832 875-6477

HOOKS-EPSTEIN GALLERIES 2631 Colquitt St. 713 522-0718

HOUSTON CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY 1441 West Alabama Street 713 529-4755

HUNTER GORHAM GALLERY 1834 1/2 Westheimer Rd. 713 492-0504

David Adickes, Rembrandt

2014, oil on canvas

INMAN GALLERY

3901 Main St. 713 526-7800

JACK MEIER GALLERY

2310 Bissonnet 713 526-2983

JONATHAN HOPSON GALLERY

904 Marshall St. 832 819-2918

KOELSCH GALLERY

1020 Peden St. 713 862-5744

KOSLOV LARSEN

4411 Montrose Blvd. #C 713 505-1499

LAWNDALE ART CENTER

4912 Main St, 713 528-5858

LAURA RATHE FINE ART

4444 Westheimer Rd. F105 + 2707 Colquitt St. 713 527-7700

M c CLAIN GALLERY 2242 Richmond Ave. 713 520-9988

MOODY GALLERY

2815 COLQUITT ST. 713 526-9911

MONTERROSO GALLERY

3911 Main St, 281 682-6628

NICOLE LONGNECKER

1440 Greengrass Dr. 346 800-2780

O’KANE GALLERY

UH-Downtown One Main Street 713 221-8042

PABLO CARDOZA GALLERY 1320 Nance St. 832 548-0404

PERIMETER ART GALLERY

2365 Rice Blvd. Suite E 713 521-5928

REDBUD GALLERY

303 E. 11th St. 713 862-2532

REEVES ART+DESIGN

2415 Taft St. 713 523-5577

RUDOLPH BLUME FINE ART 10771 Westpark Drive 713 589-9684

SERRANO GALLERY

2000 Edwards St. 713 724-0709

SEVEN SISTERS GALLERY

805 Rhode Pl. Suite 500 346 618-1011

SHE WORKS FLEXIBLE

1709 Westheimer Rd. 713 522-0369

SICARDI|AYER S| BACINO

GALLERY

1506 West Alabama St. 713 529-1313

TEXAS GALLERY

2012 Peden St. 713 524-1593

THORNWOOD GALLERY

7026 Old Katy Road #231 713 528-4278

FOLTZ FINE ART

2143 Westheimer Rd. 713 521-7500

Ibsen Espada Orange Desert , 2021, mixed media and carborundum on canvas, 20 x 16 in.

OFF THE WALL GALLERY

5015 Westheimer Rd. Galleria II, Level II 713 871-0940

Nelson De La Nuez The Glamorous Life , 2022, acrylic, oil, and mixed media on archival paper, 33 x 41 in.

THROUGHLINE

3909 Main St. Isabella court

WOODLANDS ART GALLERY

208 Nursery Rd. The Woodlands 832 668-534

Kenneth Halvorsen Studio 105 805-796-7489 www.halvorsenfineart.com

Melody Locke Studio 320 713-851-0134 https://melodylocke.com

Kymn Harrison Studio 205 www.kimnharrison.com

Clovis Postali Studio 215 832-696-5789 www.clovispostali.com

Fariba Abedin Studio 303 713-417-7777 www.faribaabedin.com

Serrano Gallery Studio 317 713-724-0709 www.serranogallery.com

Gretchen Bender Sparks Studio 112 713-444-7562 www.gretchenbendersparks.com

Tania Botelho Studio 102 281-660-5061 IG-@taniahbotelho

PerformingArtsSCHEDULE

ALLEY THEATRE

713 220-5700

NOISES OFF

Sept. 27 - Oct. 27

THE JANEIAD

Oct. 11 - Nov. 3

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Nov. 15 - Dec. 29

THE NIGHT SHIFT BEFORE CHRISTMAS Dec. 5 - Dec. 24

HOUSTON SYMPHONY

713 224-7575

FIESTA SINFÓNICA

Sept. 27

AIN’T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH: THE MUSIC OF MOTOWN

Sept. 28 & 29

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY FESTIVAL: BOHEMIAN RHAPSODIES

Sep. 29

OPENING WEEKEND: DVOŘÁK’S NEW WORLD

Oct. 4,5 & 6

TRIFONOV IN CONCERT Oct.10

DVOŘÁK’S VIOLIN CONCERTO Oct. 12 & 13

HANSEL AND GRETEL + DON QUIXOTE Nov.1,2 & 3

BACH, MOZART & BRAHMS Nov. 23 & 24

BEETHOVEN’S EMPEROR CONCERTO Nov. 29, 30 & Dec. 1

A Viennese Waltz Christmas Dec. 7 & 8

DA CAMERA 713 524-5050

TAKÁCS QUARTET AND JEREMY DENK, PIANO Sept. 26

SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA OCT. 4

CHIAROSCURO QUARTET OCT. 28

TERRI LYNE CARRINGTON’S NEW STANDARDS DEC. 6

TELEGRAPH QUARTET: NEW WORLDS Dec. 10

THEATRE UNDER THE STARS 713 558-2600

DEAR EVAN HANSEN Sept.10 – 22

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Oct. 22 – Nov. 3

DISNEY’S FROZEN Dec. 19 - 29

HOUSTON BALLET 713 227-2787

THE LITTLE MERMAID Sept. 6 - 15

VELOCITY Sept 19 - 29

HOUSTON GRAND OPERA 713-228-6737

GIUSEPPE VERDI IL TROVATORE Oct. 18 - Nov. 3

GIOACHINO ROSSINI CINDERELLA Oct. 25 - Nov. 9

JORINDE VOIGT: INSIDE INSIGHT

SICARDI AYERS BACINO GALLERY

BY FERNANDO CASTRO R.

Shadows and dyads, Jorinde Voigt’s April exhibit at Sicardi Ayers Bacino Gallery features several important works by the Berlinbased artist. On first impression an educated viewer of Voigt’s current works may find some affinity to Matisse’s colorful cutouts or O’Keeffe’s landscapes. But fairly soon the viewer would run out of comparisons because Voigt quickly imposes her own vision of art. Although Voigt’s procedures are gestural and performative, her thought processes are conceptual in unexpected ways. To be reminded, in conceptual art the main point may not be what appears to be.

Voigt is not a stranger to Houston. In 2019 she was invited by the Menil Drawing Institute to execute an on-site mural and to give a talk with Edouard Kopp about her work. For her current exhibit, Voigt has gifted us with Phoenix (Texas) a mural whose hues and forms differ substantially from the one at the Menil five years ago. It is helpful to understand the many myths about the phoenix in order to decipher the possible meanings of the mural; Voigt’s allusion to the phoenix is closer to the Chinese version, although the predominant purple hue is what the original Greek etymology of phoenix refers to. A description of the process of the production of this mural also provides a tool to its interpretation. Voigt began by noticing the colors of some wild flowers growing in Houston at this time of the year: bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, and blanket flowers: blue, orange, red, pink, yellow,

and green. Then came the visually intense process of matching paint of those very hues to use in her mural design. As a result, the colors in the mural are not alien to the local environment. The design itself is both gestural and calculated, as she herself describes it: the act of painting is a performance of her body that unpacks different aspects of her life as a kind of dance that both forges and follows the forms and rhythms of her work as if it were a musical score. Indeed, at her Menil talk she voiced the idea that her body is always in contact and in context with her work.

Both Vertical, the 2019 mural at the Menil’s Drawing Institute, and the 2024 Phoenix (Texas) will be eventually erased from their material support. Their fate is one of the philosophical points that Voigt addresses in her poetics —a finitude akin to that of humans. The intentional impermanence of these works is existentially significant. It is even more telling for Phoenix (Texas) because the common denominator in the myths to which its name alludes is one of disappearance and rebirth.

In Voigt’s art-historical arsenal there are not only artistic tropes like Twombly’s chalk drawings and Hokusai’s Phoenix, but also scientific ones like diagrams and graphs, musical scores and mathematical models that she puts to different uses. Some works like Hills that seem clearly denotative are really the rhythmic gestures of her body guided by emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Indeed, she compared the red lines in 42 Hills 2017 to

From left page clockwise:

Jorinde Voigt, 42 Hills , 2017

Ink, aluminium leaf, pastel, oil chalks on paper 55x110 in.

Jorinde Voigt, Dyade 12 , 2022

Gilded stainless steel, 16x27x29 in.

Jorinde Voigt, Contemplation #12 , 2020 Brass, 56x13x13 in.

Courtesy of Jorinde Voigt and Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino

Photos by: Roman März, Ben Fuchs and Amanda Holmes

Lucio Fontana’s assertive slashes in his famed cut canvases; and some more subtle gentler drawings inside the work, she associates to a “re-grouping” or “reflection” of thoughts and ideas about events. By the way, Voigt too uses the blade as a drawing tool, not to slash through the support but to peel through layers.

Voigt’s use of gold leaf in her paintings is unlike Sherrie Levine’s glitzy use of gold-plated bronze for her 1991 Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp). Rather, Voigt uses it for the characteristics of the material itself: its opaqueness (in effectively covering what is under it), and its changing appearance as we perceive it from different angles. Beyond its physical and perceptual traits, the artist and viewer can unpack a host of other connections to the precious metal: the life-giving sun, the symbol of wealth, etc. According to Voigt herself, in the mural Phoenix (Texas), the wavy design done in gold-leaf stands for “folded time.” The meaning of the phrase is somewhat cryptic, but it certainly defies the idea of linear time.

Dyads are gold-plated steel sculptures whose basic structure is two perpendicularly intersecting planes, each of which Voigt designed with the same gestural curves that she employs in many of her two-dimensional works. Voigt’s Dyads have two unique peculiarities: that they possess multiple bases, and most importantly, that if seen from a particular angle, the two planes can be seen as two lines perpendicular to one another: the axis

mundi and the horizon. Both concepts have been metaphors in the history of religion and of philosophy. The former as a connection between the earthly and the heavenly; the latter as the sum total of ideas that define a Weltanschauung at a particular time in history.

As for shadows, her Dyads and her delicate brass hanging pieces, Contemplations, are the only works in the exhibit capable of casting them. The latter are Fibonacci constructions whose measurements follow the formula [F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2)]. They are shaped like two square pyramids that share the base and whose apexes point in opposite directions (up and down). It is worth remembering that the alluded Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci), author of Liber Abaci (book of calculations), is the Italian mathematician who popularized Arabic numbers in Europe —without which the Western world would likely not have developed science nor advanced mathematics.

It is nothing less than surprising that an artist so intent in giving form to such a variety of gestures and mental states (ideas, feelings, emotions, etc.) would create such a mathematical filigree. It almost makes us want to start all over looking to find the golden ratio in her works. Is that what the gold-leaf is all about? Is that what the numbers in her Ludwig von Beethoven Opus 126 #4 seek to establish, a mathematical progression camouflaged as bagatelles?

VINCENT VALDEZ

CONTEMPORARY ARTS MUSEUM

Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… is the artist’s first major museum survey and spans over two decades of his work, from early career drawings to current allegorical portraits. This exhibition cements Valdez as one of the most important American painters working today—imaging his country and its people, politics, pride, and foibles.

Working across painting, video, drawing, sculpture, lithography, and multimedia installation, Valdez deftly addresses the failings and triumphs of contemporary American society with a reverential focus on collective memory and overlooked political histories. Valdez states, “I create images as instruments to probe the past in order to reveal an immediacy to what is occurring today. I am alarmed by the denial of history. I will continue to create counter-images to impede the social amnesia that enables our fateful desire to repeat historic patterns.”

Including previously unexhibited and new bodies of work, Just a Dream… is a unique opportunity to see the breadth of Valdez’s practice. The artist often works in series, with this exhibition marking the first time these chapters are in dialogue. Valdez celebrates common people, like his own family members, as empowered, formidable, and present, while challenging traditional and historic symbols of power within contemporary society.

Born in San Antonio, Vincent Valdez is a Houston and Los Angeles-based artist. His work has been exhibited at prestigious institutions like the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, LACMA, Blanton Museum of Art, MFA Houston, MASS MoCA, and El Museo del Barrio. November 15, 2024 - March 23, 2025

MAKESHIFT MEMORIALS

BLAFFER ART MUSEUM

This Fall, KADIST San Francisco and the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston are co-organizing Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions , an exhibition in two parts with programming examining the shifts in dilated time, ritual, memory-keeping, and community-building in artistic practices in the years 2020-2024. The exhibition traces the cyclical nature of improvised, responsive yet sustained systems of mutual aid, information sharing, and embodied knowledge and their intersectional, intimate, and enduring effects, as magnified by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The exhibition considers artists as prognosticators and traces their evolving practices and approaches, informed by activism and the creation of mutual aid networks spurred from lived experiences such as the still ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic and Black and Brown grief. The artists assume the role of narrators for memetic memory, muffled silences, and informal archiving against power structures sanctioning conditions of personal isolation, cultural amnesia, and planetary extinction.

Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions is a diary of experiences, encompassing not only what happened but also the possibility of what never happened in the ongoing process of remembering and recollection, as a form of ‘protest against forgetting. The years 2020-2024 began with the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic, which continues to expose systemic inequities disproportionately affecting historically marginalized communities. The exhibition is guided by entangled ethics in order to untangle forms of sustained solidarities inching toward liberation. October 11, 2024 – March 9, 2025

Vincent Valdez, So Long, Mary Ann, 2019. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Collection of Mike Healy and Tim Walsh

Tony Cokes, Some Munich Moments 1937–1972, 2022 (stills), HD video, color, sound, Courtesy of the artist and KADIST collection. Photo: Greene Naftali, New York

LATINO CATALYST

How a Small Ethnic Studies Center

Helped Transform Latino Art in Houston

Over the past five years, the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American and Latino/a Studies (CMALS) has significantly impacted the local arts scene, particularly for Latino artists. Through various projects and events, including the city-wide Latino Art Now! (LAN) event in 2019, annual billboard art displays, and the development of a digital artist registry, CMALS has created a digital pathway that amplifies community voices and histories, transforming how Houstonians experience art and culture.

Despite the advances in recognizing Latinos, the nation’s largest ethnic minority, their art, history, and cultural expressions have often been underrepresented in mainstream institutions. Houston, a city with deep Mexican cultural roots and a Latino population that exceeds 50%, has particularly lacked accessibility to Latino art and culture, especially in museums. While recent efforts have made some progress, funding for Latino arts and humanities has been insufficient, and there are few standalone cultural institutions within Latino neighborhoods.

CMALS’s arts projects embody democracy in action, aiming to integrate Latino art into Houston’s arts infrastructure. These initiatives began in response to community leaders and artists

protesting the lack of support for Latino artists and arts events. A 2018 study by the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture revealed that less than 5% of Houston’s arts funding was allocated to Latino artists. As part of a national research consortium whose members included the Smithsonian, when she discovered the consortium was searching for its next site to host its national Latino Art Now! event, CMALS Director, Dr Pamela Anne Quiroz, raised her hand and asked, “why not Houston?” This marked the beginning of a transformative effort to embrace and empower the city’s Latino arts community.

The organization of Latino Art Now! Houston in 2019 was a resounding success, featuring 108 installations, exhibits, and performances by over 200 artists, and involving 70 organizations, including mainstream museums. The event generated substantial media coverage, reaching an estimated 77.2 million people through various channels. To further promote Latino art, CMALS partnered with Clear Channel to produce a public art exhibit of 56 billboards showcasing Latino artists throughout Houston, extending the artwork to digital billboards across Texas.

Dr. Quiroz, alongside Juana Guzman and Dr. Marisela Martinez, developed Latino cARTographies, an interactive digital archive

and public knowledge tool reflecting Houston’s Latino art landscape. This immersive, bilingual touchscreen allows visitors to explore over 250 Latino artists, 81 landmarks, and more than 3,000 images, creating a museum-without-walls experience.

Latino cARTographies provides access to personal stories and insights into the motivations and symbolism behind the artworks.

CMALS continued to innovate, presenting annual billboard art displays featuring new Latino artists each year, and offering immersive art programs celebrating local artists and their supporting organizations. These digital projects aim to preserve, educate, and entertain, showcasing Latino art in innovative ways. In 2023, CMALS hosted a free immersive art program that attracted 1,600 attendees across eight showings, resulting in requests from other cities to display the Latino cARTographies digital board.

Through these efforts, CMALS has supported the redefinition of American art, hosting art salons, exhibits, and virtual programs. The galvanization of Houston’s Latino community to host LAN and the subsequent development of Latino cARTographies have shifted the trajectory for Latino artists, sparking new arts initiatives. Collaborations with media partner Gibson Interna-

tional enabled the creation and curation of the digital board, despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic.

Reflecting on these past five years, CMALS has assessed the impact of their initiatives through artist surveys, media coverage, event attendance, and community feedback. The distribution of Latino cARTographies to six satellite locations, including the Houston Heritage Society Museum and George Bush Intercontinental Airport, has expanded its reach and impact.

Houston’s increased attention to Latino art is evident in the creation of new positions for Latinos in decision-making roles and the development of Latino arts initiatives, such as Houston’s BIPOC arts network and the ALMAAHH organization, aiming to establish a Latino Museum. CMALS’s contributions have been instrumental in the growth and recognition of Latino art in Houston, offering a model for other cities to capture and preserve the cultural contributions of their diverse communities.

By fostering an inclusive arts environment, CMALS has played a crucial role in transforming Houston’s art landscape, ensuring that Latino artists and their rich cultural heritage are celebrated and accessible to all.

Latino cARTographies Digital Board unveiled September 29, 2022

Opposite page: Veronica Ibarguengoitia EcoPoster, 2019

ASH BEHESHTI

Could you please share some insights into your background and interests?

As a self-taught artist from California, I consider myself a visual story teller. What motivates me most is originality and uniqueness. When creating a new painting, my focus is always on inventing new ways to tell that story in the most distinctive and awe-inspiring manner. My passion for life drawing, painting, photography, music and interior design has shaped my unique style of mixed media art. By combining various techniques and materials in a multistep process which includes paper collaging, digital collaging, silkscreening, photo transfer and hand painting, I bring these canvas stories to life.

What themes do you typically explore in your work?

As a figurative artist, I’m fascinated by the human form, its natural beauty and its various expressions. Historically, the female body has been celebrated in every possible medium including paintings, sculptures, dance, film and photography. My goal is to continue this tradition. I’m influenced by female role models in my personal life as well as others throughout society, history and pop culture. Whether it’s a closeup of a face in deep thought or a figure of a woman in a glamorous pose, I portray my subject in the most flattering and inspirational light. To depict elements of spirituality in my work, I often paint butterflies dancing and surrounding my subject. Representing transformation, beauty and freedom, these butterflies tell the story of a woman experiencing inner growth and empowerment in a timeless and tasteful image that’s captured in that moment in time.

What are your thoughts on being chosen as the Featured Artist for the Bayou City Art Festival?

Having been chosen as the featured artist in the upcoming Bayou City Art Festival is truly a great honor for me. With over 50 years of excellence and commitment to supporting and promoting countless local and national artists, this organization is one of the most respected and highly ranked festivals in the country, especially in fine art community. Their endorsement of my art means the world to me and their invitation to participate in this year’s festival represents my very first art exhibition in the great state of Texas. The opportunity to share my creations and grow my viewership in this state, especially the city of Houston with it’s rich history and art culture is absolutely a dream come true.

Above: Ash Beheshti in his studio.

Right: Ash Beheshti, Revelation, mixed media on canvas, 30”x40” in. Photos courtesy of the artist.

KEDA SHARBER

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Rooted in the Caribbean, born on the East Coast, and raised in the Midwest, I am now thriving in the South. I am Keda, a storyteller via photo, film, written & spoken word. Living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle growing up has afforded me invaluable experiences with different people and cultures around the United States, which has informed my art in invaluable ways. The arts have always been a large part of my life. But no matter the genre I choose to focus on, my life has always revolved around “story.”

Thematically, what is your work usually about?

Thematically, my work centers Black people and their experiences, specifically Black women. The world I remember growing up in always positioned me, or people who resembled me as side characters. It gives me joy to change that

narrative and place us front and center in our own stories. Showing the beautiful complexity and possibility of Black peoples’ lived experience to our community is work that I never want to stop doing.

What upcoming projects are you working on?

UNBOUND is my Space Taking Artist Residency project powered by Fresh Arts. It is an immersive art experience that encourages attendees to examine the ways in which they have accepted limiting beliefs and dares them to explore the infinite possibilities of who they can become and the many things they can achieve when they embody a life of complete freedom. UNBOUND fuses film, photography, dance, poetry and more into a cohesive, collaborative, communitybased project that challenges attendees to embrace the spirit of the project and not only see art, but be art.

I am also proud of the work that have been able to do with the international organization Brown Girls Do Ballet, which aims to increase participation of underrepresented populations in ballet. We are currently in pre-production for a balletbased feature length film (Torque) that I wrote and will be directing.

What was the very first independent creative project you worked on?

It’s difficult to pinpoint the very first independent creative project I’ve worked on, as I’ve been a creative soul for as long as I can remember. My God-Brother and I would put on talent shows in the basement of my family home when I was 9 years old. I would write poems and stories, compiling them into little books when I was in middle school. High school saw me writing songs and teaching them three-part vocal groups. Once my children entered the picture, I would produce little, short films starring them. But I would say the most influential independent creative project that happened in the early stages of my photography journey would be my 365 Self-Portrait project, where I aspired to take a portrait of myself every day for a year. I didn’t last the whole year, but those images pushed the limits of my creativity at the time and opened the door for me to become a professional photographer and for that I am grateful.

What types of mediums do you work in?

I call myself a storyteller by way of photo, film, and the written and spoken word. I absolutely adore creating both moving and still images, but words are home to me. The way that language can evoke any and every emotion, how pictures can be painted with simple phrases, how meaning can be shifted with the addition of a single word or punctuation - it’s magical. When my emotions are too much or the world around me grows chaotic, I find comfort in my pen.

What recent projects are you most proud of?

I have filmed and directed a short film “Dear Brown Girl” with Brown Girls Do Ballet that has been accepted in two film festivals so far. My documentary UNBOUND has also been accepted into a film festival. So, I have to say I am proud of the strides I am making in film.

Keda Sharber photo by Natasha Nivan

Right: Suspension, dancers: Carmen Jones & Brooklyn Jones ©Keda Sharber 2021

Is having a “successful career” as an artist something that is important to you?

Success for me is having the freedom to focus on what and who is important in my life. Success is also knowing that am living up to my potential and giving feet to the dreams that live in my heart and mind. Following these definitions, having a successful career is of extreme importance to me. I want to be able to look back at my life at the end of it all and be proud of the relationships I built, the people I inspired, and the legacy I left behind.

Why do you create art?

I create art because I must. If I didn’t, I don’t think I would be able to rest. The ideas that blossom in my mind won’t leave me alone if I don’t usher them into reality.

Anything else you wish to add?

I am so thankful to Fresh Arts for the opportunity to participate in the Space Taking Artist Residency. The way this organization has recognized and supported emerging artists is life changing. The team is such a pleasure to work with and the wealth of information and connections they provide has been invaluable.

EMBARKING ON A

ON A JOURNEY

THROUGH THE CAPTIVATING BLEND OF NATURE, MYTH, AND UNIVERSAL BEAUTY.

THE ARTISTRY OF CASSANDRA BOHNE-LINNARD’S

BY WILLIAM HANHAUSEN

Cassandra Bohne-Linnard’s artistry transcends cultural boundaries, merging her rich heritage with the elegance of Art Nouveau. Her sculptures whisper tales of forgotten romance, serving as silent guardians of time that invite viewers into a labyrinth of imagination through her new series.

With each touch, Cassandra reimagines classical splendor in dynamic motion, her work becoming a testament to the transformative power of art. Her approach, infused with a reverence for life’s ephemeral beauty, breathes life into her creations, aiming to infuse the world with an essence of transcendent beauty. From vibrant butterflies taking flight from her cloches in a symphony of colors to the delicate intricacy of her finished pieces, Cassandra’s artistry mirrors nature’s poetic embrace. Her creations, ranging from vaulted sculptures to ethereal timepieces, beckon hearts to surrender to beauty’s timeless allure.

In her hands, raw materials become sacred vessels that preserve the beauty of butterflies and weave narratives of ancient love and longing. Her intricate timepieces and ethereal domes invite viewers to embrace existence’s fragile dance, each moment a precious gift.

As her art graces prestigious institutions and private estates, Cassandra’s legacy intertwines with our collective consciousness. Her dedication to environmental stewardship is evident in her use of sustainably sourced materials, highlighting a commitment to preserving delicate species.

Cassandra’s collection, including butterfly cloches and exquisite timepieces, is featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and her Silver Street Studio. Her work has been highlighted in auctions at galas for notable organizations like the Houston Grand Opera and the Alzheimer’s Association, securing a lasting presence in both public spaces and private collections.

Clockwise:

Cassandra Bohne-Linnard, The Phoenix Tree, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 48”x60” in.

The Summit , 2022, hand cut and painted clock face, 12 Morpho Marcus Major preserved butterflies (Peru) 21”x21”x3” in.

Aztec Heavens 2023, hand painted, wood carved Aztec calendar clock face, Danaus Plexippus preserved butterflies (North America) 21”x21”x3” in.

“ The fluttering elegance of Cassandra’s butterfly clocks captures the essence of time with delicate grace, and a reminder of the fleeting beauty of every moment . ”

-Carla Bisong

ANYA TISH

After receiving a Master’s degree in psychology from Jagiellonian University, in Krakow, Poland, Anya Tish came to

TED COWART

Ted was a beacon of light in the lives of so many. His effervescent personality and tireless work ethic led him to a life most of us can only dream of. From the

the United States to study art. She took art history courses at the University of Houston, and studio art courses at the Glassell School of Art.

In 1996, after several years working as Director at Gerhardt Wurzer Gallery, she decided to open her own gallery.

Anya firmly believed that an essential responsibility of a contemporary art gallery was to showcase unknown talent. For over 20 years, she did just that.

In Montrose, her gallery excelled in representing artists from diverse cultural backgrounds and provided a platform for those addressing significant social and environmental issues. Her expertise in emphasizing the connection between concept and materials across various media—painting, sculpture, photography, and video—made her a prominent voice in the city.

In 2019, during an interview I conducted for ArtHouston, Anya told me: “The

bustling streets of New York City to the sun-soaked avenues of Palm Springs, Ted was the go-to advertising guru. Don Draper might have been the star of Mad Men, but Ted was the real deal, making waves off 57th and Madison. His success in design opened doors to a second chapter in the fine arts—something Ted had always aspired to.

He sketched models on the sets of photoshoots and painted serene landscapes of Joshua Tree, never losing his creative edge. His beautiful paintings, characterized by perfectly curated color palettes and masterful brush techniques, are a lasting testament to his tremendous legacy.

In May 2024, Ted passed away doing what he loved: photographing the fields of Texas for a new series he was eager to embark upon. Even at 86, he possessed a spark and vitality that most people can only envy. His secret? Doing one thing every day that brought him joy—painting.

work of the artist that I choose to represent needs to demand my attention and resonate with me. It needs to persist with me after I have left the piece. It needs to show me something that I didn’t know before or tell me something that I have felt. I must be able to connect to the work with both excitement and respect.”

Anya also had a keen interest in art installations, three-dimensional artworks designed for specific spaces that alter perceptions and create unique environments. She believed in forging new relationships between artwork and audience, beyond traditional forms like painting, drawing, photography, or sculpture. Anya was dedicated to promoting art installations, using her gallery as a venue for artists committed to this form. She will be deeply missed, and we hope her vision will continue to thrive through her gallery’s legacy. - John Bernhard

Ted was a man of exceptional intelligence and wit, a fantastic storyteller who recounted the remarkable events of his life with humility. What might have seemed like just another day to Ted was often a jaw-dropping tale to his listeners. Ever curious, Ted embraced change, facing the new and unfamiliar with open arms and a determined spirit. At 86, he had even mastered the intricacies of Instagram, amassing a loyal following of over four thousand admirers who cherished every post.

Ted will be deeply missed by all who were fortunate enough to know him. Yet, there is comfort in knowing that he is now reunited with his lifelong partner, whose absence had left a void in his heart. Ted’s light continues to shine brightly through his cherished memories, his stunning artwork, and the enduring legacy he leaves behind. -Sabrina Bernhard

PUBLISHER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JOHN BERNHARD

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ArtHouston is published semi-annually by ArtHouston Magazine, LLC. Printed in Mexico. ©Copyright 2022. All right reserved. The entire contents of ArtHouston may not be reproduced in any matter, either in part or in whole, without written permission from the publisher. In addition, the artists within hold copyrights on their images and essays. Any use of or copying of their works without their written permission is in violation of the copyright law. ArtHouston Magazine, LLC. is not responsible in any way for mispellings, omissions, incorrect phone numbers or addresses. Unsolicited manuscripts, and other materials must be accompanied by postage and a self-addressed return envelope. ArtHouston is not responsible for unsolicited submissions. Address all correspondence to: ArtHouston Magazine, 9114 N. Allegro St. Houston, TX 77080.

Arthur Demicheli

WRITER, PHOTOGRAPHER

Arthur Demicheli is a freelance copywriter and photographer from New York who has worked in the marketing, advertising, and publishing industries since 1992.

Arthur has been a dynamic part of ArtHouston’s team for many years. He holds an MA in Humanities from the University of Geneva. He is an avid fan of art, film, and photography history.

Fernando Castro R.

WRITER, CRITIC, CURATOR, ARTIST

Fernando Castro R. began his career as a critic in 1988 writing for El Comercio (Lima); since then, he has contributed to ArtNexus, Spot, ArtHouston, Literal, Aperture, etc. His curatorial work includes “Modernity in the Southern Andes” “The States of Pedro Meyer,” “The Art of Risk / The Risk of Art,” “Prime Years,” etc. Castro has delivered lectureperformances at New York University, and the University of St. Thomas. His works are part of the permanent collections of many museums.

Sara Henderson

WRITER

Sara Madeleine Henderson brings a diverse set of skills to her Houston-based art consultancy, providing 20 years of services helping clients find creative solutions to issues involving large amounts of data. She manages art collections and artists’ projects nationally that require problem solving and liaising with lawyers, estate and tax professionals, board members, or advisors.

Dr. Rodolphe Meyer

WRITER, ARTIST

Blending backgrounds in medicine, computer science, and AI, Rodolphe Meyer uniquely explores artistic expression. With a physician’s understanding of the human condition and a computer scientist’s expertise in AI, he creates digital art that resonates intellectually and emotionally. His work often involves interactive installations that reflect human emotions.

Sabrina Bernhard

WRITER

Sabrina Bernhard is a graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, where she received a BA in International Relations and in French. She is working with ArtHouston to fulfill her passion for the arts, while further developing Houston’s admirable cross-cultural reputation. Sabrina is passionate about travelling, la Francophonie, music, and culture.

Éamon Ó Caoineachán

WRITER, POET

Éamon Ó Caoineachán is a poet and freelance writer. He is originally from Co. Donegal in Ireland, but lives in Houston. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crannóg, Irish Times, History Ireland, IrishCentral, and various poetry journals and magazines in the U.S. and Ireland. He is currently in the PhD in Arts research programme at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland.

Jean Taras

WRITER

Jean Taras, an art therapist near Houston, holds a BFA from Academy of Art University and a Master’s in art therapy/clinical mental health from Edinboro University. A New York transplant, she credits her passion for art to her exposure to the city’s culture, art scene, and years in architecture & interior design.

Dr. Anna Tahinci

WRITER, ART HISTORIAN

Dr. Anna Tahinci is Professor of Art History at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. A native of Greece, she studied History and Archaeology in Athens, and spent eleven years in Paris, studying Art History and Comparative Literature at the Sorbonne (Ph.D. on Rodin’s collectors), and Museum Studies at the Ecole du Louvre.

William Hanhausen

WRITER

An art venture capital investor, a former Professor of Marketing at the Universidad Anahuac, Mexico City. Member of the Latino Advisory Committee at the MFAH, and member of the board of the Museum of Texas Art. While what he describes as “Latino Art is not Latin American Art”, he is a maverick of “Latino and Chicano Art an underrepresented american style”.

Photo by

George Krause

editor’s pick Clayton Hurt

True North 2024 is a nine-month public sculpture exhibition held from March to December along Heights Boulevard in Houston Heights, Texas. This year’s exhibition features eight unique sculptures by artists such as Dion Laurent with AirPlane 1, Art Shirer’s WISH , Nela Garzón’s Pre-Colombian Unlooted Bat, Ricardo Paniagua’s Intersections of Dimension , Wyatt Little’s BRICK PHONE , Suzette Mouchaty’s Monument to Sea Slugs , Patrick Renner’s dauber, and our editor’s pick Clayton Hurt’s Apprehensive Dog Visitors can explore these artworks by walking along the esplanade, biking, or driving through the area. The exhibition, which began in 2014, showcases temporary public art installations annually and is curated by a team led by founders Gus Kopriva and Chris Silkwood. Photography by Kolanowski Studio. For more details, visit www.truenorthheightsblvd.com.

TINIE CHANGES PACE