Today I report on Superpresent, a new art & literature magazine from Houston. The editor is Kevin Clement, and I discuss work in Superpresent by Kristy Peet, John Adelman, Ceinwen E Cariad Haydon, R.C. Rice, Brandon Hernsberger, David McClain, and Justin Varner.
Showing posts with label John Adelman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Adelman. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Robert Boyd's Book Report: Superpresent
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Hunting Prize Nominees
Robert Boyd
Every Year, the Hunting Art Prize is given to some lucky painter from Texas. The prize is $50,000. Needless to say, tons of folks enter. The Hunting Prize people have just sent out letters telling artists whether they have been selected to be finalists. The winner will be announced May 3 at a gala hosted by Hunting PLC, an oil and gas service company.
The prize has garnered some controversy in the past, but it has also given prizes to some excellent artists who probably really appreciated the cash! Previous winners are Francesca Fuchs (2006), Michael Tole (2007), Wendy Wagner (2008), Robin O'Neil (2009), Lane Hagood (2010), Leigh Ann Hester (2011), Michael Bise (2012) and Marshall K. Harris (2013).
Several of the finalists this year have shared their work on Facebook. I thought the pieces looked pretty good; I suspect the judges will have a tough time deciding. Here are a few of them.

Cary Reeder, High Noon,acrylic on canvas, 30 x 38 inches
Cary Reeder's minimalist clapboard houses are always appealing to me. She recently had a great solo show at Lawndale.

Catherine Colangelo, Giant Quilt Square #10, gouache and graphite on paper, 28" x 28"
I have seen nice work by Catherine Colangelo at the late, lamented Darke Gallery. This piece looks excellent.
David Smith, Tropical Storm, Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico
David Smith's Tropical Storm, Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico is an unexpectedly 19th-century-style entry. It's refreshing to see it included.
Hannah Celeste Dean, Re-Veiled
Hannah Celeste Dean calls her work "haunting but not ghostly," but I think "ghostly" is an excellent word to describe Re-veiled.

Hogan Kimbrell, Conjure, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 inches
I've seen a couple of excellent paintings by Hogan Kimbrell at past Lawndale Big Shows. The double image here is a bit different from what I've seen before. But his subject matter--beautiful women--seems constant.

John Adelman, 61,988,ink on panel, 38 x 30 inches
John Adelman premiered these architectural process drawings at a recent show at Nicole Longnecker Gallery. I've long admired his rigorous, obsessive work.

Joseph Cohen, Proposition 360, Pigment, diamond dust, and varnish on birch 29" x 24"
You can see another piece by Joseph Cohen (quite different from Proposition 360) at the CAMH through March 23. Cohen has been one of my favorite Houston painters for a while.

Lee E. Wright, The Captain of Industry, oil and ink on prepared paper, 32 x 44
I don't really know anything about Lee E. Wright, but based on his website, he appears to be a portraitist--an honorable specialization.

Saralene Tapley, Flourish, acrylic on watercolor paper, 29 x 41 inches
I saw this piece by Saralene Tapley in last year's Big Show. I believe it's a portrait of her fellow artist, Bryan Keith Gardner.
According to various sources, there are typically between 100 and 150 finalists. Out of that crowded field there can be only one winner. Any bets on who it will be?
Every Year, the Hunting Art Prize is given to some lucky painter from Texas. The prize is $50,000. Needless to say, tons of folks enter. The Hunting Prize people have just sent out letters telling artists whether they have been selected to be finalists. The winner will be announced May 3 at a gala hosted by Hunting PLC, an oil and gas service company.
The prize has garnered some controversy in the past, but it has also given prizes to some excellent artists who probably really appreciated the cash! Previous winners are Francesca Fuchs (2006), Michael Tole (2007), Wendy Wagner (2008), Robin O'Neil (2009), Lane Hagood (2010), Leigh Ann Hester (2011), Michael Bise (2012) and Marshall K. Harris (2013).
Several of the finalists this year have shared their work on Facebook. I thought the pieces looked pretty good; I suspect the judges will have a tough time deciding. Here are a few of them.

Cary Reeder, High Noon,acrylic on canvas, 30 x 38 inches
Cary Reeder's minimalist clapboard houses are always appealing to me. She recently had a great solo show at Lawndale.

Catherine Colangelo, Giant Quilt Square #10, gouache and graphite on paper, 28" x 28"
I have seen nice work by Catherine Colangelo at the late, lamented Darke Gallery. This piece looks excellent.

David Smith, Tropical Storm, Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico
David Smith's Tropical Storm, Veracruz, Gulf of Mexico is an unexpectedly 19th-century-style entry. It's refreshing to see it included.

Hannah Celeste Dean, Re-Veiled
Hannah Celeste Dean calls her work "haunting but not ghostly," but I think "ghostly" is an excellent word to describe Re-veiled.

Hogan Kimbrell, Conjure, oil on canvas, 54 x 54 inches
I've seen a couple of excellent paintings by Hogan Kimbrell at past Lawndale Big Shows. The double image here is a bit different from what I've seen before. But his subject matter--beautiful women--seems constant.

John Adelman, 61,988,ink on panel, 38 x 30 inches
John Adelman premiered these architectural process drawings at a recent show at Nicole Longnecker Gallery. I've long admired his rigorous, obsessive work.

Joseph Cohen, Proposition 360, Pigment, diamond dust, and varnish on birch 29" x 24"
You can see another piece by Joseph Cohen (quite different from Proposition 360) at the CAMH through March 23. Cohen has been one of my favorite Houston painters for a while.

Lee E. Wright, The Captain of Industry, oil and ink on prepared paper, 32 x 44
I don't really know anything about Lee E. Wright, but based on his website, he appears to be a portraitist--an honorable specialization.

Saralene Tapley, Flourish, acrylic on watercolor paper, 29 x 41 inches
I saw this piece by Saralene Tapley in last year's Big Show. I believe it's a portrait of her fellow artist, Bryan Keith Gardner.
According to various sources, there are typically between 100 and 150 finalists. Out of that crowded field there can be only one winner. Any bets on who it will be?
Saturday, July 20, 2013
More from the Big Show
Betsy Huete, Dean Liscum and Robert Boyd
I couldn't settle on just five pieces to write about from the Big Show, so I arbitrarily decided that I'd create an "honorable mention" post and forced my co-writers to contribute. Betsy, Dean and I chose five, and then chose a bunch more that we liked. And here they are.

Carrie Green Markello, King , 2013, Acrylic on board, 24 x 18 inches
Why does this boy, held captive in "glamour shot" pose, look so mischievous? What is he up to, and why is he enveloped in a black void? No one knows except Markello, but there is something memorably radioactive about the entire painting.--BH

Chadwick + Spector, Judith with the Head of Holofernes (after Lucas Cranach), 2011, cibachrome print, 45 x 29.5 inches
Getting freaky with it. Hieronymus Bosch-inspired but instead of using fruit, these artists use humans. Look closely.--DL

David McClain, Verlaine & Rimbaud, 2013, Acrylic and pencil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
I'm not sure which is Verlaine and which is Rimbaud but their love child lives in Austin. Kidding aside, the comics interfere with the brilliant execution.--DL
All those museumgoers that scoff at a Pollock or a Kline, mumbling, “My three year old could do that,” are completely unaware of just how talented three-year-olds can be. In Verlaine & Rimbaud, David McClain convincingly melds an innocent primitivism and severe aggression in a way that exemplifies the poets’ passionate and tumultuous relationship.--BH

Camille Warmington, Unsee, 2013, pencil and polycolor pencil on board, 12 x 12 inches
Camille Warmington's Unsee seems the more conventional of her two paintings (ironically, since Unsee is abstract and her other painting, Setting Yourself Adrift, is a painting of a house). But I love her acidic colors, her handling of paint, and the modest size. It reminds me a little of Howard Hodgkin, but without the comfy feeling of domesticity one finds in Hodgkin.--RB

Jorge Imperio, Elegant #2, 2013, C-print, 13.5 x 13.5 inches
I’m assuming Imperio’s title was tongue-in-cheek, but there is something elegant about this image after all. Situated under an empty, large gaudy frame, it’s the most lavish sick bed I’ve ever seen. Everything in the shot feels completely out of place yet legitimately believable--BH

Galina Kurlat, Deborah, 2012, archival pigment print, 18 x 24 inches
Galina Kurlat recently had a powerful show at the Emergency Room, so I was pleased to see her work here. Deborah is from her portrait series Safe Distance. These photos involve some manipulation of the negative process and deliberate degradation, which can clearly be see here. Knowing nothing about the actual "Deborah," this image, combining the subject's calm demeanor and the intentionally damaged print, suggest some past trauma. The meaning is not in the image, but in the process.

Galina Kurlat, Sanctuary (untitled) 1, 2011, C-print, 16 x 20 inches
Galina didn't create this surrealistic monument, but she had the good sense to photograph it.--DL
Sanctuary comes from a series of the same name showing isolated trees in seemingly harsh and unforgiving landscapes. It's hard to imaging a more unforgiving environment than a beached barge, and yet this one has a tree growing out of it. The image is a large-scale black and white Polaroid, made with a kind of film that is no longer manufactured. One of the appealing aspects of Kurlat's photography is this sense of antiquity. Her photographs look like they were made long ago and survived many vicissitudes before being discovered by viewers in the present. Of course, this is a carefully wrought illusion, but a beautiful one.--RB

Happy Valentine, Code Blue, 2013, Diagnostic images and original music, 1 minute 9 second video
I have no idea what's actually occurring in this video. It's a brain scan of some sort...an electromagnetic lobotomy? Your brain on drugs? Your brain under the influence of a political ad, a Reality TV show, an orgasm? The ambiguity makes it more haunting, more beautiful, and only a little scary.--DL

Kay Sarver, Pollinate Me, 2013, oil on wood, 48 x 32 x 3 inches
Kay Sarver created a painting that is half Alphonse Mucha and half organic honey product label. The nude woman has a circle of bees flying around her head and is pregnant with a beehive full of honey. She kneels in a field of sunflowers, surrounded by a turtle, squirrel and rabbit. Green and pink predominate. And the title, Pollinate Me, adds a jocose element of sexuality. The image is so over-the-top that my love for it crosses to the other side of my defensive mountain of cynicism and irony. I don't "love" this crazy painting--I just plain love it.
Luna Bella Gajdos, Carnivore, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
There’s something anxious about this painting, as if the irreverent gestures stand on a precipice of falling into complete chaos, held together by a few contour lines. While I normally think signatures on work should be relegated to Etsy and old women painting kittens and lamps, it really works here; it’s situated like a thought bubble coming out of the dinosaur’s mouth, as if it is speaking directly to the artist. Or maybe it’s a self-portrait and Gajdos is introducing herself.--BH
When I saw Luna Gajdos's Carnivore, I really dug the deliberately crude, childlike drawing. When I read that Gajdos is only seven years old, I dug it even more.--RB

Jennifer Ellison, Antique Figurine & the Machine That Made It, 2013, mixed media assemblage, 115 x 23 x 18 inches
Antique Figurine & the Machine That Made It by Jennifer Ellison has the folklore-science-fiction feel that makes it a little crafty, a little quirky, a little cute. I'm willing to bet she's Joseph Cornell and Dominique De Menil's long lost love child.--DL
Kia Neill, Fossilization, Erosion, and Evolution No. 2, 2013, graphite, acrylic, ink and gouache on Yupo, 29 x 40 inches
The amoeba from which I descended (and pretty much controls my brain) just lights up when it sees Neill's work.--DL

Ellen Phillips, Tidal Ice, 2013, acrylic and graphite on paper, 24 x 18 inches
In a show like the Big Show, it's hard to even notice quiet works like Ellen Phillips' Tidal Ice. Phillips is another artist about whom I know nothing (and Google is not helping me out). Which is to say that I know just as much about her as juror Duncan MacKenzie did. What's left are a few pencil scrawls and white brush strokes on a yellowish piece of paper. So what did I like about it? I guess the cool grey against the warm paper appealed to me and the quality of "not drawing" in the pencil marks. It's a work I can just look at and feel pleasure in looking.--RB

John Slaby, The Commander, 2012, oil on paper, 7 x 14 inches
John Slaby's The Commander is the artistic representation of my management and parenting philosophy. It's also really well-balanced, with a lovely color palette...for a psychopath.--DL

Leo Medrano, Strange Friends (left), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches, and End of the Road (right), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches
Leo Medrano, Strange Friends, 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches

Leo Medrano, Strange Friends, 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches
Medrano brings kitsch and fear together in a way that my grandmother would snicker at and then use as an object lesson. "Listen here. If a large hairy beast tries to befriend you in the woods..."--DL

Leo Medrano, End of the Road (detail), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches

Leo Medrano, End of the Road (detail), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches
I know Leo Medrano as a magazine publisher (Role A|F|M) first and an artist second. What I had seen of his art was painted under the name "Leosapien" and seemed like a mixture of street art and pop surrealism/low brow art. I can't say it ever made much of an impression on me. End of the Road and Strange Friends, however, really impressed me. They seem utterly different from his earlier artistic output.
End of the Road is a tiny sculptural tableau depicting a Hollywood movie-style standoff. A man standing beside a VW Bug is holding a gun to a woman's head and is being confronted by another man holding a rifle. The sculpture is tiny--the figures are less than an inch high. The whole thing is encased in glass. It reminds me of the ship in a bottle sculptures people make. The description says that it is made of architectural scale model pieces, but Medrano must have altered them. I assume you can't get a 1/32 scale model of a guy with a gun to a woman's head off the shelf.
By placing it under glass, Medrano is suggesting a frozen moment in time to be studied, something to be preserved, something fragile. Obviously the image of a ship in a bottle comes to mind, as does the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor (and Mike Kelley's many Kandor sculptures). There is something mad-scientist-like about examining these scenes in a glass container, a giant test-tube. The dispassionate presentation of the scene, as if they are specimens under glass, is disquieting.--RB

Susannah Mira, Minature Black Cloud, 2012neoprene foam and wire, dimensions variable
Susannah Mira's "cloud" is simple, repetitive, unobtrusive, but lasting. It hung in my mind through out the duration of my visit and long after.--DL

John Adelman, 32,173 Stitch, 2012, gel, ink on paper mounted on panel, 35 x 48 inches
John Adelman's obsessive-compulsive aesthetic style always connects with that OCD portion of my personality. His work will probably never really change and my enjoyment of it also will probably never wane.--DL
John Adelman's work is the result of an obsessive process. 32,173 Stitch looks like a blue and black shape from a distance, forming a ragged angle at the top and dissolving along the bottom. But when you get close, you see a series of irregular black marks of various sizes with the word "stitch" in blue next to each one. Based on what I know of his previous work, I'm going to guess that those black marks represent some actual thing--perhaps little bits of thread?--that he has carefully drawn. Whatever this thing is, he has drawn 32,173 of them and written the word stitch that many times. And I assume that the process was figured out before he put a single mark on the paper. I've written about Adelman in the past, and what I said then applies to this piece as well. His work is fascinating, rigorous and yet strangely beautiful--RB

John Adelman, 32,173 Stitch (detail), 2012, gel, ink on paper mounted on panel, 35 x 48 inches

Felipe Contreras, Nice Cliff, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
Felipe Contreras also goes by the name Furm. You can see some more of his work under the name Furm at Peveto in its Funkmotor exhibit. Nice Cliff and the pieces in Funkmotor all share a common feature--the white and orange diagonal stripes, the type one sees on roadblocks used by police or road construction crews. It's a simple yet powerful symbol, and Contreras' use of it is playful. In Nice Cliff, he has taken an image of a majestic mountain and rendered it in a faded-back duotone, layering the orange and white caution stripes over it. The Ruscha-like type, written as a hole in the image, adds a flippant irony to the proceedings.--RB
Terry Crump, Lucky Day, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
In Crump, I think I've found one of Paul Gauguin's direct descendants. I want to vacation in Crump's aesthetic.--DL
Terry Crump's Lucky Day includes images associated with luck (good and bad)--cards and dice--but central to it is a large pacing tiger in profile, turning its head to look at us. It (and the other figures in the painting--a rabbit, a frog, a bird) are drawn with a black outline and appear somewhat tarnsparent against a background of splashy, riotous color. It's the color that attracted me to this curious painting. Intense and painterly, I suspect Matisse is an influence. The way the color is laid down behind a line drawing, for example, reminds me of The Red Studio. The large size of the canvas is an important factor in what makes Lucky Day work--it forces the viewer to step back to take in the totality of the image. Crump is one of those people that I love to find at The Big Show--a very interesting Houston-area artist who I have never heard of before. After four years of writing this blog, you wouldn't think there'd be any left, but I'm constantly surprised.--RB
I couldn't settle on just five pieces to write about from the Big Show, so I arbitrarily decided that I'd create an "honorable mention" post and forced my co-writers to contribute. Betsy, Dean and I chose five, and then chose a bunch more that we liked. And here they are.
Carrie Green Markello, King , 2013, Acrylic on board, 24 x 18 inches
Why does this boy, held captive in "glamour shot" pose, look so mischievous? What is he up to, and why is he enveloped in a black void? No one knows except Markello, but there is something memorably radioactive about the entire painting.--BH
Chadwick + Spector, Judith with the Head of Holofernes (after Lucas Cranach), 2011, cibachrome print, 45 x 29.5 inches
Getting freaky with it. Hieronymus Bosch-inspired but instead of using fruit, these artists use humans. Look closely.--DL
David McClain, Verlaine & Rimbaud, 2013, Acrylic and pencil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
I'm not sure which is Verlaine and which is Rimbaud but their love child lives in Austin. Kidding aside, the comics interfere with the brilliant execution.--DL
All those museumgoers that scoff at a Pollock or a Kline, mumbling, “My three year old could do that,” are completely unaware of just how talented three-year-olds can be. In Verlaine & Rimbaud, David McClain convincingly melds an innocent primitivism and severe aggression in a way that exemplifies the poets’ passionate and tumultuous relationship.--BH
Camille Warmington, Unsee, 2013, pencil and polycolor pencil on board, 12 x 12 inches
Camille Warmington's Unsee seems the more conventional of her two paintings (ironically, since Unsee is abstract and her other painting, Setting Yourself Adrift, is a painting of a house). But I love her acidic colors, her handling of paint, and the modest size. It reminds me a little of Howard Hodgkin, but without the comfy feeling of domesticity one finds in Hodgkin.--RB

Jorge Imperio, Elegant #2, 2013, C-print, 13.5 x 13.5 inches
I’m assuming Imperio’s title was tongue-in-cheek, but there is something elegant about this image after all. Situated under an empty, large gaudy frame, it’s the most lavish sick bed I’ve ever seen. Everything in the shot feels completely out of place yet legitimately believable--BH
Galina Kurlat, Deborah, 2012, archival pigment print, 18 x 24 inches
Galina Kurlat recently had a powerful show at the Emergency Room, so I was pleased to see her work here. Deborah is from her portrait series Safe Distance. These photos involve some manipulation of the negative process and deliberate degradation, which can clearly be see here. Knowing nothing about the actual "Deborah," this image, combining the subject's calm demeanor and the intentionally damaged print, suggest some past trauma. The meaning is not in the image, but in the process.
Galina Kurlat, Sanctuary (untitled) 1, 2011, C-print, 16 x 20 inches
Galina didn't create this surrealistic monument, but she had the good sense to photograph it.--DL
Sanctuary comes from a series of the same name showing isolated trees in seemingly harsh and unforgiving landscapes. It's hard to imaging a more unforgiving environment than a beached barge, and yet this one has a tree growing out of it. The image is a large-scale black and white Polaroid, made with a kind of film that is no longer manufactured. One of the appealing aspects of Kurlat's photography is this sense of antiquity. Her photographs look like they were made long ago and survived many vicissitudes before being discovered by viewers in the present. Of course, this is a carefully wrought illusion, but a beautiful one.--RB
Happy Valentine, Code Blue, 2013, Diagnostic images and original music, 1 minute 9 second video
I have no idea what's actually occurring in this video. It's a brain scan of some sort...an electromagnetic lobotomy? Your brain on drugs? Your brain under the influence of a political ad, a Reality TV show, an orgasm? The ambiguity makes it more haunting, more beautiful, and only a little scary.--DL
Kay Sarver, Pollinate Me, 2013, oil on wood, 48 x 32 x 3 inches
Kay Sarver created a painting that is half Alphonse Mucha and half organic honey product label. The nude woman has a circle of bees flying around her head and is pregnant with a beehive full of honey. She kneels in a field of sunflowers, surrounded by a turtle, squirrel and rabbit. Green and pink predominate. And the title, Pollinate Me, adds a jocose element of sexuality. The image is so over-the-top that my love for it crosses to the other side of my defensive mountain of cynicism and irony. I don't "love" this crazy painting--I just plain love it.
Luna Bella Gajdos, Carnivore, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
There’s something anxious about this painting, as if the irreverent gestures stand on a precipice of falling into complete chaos, held together by a few contour lines. While I normally think signatures on work should be relegated to Etsy and old women painting kittens and lamps, it really works here; it’s situated like a thought bubble coming out of the dinosaur’s mouth, as if it is speaking directly to the artist. Or maybe it’s a self-portrait and Gajdos is introducing herself.--BH
When I saw Luna Gajdos's Carnivore, I really dug the deliberately crude, childlike drawing. When I read that Gajdos is only seven years old, I dug it even more.--RB
Jennifer Ellison, Antique Figurine & the Machine That Made It, 2013, mixed media assemblage, 115 x 23 x 18 inches
Antique Figurine & the Machine That Made It by Jennifer Ellison has the folklore-science-fiction feel that makes it a little crafty, a little quirky, a little cute. I'm willing to bet she's Joseph Cornell and Dominique De Menil's long lost love child.--DL

The amoeba from which I descended (and pretty much controls my brain) just lights up when it sees Neill's work.--DL
Ellen Phillips, Tidal Ice, 2013, acrylic and graphite on paper, 24 x 18 inches
In a show like the Big Show, it's hard to even notice quiet works like Ellen Phillips' Tidal Ice. Phillips is another artist about whom I know nothing (and Google is not helping me out). Which is to say that I know just as much about her as juror Duncan MacKenzie did. What's left are a few pencil scrawls and white brush strokes on a yellowish piece of paper. So what did I like about it? I guess the cool grey against the warm paper appealed to me and the quality of "not drawing" in the pencil marks. It's a work I can just look at and feel pleasure in looking.--RB
John Slaby, The Commander, 2012, oil on paper, 7 x 14 inches
John Slaby's The Commander is the artistic representation of my management and parenting philosophy. It's also really well-balanced, with a lovely color palette...for a psychopath.--DL
Leo Medrano, Strange Friends (left), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches, and End of the Road (right), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches
Leo Medrano, Strange Friends, 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches
Leo Medrano, Strange Friends, 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 5 x 3 x 3 inches
Medrano brings kitsch and fear together in a way that my grandmother would snicker at and then use as an object lesson. "Listen here. If a large hairy beast tries to befriend you in the woods..."--DL
Leo Medrano, End of the Road (detail), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches
Leo Medrano, End of the Road (detail), 2013, architectural scale model pieces, ballast, acrylic, glass, 11 x 3 x 3 inches
I know Leo Medrano as a magazine publisher (Role A|F|M) first and an artist second. What I had seen of his art was painted under the name "Leosapien" and seemed like a mixture of street art and pop surrealism/low brow art. I can't say it ever made much of an impression on me. End of the Road and Strange Friends, however, really impressed me. They seem utterly different from his earlier artistic output.
End of the Road is a tiny sculptural tableau depicting a Hollywood movie-style standoff. A man standing beside a VW Bug is holding a gun to a woman's head and is being confronted by another man holding a rifle. The sculpture is tiny--the figures are less than an inch high. The whole thing is encased in glass. It reminds me of the ship in a bottle sculptures people make. The description says that it is made of architectural scale model pieces, but Medrano must have altered them. I assume you can't get a 1/32 scale model of a guy with a gun to a woman's head off the shelf.
By placing it under glass, Medrano is suggesting a frozen moment in time to be studied, something to be preserved, something fragile. Obviously the image of a ship in a bottle comes to mind, as does the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor (and Mike Kelley's many Kandor sculptures). There is something mad-scientist-like about examining these scenes in a glass container, a giant test-tube. The dispassionate presentation of the scene, as if they are specimens under glass, is disquieting.--RB
Susannah Mira, Minature Black Cloud, 2012neoprene foam and wire, dimensions variable
Susannah Mira's "cloud" is simple, repetitive, unobtrusive, but lasting. It hung in my mind through out the duration of my visit and long after.--DL
John Adelman, 32,173 Stitch, 2012, gel, ink on paper mounted on panel, 35 x 48 inches
John Adelman's obsessive-compulsive aesthetic style always connects with that OCD portion of my personality. His work will probably never really change and my enjoyment of it also will probably never wane.--DL
John Adelman's work is the result of an obsessive process. 32,173 Stitch looks like a blue and black shape from a distance, forming a ragged angle at the top and dissolving along the bottom. But when you get close, you see a series of irregular black marks of various sizes with the word "stitch" in blue next to each one. Based on what I know of his previous work, I'm going to guess that those black marks represent some actual thing--perhaps little bits of thread?--that he has carefully drawn. Whatever this thing is, he has drawn 32,173 of them and written the word stitch that many times. And I assume that the process was figured out before he put a single mark on the paper. I've written about Adelman in the past, and what I said then applies to this piece as well. His work is fascinating, rigorous and yet strangely beautiful--RB
John Adelman, 32,173 Stitch (detail), 2012, gel, ink on paper mounted on panel, 35 x 48 inches
Felipe Contreras, Nice Cliff, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
Felipe Contreras also goes by the name Furm. You can see some more of his work under the name Furm at Peveto in its Funkmotor exhibit. Nice Cliff and the pieces in Funkmotor all share a common feature--the white and orange diagonal stripes, the type one sees on roadblocks used by police or road construction crews. It's a simple yet powerful symbol, and Contreras' use of it is playful. In Nice Cliff, he has taken an image of a majestic mountain and rendered it in a faded-back duotone, layering the orange and white caution stripes over it. The Ruscha-like type, written as a hole in the image, adds a flippant irony to the proceedings.--RB
Terry Crump, Lucky Day, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
In Crump, I think I've found one of Paul Gauguin's direct descendants. I want to vacation in Crump's aesthetic.--DL
Terry Crump's Lucky Day includes images associated with luck (good and bad)--cards and dice--but central to it is a large pacing tiger in profile, turning its head to look at us. It (and the other figures in the painting--a rabbit, a frog, a bird) are drawn with a black outline and appear somewhat tarnsparent against a background of splashy, riotous color. It's the color that attracted me to this curious painting. Intense and painterly, I suspect Matisse is an influence. The way the color is laid down behind a line drawing, for example, reminds me of The Red Studio. The large size of the canvas is an important factor in what makes Lucky Day work--it forces the viewer to step back to take in the totality of the image. Crump is one of those people that I love to find at The Big Show--a very interesting Houston-area artist who I have never heard of before. After four years of writing this blog, you wouldn't think there'd be any left, but I'm constantly surprised.--RB

Sunday, July 14, 2013
It was too crowded to look at art at the Big Show opening
Robert Boyd
So I looked at people. Here are a few whose photos are more-or-less in focus.

Daniel Anguilu and Rahul Mitra

Julon Pinkston

Kia Neill

John Adelman explains stuff to Jason Fuller

David McClain and Jane Schmitt

Adela Andea and Joshua Fischer

Cody Ledvina (with Jordan Dupuis) waves hello!
So I looked at people. Here are a few whose photos are more-or-less in focus.
Daniel Anguilu and Rahul Mitra
Julon Pinkston
Kia Neill
John Adelman explains stuff to Jason Fuller
David McClain and Jane Schmitt
Adela Andea and Joshua Fischer

Cody Ledvina (with Jordan Dupuis) waves hello!

Thursday, July 11, 2013
Pan Recommends for the week of July 11 to July 16
Robert Boyd
This is the biggest art weekend of the summer. The Big Show at Lawndale is always huge, and galleries take advantage of that hugeosity to host the annual ArtHouston event at many galleries around town. That means lots and lots of openings. Here are a few of the events and openings we'll be checking out.
THURSDAY
Mariano Dal Verme, Untitled , 2013, Graphite, paper, 21 1/4 in. x 29 1/8 in.
Mariano Dal Verme: On Drawing at Sicardi Gallery, 6–8 pm with an artist's talk Saturday at 2 pm. These don't seem to be drawings in the traditional sense--the gallery writes "The resulting sculptural objects are not exactly graphite on paper; instead they consist of paper in graphite, and graphite extending out from paper."
FRIDAY

Irby Pace, Blue and Yellow Make Green
31st Annual HCP Juried Membership Exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography, 6–8 pm with artists talks Friday at 5:30 and Saturday at 11 am. This show features a large selection of photographers: Elisabeth Applbaum (Jerusalem, Israel), Pedro Arieta (New York, NY , Allison Barnes (Savannah, GA), Christopher Borrok (Brooklyn, NY), Shelley Calton (Houston, TX), Joy Christiansen Erb (Youngstown, OH), Caleb Churchill (Houston, TX), Betsy Cochrane (Oyster Bay, NY), Maxi Cohen (New York, NY), Rachel Cox (Albuquerque, NM), Jessica Crute (Houston, TX), Donato Del Giudice (Milan, Italy), Miska Draskoczy (Brooklyn, NY), Camilo Echavarria (MedellÃn, Colombia), Teri Fullerton (Minneapolis, MN), Preston Gannaway (Oakland, CA), Erik Hagen (Culver City, CA), Christopher Harris (Rockvale, TN), Dave Jordano (Chicago, IL), E2 (Elizabeth Kleinveld & E Paul Julien) (New Orleans, LA & Amsterdam, Netherlands), Phil Jung (Jamaica Plain, MA), Ferit Kuyas (Ziegelbruecke, Switzerland), Alma Leiva (Miami, FL), David Lykes Keenan (Austin, TX), Rachul McClintic (Bossier City, LA), William Miller (Brooklyn, NY), Robin Myers (Jamaica Plain, MA), Irby Pace (Denton, TX), Alejandra Regalado (Long Island City, NY), Robert Stark (Los Angeles, CA), Jamey Stillings (Santa Fe, NM), Jeremy Underwood (Houston, TX), Robert Walters (Omaha, NE) and Kelly Webeck (Houston, TX). This really is the other big show of the weekend. Don't miss it.

Lillian Warren, Wait #50, 2013, acrylic on mylar
Lillian Warren: Alone Together at Anya Tish Gallery, 6–8:30 pm. I'm not sure if any of these pieces are the same as the ones in her solo show at Lawndale from last summer, but either way, this series of paintings is really interesting and worth seeing.
Earl Staley, Bouquet 29, 2013, 36 x 36 inches
The Big Show at Lawndale Art Center, 6:30–8:30 pm. This year's guest juror was Duncan Mackenzie, of Bad at Sports fame. The selected artists are Hannah Adams, John Adelman, Alonso Bedolla, Kari Breitigam, Adrian Landon Brooks, Chadwick + Spector, Raina Chamberlain, Perry Chandler, Monica Chhay, JooYoung Choi, K.C. Collins, Felipe Contreras, Terry Crump, Andy Dearwater, Alex Larsen and Alexander DiJulio, Jennifer Ellison, Avril Falgout, Bryan Forrester, Kelli Foster, Caitlin Fredette, Luna Gajdos, Daniela Galindo, Bryan Keith Gardner, Matthew Glover, Nerissa Gomez, David P. Gray, Carrie Green Markello, Casey Arguelles Gregory, Sarah Hamilton, Jorge Imperio, Jenna Jacobs, Sandra A. Jacobs, Jeremy Keas, Bradley Kerl, Galina Kurlat, Marilyn Faulk Lanser, Melinda Laszczynski, Joan Laughlin, Eva Martinez, David McClain, Leo Medrano, Susannah Mira, Kia Neill, Mari Omori, Bernice Peacock, Eric Pearce, Ellen Phillips, Page Piland, Julon Pinkston, Eduardo Portillo, Cinta Rico, Natalie Rodgers, Darcy Rosenberger, Nana Sampong, Kay Sarver, John Slaby, Rosalind Speed, Earl Staley, Adair Stephens, Alexine O. Stevens, Saralene Tapley, Happy Valentine, David H. Waddell, Camille Warmington, Chantal Wnuk, Martin Wnuk and Tera Yoshimura. Whew. Of this group, I'm quite familiar with about 15 of them and there are many whose names I have never heard before. That's what's exciting about The Big Show. Now a word of warning--this is going to be one crowded opening. There will 67 artists (well, 66--I hear that Earl Staley will be in Beaumont for an opening of a solo show at AMSET) with their friends and family, as well as the usual Lawndale crowd. It will be an environment very conducive for partying, but not so much for looking at art. So if you want to actually see the art, I recommend checking it out Saturday.
SATURDAY

Getting ready for Funkmotor at Peveto
FUNKMOTOR at Peveto, 6–11 p.m. It's summer, so Peveto is getting funky with the aid of UP Art Studio. Features work by 2:12, Daniel Anguilu, Article, Brian Boyter, Burn353, Dual, Empire INS, FURM, Gear, Marco Guerra, JPS, Santiago Paez, Pilot FX, Raiko NIN, Sae MCT, Lee Washington, Wiley Robertson, Jason Seife, Justin West and w3r3on3.
Sebastien Bouncy photo
the soothsayer by Benjamin Gardner, A Nice Place to Visit by Ana Villagomez and Miguel Martinez, Grand Canyon by Jonathan Leach & Sebastien Boncy and Sana/Sana by Monica Foote at Box 13, 7 to 9:30 pm. Four new shows/installations open at Box 13 this Saturday. Take the drive down Harrisburg and check it out.
Rob Reasoner, Untitled 5.06, 2006, 19 x 19 inches
Chromaticism: New Paintings by Rob Reasoner at McClain Gallery, 2 to 4 pm. I would characterize these paintings as consisting of jolly colors laid down in an anal-retentive manner. Is that fair? Go see for yourself!
WEDNESDAY
Graciela Hasper, Untitled, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 77.6 x 83.9 inches
Mighty Line with Jillian Conrad, Jeffrey Dell, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Sharon Engelstein, Sévulo Esmeraldo, Manuel Espinosa, León Ferrari, Jessica Halonen, Graciela Hasper, Darcy Huebler, Bethany Johnson, Jonathan Leach, David Medina, Devon Moore, Richard Nix, Robert Ruello, Pablo Siquier, Carl Suddath and Randy Twaddle at Williams Tower Gallery, 6 to 8:30 pm. If all the group shows this weekend weren't enough, hop on over to uptown and check out Mighty Line featuring some heavy hitters!
This is the biggest art weekend of the summer. The Big Show at Lawndale is always huge, and galleries take advantage of that hugeosity to host the annual ArtHouston event at many galleries around town. That means lots and lots of openings. Here are a few of the events and openings we'll be checking out.
THURSDAY

Mariano Dal Verme, Untitled , 2013, Graphite, paper, 21 1/4 in. x 29 1/8 in.
Mariano Dal Verme: On Drawing at Sicardi Gallery, 6–8 pm with an artist's talk Saturday at 2 pm. These don't seem to be drawings in the traditional sense--the gallery writes "The resulting sculptural objects are not exactly graphite on paper; instead they consist of paper in graphite, and graphite extending out from paper."
FRIDAY

Irby Pace, Blue and Yellow Make Green
31st Annual HCP Juried Membership Exhibition at the Houston Center for Photography, 6–8 pm with artists talks Friday at 5:30 and Saturday at 11 am. This show features a large selection of photographers: Elisabeth Applbaum (Jerusalem, Israel), Pedro Arieta (New York, NY , Allison Barnes (Savannah, GA), Christopher Borrok (Brooklyn, NY), Shelley Calton (Houston, TX), Joy Christiansen Erb (Youngstown, OH), Caleb Churchill (Houston, TX), Betsy Cochrane (Oyster Bay, NY), Maxi Cohen (New York, NY), Rachel Cox (Albuquerque, NM), Jessica Crute (Houston, TX), Donato Del Giudice (Milan, Italy), Miska Draskoczy (Brooklyn, NY), Camilo Echavarria (MedellÃn, Colombia), Teri Fullerton (Minneapolis, MN), Preston Gannaway (Oakland, CA), Erik Hagen (Culver City, CA), Christopher Harris (Rockvale, TN), Dave Jordano (Chicago, IL), E2 (Elizabeth Kleinveld & E Paul Julien) (New Orleans, LA & Amsterdam, Netherlands), Phil Jung (Jamaica Plain, MA), Ferit Kuyas (Ziegelbruecke, Switzerland), Alma Leiva (Miami, FL), David Lykes Keenan (Austin, TX), Rachul McClintic (Bossier City, LA), William Miller (Brooklyn, NY), Robin Myers (Jamaica Plain, MA), Irby Pace (Denton, TX), Alejandra Regalado (Long Island City, NY), Robert Stark (Los Angeles, CA), Jamey Stillings (Santa Fe, NM), Jeremy Underwood (Houston, TX), Robert Walters (Omaha, NE) and Kelly Webeck (Houston, TX). This really is the other big show of the weekend. Don't miss it.

Lillian Warren, Wait #50, 2013, acrylic on mylar
Lillian Warren: Alone Together at Anya Tish Gallery, 6–8:30 pm. I'm not sure if any of these pieces are the same as the ones in her solo show at Lawndale from last summer, but either way, this series of paintings is really interesting and worth seeing.

Earl Staley, Bouquet 29, 2013, 36 x 36 inches
The Big Show at Lawndale Art Center, 6:30–8:30 pm. This year's guest juror was Duncan Mackenzie, of Bad at Sports fame. The selected artists are Hannah Adams, John Adelman, Alonso Bedolla, Kari Breitigam, Adrian Landon Brooks, Chadwick + Spector, Raina Chamberlain, Perry Chandler, Monica Chhay, JooYoung Choi, K.C. Collins, Felipe Contreras, Terry Crump, Andy Dearwater, Alex Larsen and Alexander DiJulio, Jennifer Ellison, Avril Falgout, Bryan Forrester, Kelli Foster, Caitlin Fredette, Luna Gajdos, Daniela Galindo, Bryan Keith Gardner, Matthew Glover, Nerissa Gomez, David P. Gray, Carrie Green Markello, Casey Arguelles Gregory, Sarah Hamilton, Jorge Imperio, Jenna Jacobs, Sandra A. Jacobs, Jeremy Keas, Bradley Kerl, Galina Kurlat, Marilyn Faulk Lanser, Melinda Laszczynski, Joan Laughlin, Eva Martinez, David McClain, Leo Medrano, Susannah Mira, Kia Neill, Mari Omori, Bernice Peacock, Eric Pearce, Ellen Phillips, Page Piland, Julon Pinkston, Eduardo Portillo, Cinta Rico, Natalie Rodgers, Darcy Rosenberger, Nana Sampong, Kay Sarver, John Slaby, Rosalind Speed, Earl Staley, Adair Stephens, Alexine O. Stevens, Saralene Tapley, Happy Valentine, David H. Waddell, Camille Warmington, Chantal Wnuk, Martin Wnuk and Tera Yoshimura. Whew. Of this group, I'm quite familiar with about 15 of them and there are many whose names I have never heard before. That's what's exciting about The Big Show. Now a word of warning--this is going to be one crowded opening. There will 67 artists (well, 66--I hear that Earl Staley will be in Beaumont for an opening of a solo show at AMSET) with their friends and family, as well as the usual Lawndale crowd. It will be an environment very conducive for partying, but not so much for looking at art. So if you want to actually see the art, I recommend checking it out Saturday.
SATURDAY

Getting ready for Funkmotor at Peveto
FUNKMOTOR at Peveto, 6–11 p.m. It's summer, so Peveto is getting funky with the aid of UP Art Studio. Features work by 2:12, Daniel Anguilu, Article, Brian Boyter, Burn353, Dual, Empire INS, FURM, Gear, Marco Guerra, JPS, Santiago Paez, Pilot FX, Raiko NIN, Sae MCT, Lee Washington, Wiley Robertson, Jason Seife, Justin West and w3r3on3.

Sebastien Bouncy photo
the soothsayer by Benjamin Gardner, A Nice Place to Visit by Ana Villagomez and Miguel Martinez, Grand Canyon by Jonathan Leach & Sebastien Boncy and Sana/Sana by Monica Foote at Box 13, 7 to 9:30 pm. Four new shows/installations open at Box 13 this Saturday. Take the drive down Harrisburg and check it out.

Rob Reasoner, Untitled 5.06, 2006, 19 x 19 inches
Chromaticism: New Paintings by Rob Reasoner at McClain Gallery, 2 to 4 pm. I would characterize these paintings as consisting of jolly colors laid down in an anal-retentive manner. Is that fair? Go see for yourself!
WEDNESDAY

Graciela Hasper, Untitled, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 77.6 x 83.9 inches
Mighty Line with Jillian Conrad, Jeffrey Dell, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Sharon Engelstein, Sévulo Esmeraldo, Manuel Espinosa, León Ferrari, Jessica Halonen, Graciela Hasper, Darcy Huebler, Bethany Johnson, Jonathan Leach, David Medina, Devon Moore, Richard Nix, Robert Ruello, Pablo Siquier, Carl Suddath and Randy Twaddle at Williams Tower Gallery, 6 to 8:30 pm. If all the group shows this weekend weren't enough, hop on over to uptown and check out Mighty Line featuring some heavy hitters!

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