Sunday, June 20, 2010

Mighty Fine Arts: Witness and Install for the Masses

Mighty Fine Arts presents "Witness" featuring new work by Katherine Strause. Also in the MFA Project Room:"Install for the Masses" featuring a site specific installation by C.J.Davis and Michael Mazurek. These shows open Saturday June 26 with a reception for the artists from 6-9pm and will run till Sunday August 1.

Katherine Strause finds her inspiration in vintage photo albums, historic civil rights images and old beauty pageant publicity photos. Her paintings imply a shared past of familiar stories full of expectancy and longing that resonate in the viewer and engage us with their humanity. Expect to see a beautiful show! Ms. Strause is based in Little Rock Arkansas where she tends her chickens when not teaching and being the Department of Art Chair at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia.

First Cousins by Katherine Strause


"Install for the Masses" in the MFA Project Room is a collaborative installation by C.J.Davis and Michael Mazurek. Using the confines of the space to their advantage these artists will repurpose the ordinary and create an environment meant to engage our speculation.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Face with a Roof

Very few of the dark paintings were reproduced in the retrospective catalog at the Art Car Museum. This is a wonderful example of one of Ron's dark period paintings.

"Face with a Roof" 1993, oil on canvas, collection of Roy and Lourdes Balinskas.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Tom and Judy Show

I had an opportunity to visit the Tom and Judy Show workshop on June 11th.



Monday, June 7, 2010

Tracy Hicks: Drawn to Darwin

2009 was a year of miles and milestones. Milestone-interpreting was a solitary game I created as I drove, hauling installations around Middle America, back and forth between Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Arizona and the gulf coast jewel, Galveston. The game involved associating visually interesting sights with the highway mile markers. Doing an installation in Akron, Ohio, means driving 1,165 miles four times. Place-associations noted on the first trip were reinforced on the second third and forth trips back and forth over the same ground. I never made notes, but tried to link a mental image to the mile number. Occasionally, there were also names of towns or road names, but most often, conjunctions of billboards or trees or fences were the keys to recognizing a place again. Even when recognized, the place was never the same. Finding the change in the repetition was the game.
I shot the first images in this book while preparing for the Darwin installation in Akron. This collection is the result of my going back and forth over the artifacts and images I collected in 2009 and the first half of 2010. I continue to travel back and forth over Darwin and evolution, art, science and religion as sources of art-worthy material. The markers are the same, but their significance evolves with the turn of the seasons, the arc of the sun, the angle of my mind, their shifting proximity to one another.

I suspect that organized religion will always be in conflict with Darwin and with science. And that art will always occupy the space between the real and belief. Art is a faith that allows the freedom to interpret individually and privately. Collectively, art reflects the evolution of human understanding.
The images in this book include:
Drawings of Darwin, scientific glassware, desert, stream and human landscapes, cast rubber glassware and frogs, live frogs (Agalychnis annae from Todd Kelley), a cracked glass box, snake skeleton vertebra and ribs, human skull, baboon skull , a cast human skull, my hand, friends' bodies, cast turnips, and Rosa Avila's grave.

Tracy Hicks
June 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Richards and Rische in Portales, New Mexico

New Art/Arte Nuevo: San Antonio 2010 Artists

President Ricardo Romo & Dr. Harriett Romo & the Department of Art and Art History, The University of Texas at San Antonio are proud to announce the 35 artists that were chosen for the biennial exhibition, New Art/Arte Nuevo: San Antonio 2010. Special thanks to the jurors: Malaquias Montoya, Artist, Professor Emeritus, Departments of Chicana/o Studies and Art, University of California, Davis and Valerie Cassel Oliver, Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.


Efrain Salinas, El Muro 32, photograph, 20″ x 20″, 2010


June 9 – August 6, 2010
Opening Reception

Wednesday, June 9, 2010
6pm – 8pm
Artists include:
Ricky Armendariz, Grace Barraza-Vega, Jessica Battes, Christie Blizard, Susan Budge, Jimmy James Canales, David Zamora Casas, Francisco Enrique Delgado, Joseph Duarte, Melissa Edwards, Monica Ellis, Tom Hollenback, Juan Juarez, Mat Kubo, Gerald Lopez, Andrew Martin, Arielle Mason, Clay McClure, Samantha Medellin, Lupe Mendoza, Susannah Mira, Juan de Dios Mora, Ann Marie Nafziger, Abel Ortiz-Acosta, James R. Pace, Patrick Page-Sutter, Brian Row, Efrain Salinas, Marina I. Salinas, Kasey Short, Andrew Leo Stansbury, Alison Starr, Will Templin, Andy Villarreal, and Merrie Wright