Resistance by Hagit Barkai at Nau-Haus

by Dean Liscum

During the month of June 2011, Nau-haus Gallery exhibits  Hagit Barkai's show Resistance. Barkai has participated in several group shows, but this is her first solo exhibition and it's replete with new and old pieces.

She specializes in a style of portraiture that I characterize as emotional Platonism in that her works communicate not an action or a personality but an emotional ideal. These works, particularly her earlier works, remind me of  Lucien Freud or R.B. Kitaj or Eric Fischl, who are often praised for their "psychological penetration" of the subject. Their subjects were often famous people with whom most viewers could have a passing familiarity and make an assessment as to whether the painting captured the subject be it Leigh Bowery or Steve Martin. I don't know the psychological states of the subjects of Barkai. However, I can measure the psychological reaction that they provoke in me. Barkai contorts bodies and facial expressions to match an emotional ideal that runs the gambit of human discomfiture.

Barkai's subjects are known only to her and known intimately in that she has a personal relationship with those she paints. In some of her works, she provides enough context in the background or in the title for the viewer to grasp the archetypal scene. Even though the viewer doesn't know the subject, s/he knows the situation and can read it or read into it as s/he sees fit. Two works from her "Home" series that exhibit this characteristic are Aisen and Tyson and Bat Ami.

Aisen and Tyson, 2010
H84 x W48 inches
Oil on canvas

As Robert Boyd pointed out to me, Aisen and Tyson is a wedding portrait that "...seems to deliberately recall that foundational painting of Western bourgeois art history, the Arnolfini Wedding by Jan van Eyck." It's a common trope used to portray the dynamics in a relationship. The groom stands slightly in front of his bride. His arm either reaches back for his bride or pulls her along with him. Her face broadcast a defeated resignation, his a blurred defiance underscored by his brilliant red suit. Their wedding costumes shroud their bodies. Based on positioning, color, and facial expressions, this union doesn't exactly augur ecstasy for either of them, especially Aisen.

Bat Ami, 2010
H60 x W48 inches
Oil on canvas

Another picture painted using this same approach is Bat Ami, which literally means "daughter of a nation." The female subject's clothing hangs on her body, ill-fitting and uncomfortable as if its only purpose is to hide (perhaps shame) or protect (perhaps humility). Her facial expression is one of both discomfiture and the wonder of either alienation or disbelief. The subject doesn't occupy the picture plane. Rather, Barkai thrust her into this setting of existential dread.

Another group of works move closer to that emotional ideal. In co-curator Surpik Angelini's essay "The Art of Hagit Barkai: Between the Abject and the Sublime", she observes that Barkai's creative process and thus her work is "rooted in what Heidegger termed 'Dassein' or being in the world".
 

Midday (other people might argue), 2007
H60 x W36  inches
Oil on canvas

What I see in these paintings are figures in a world stripped of context. These works are meditations on the body. They are signs for our humanity. Symbols of emotional states.  At first glance, they appear to be signifiers with out a signified (references without a reference for those of you not steeped in semiotics or Saussure). The settings are vague and oblique or non-existent. Unlike Francis Bacon or Frichl, the subject is not a famous person like Pope Innocence X or Steve Martin, but private people in unknown (and unknowable) spaces. Thus, these works signify (reference) neither a literal person nor do they transcribe an event. Rather, they illustrate an emotion by forcing you the viewer to match Hagit's signifying image with a complex of emotions that serve as the signified (what is referenced).

You see this quality in works like Vomiters (not everywhere) and Blindfolds, which is if not an a priori rendering of dread then it's at least visceral one.

Vomiter (not everywhere), 2009
H42 x W54  inches
Oil on canvas

 Confronted with human forms in these positions, you the viewer must make sense of them, constructing a context, supplying a narrative.


Blindfolds, 2008
H42 x W54  inches
Oil on canvas


The images are primal not only in their subjects' nakedness and poses, but also in the way that the works are constructed. Barkai slathers and scraps paint across her canvases, grating, tearing, bruising, smearing the materials and the images that they compose. Her leaden, earthy palate further facilitates the feeling of too, too solid flesh. The hues of the figures exude not death but an awareness of mortality, the gravity of bodies, the weight of vulnerability.



Caves: 2, 2008
H19 x W20 inches
Oil on canvas


And yet, you could consider none of this (from semiotics to the mechanics of painting), understand none of this, see one of Hagit's paintings and "feel" exactly what these works are about.

I dare you to meditate on these pictures for a minute and successfully resist the impulse to understand, to explain, to feel these pictures. If a universal language of vulnerablity, unease, disquiet exists, Hagit has discovered it.

Postscript

As always, Dan Allison and the Nau-haus staff do an excellent job of supporting their artists. On the Nau-haus webpage dedicated to Resistance, Allison has posted the artist's statement and CV, written his own review, and published the essay, "The Art of Hagit Barkai: Between the Abject and the Sublime" by Surpik Angelini. Nau-haus has also compiled a catalog of the show that can purchased online. My only criticism of the gallery is the burden of plenty. I'd have liked a little more space between the works, but when that's my only complaint, I realize just how good the show is.

The ones that got away in April 2011 - Lyons, Conley, Saavedra, Perelli, Post

by Dean Liscum

During April, Houston had a lot of art that I wanted to write about but didn't due to nothing more than the lackadaisical nature of a dilettante. I have some minor guilt (probably Catholic in origin) about not getting to these shows, but it's mitigated by my belief that these artists will only get bigger and better and be back.

Here's my art penance to Giles Lyon, Tara Conley, Ed Saavedra, Keith Perelli, and Linda Post. It's replete with links to the artists' websites and the exhibitions if they have been posted online. If you didn't make these shows, indulge in a little artistic self-flagellation and then make pilgrimages to these artist\gallery sites. It will be a redeeming experience.

Giles Lyon's, "Psychedelic Cave Painting" at the Optical Project was on display from April 8 through May 7, 2011. These paintings are created in the tachisme style, which roughly defined is a form of abstract lyricism. These works are not only lyrical but full of many northwest coast art references.

detail of Untitled, 2011

detail of Untitled, 2011



detail of Untitled, 2011

 Tara Conley's Word for Word at Laura Rathe Fine Art Gallery was on display from March 26 through April 23, 2011.  In this series, Conley, who's always been both playful and clever in her sculptures, gets textual. I don't know if this is a trend or a tangent for Tara. Nevertheless, if you're textually inclined, I think you'll find these terrific.

I Need You To Be With Me, 2011

I Love You But..., 2011
(photo by Robert Boyd)

I'm kind of monogamous, 2011
and
I just want to go back to sleep and wake up last week, 2011



multiple works by Tara Conley, 2011

Ed Saavedra's Things Have Gone To Pieces at G Gallery was on display in April 2011. This show served as a de facto retrospective of Saavedra's mastery of multiple mediums and his many of political subjects.

20 Minutes to Blythe, 2009
Arizona map, cowboy hat (hecho en mexico), acrylic polymer

The Problem of Language, 2010

Flag, 2009
4.5 X 7 inches collage and acrylic paint on wood

Keith Perelli's Perforate at Nau-haus was on display in April 2011. I enjoy his palette but found the monochromatic, multi-layered works the most engaging.

Closing, 2009
Aquarelle Crayon, Mylar, Paper, thread, rivets, 31’ X 24”
(courtesy of Nau-Haus)

Opening, 2010
18” x 24” Monotype painting
(courtesy of Nau-Haus)

Linda Post's Wherever at Art Palace was on display from April 8 through May 14, 2011. This work celebrates the quotidian through photography, video, and sculpture. Her focus captures the beauty of things ranging from industrial design to the daily grind of chores. The video pieces use "movement as a sculptural medium" (I'm poorly paraphrasing Post), and portray the subject's everyday activities with a few surprises thrown in. The most engaging piece was a site specific video that was originally recorded in the space in which it was later exhibited. (Think of being in a room and watching a video of an activity that was performed in that same room.) It was re-exhibited at Art Palace. Hopefully, Post will do a site-specific video at her next show.

Wherever installation, 2011
(photo by Robert Boyd)

There, 2011
3 Videos on Tube Televisions
36" x 56" x 24"

Wherever Porfolio: III, 2011
Inkjet Print
8" x 12"

Alyson Souza at Nau-Haus

Robert Boyd

Lots of good openings this past weekend. I'm not totally sure what to think of Alyson Souza's work. On one hand, it seems overly clever and "wacky." But what made me decide I liked it in the end was her juicy impasto. It was, in a way, the last technique one would expect for the pieces on view.



Alyson Souza, Noticeably Obsolete, oil on wood construction, 2009

What you can't really see in this photo is that the piece is actually constructed of several overlapping pieces of wood, each painted. Also, this image doesn't give you quite the full effect of the impasto. The pieces are exceptionally well-constructed. The oddball mixture of "typefaces" (all laboriously painted by hand) recalls Victorian design, as does the Pre-Raphaelite color sense.



Alyson Souza, They Were Not, 2009

The text, with its ironic descriptions of its subjects as thinking machines, is strictly 21st century. To me, the texts are the weakest aspect of the work. While I can imagine living with the beautifully crafted and painted foaces for a good long time, I'm not sure I would want to be reading the "clever," "humorous" texts after a few years. They seem the opposite of timeless.

But that's me. And maybe after a period of time I'd stop noticing the text and concentrate on the image, the shaped of the letters, the gooey thick paint, the curves of each wooden plane--all of which are delightful.



Alyson Souza, Happier Without, 2009

I wanted to show this one because of the "half-tone" on the face. Obviously her source is a photograph, possibly of another painting, that has been half-toned for printed reproduction. In her version of it, all those little dots are painted by hand. Amazing.

According to the Nau-Haus website, Souza is the daughter of Al Souza, the UH professor and generally widely admired Houston artist. I'm trying to think of a way to connect the work of father and daughter. Al often makes pieces out of layers of jigsaw puzzles. Alyson also layers her work, and the wood appears to have been cut with a jigsaw... That's all I got.



Alyson Souza, study for The Gift of Gab, water color, pencil, and collage on paper

The show also included a bunch of these very lovely studies.

The People's Choices

by Robert Boyd

Before we dive into the results of my public survey of the best of Houston's art scene in 2011, let me talk a bit about the poll. First of all, there were a total of 65 respondents--thank you all. On one hand, 65 is great. On the other hand, I think it represents just a fraction of the total number of people in Houston who have an opinion on what their favorite art exhibits were. I wish I had further reach.

Additionally, with 65 respondents, it is fairly easy to game the results. I believe this has happened--not maliciously, but by virtue of friends of certain artists and galleries voting for those artists and galleries. Let me reiterate--there is nothing wrong with this. If my friend had a great show and I loved it, voting for it is perfectly legitimate. And if I were an artist who had a show in 2011, I would have linked to the poll on my Facebook page and let my friends know.

And even if there wasn't that level of deliberate action, the fact is that The Great God Pan is Dead is read by a certain constituency. I'd call it the Joanna/Art Palace/Box 13 constituency (and perhaps add to it the Nau-Haus/PG Contemporary constituency), and artists valued by these constituencies did very well. And deservedly so! But I mention this because I believe that if I had gotten 200 respondents or 500 respondents, the results would have been substantially different. In a way, this poll reveals more about The Great God Pan Is Dead and its readership than it does about Houston's art as a whole. So be it. It's my first try at this and while I'm sure I'll get better at it as the years go on, I'm quite pleased with the results.

Best Art Exhibits in 2011

What was interesting here was the voting was highly spread out. There was in no way a consensus. With so many good choices, respondents voted across the map. Still, there was a victor:
Seth Alverson at Art Palace with nine votes. (Big applause!)

Seth Alverson, Chair, Chair II, oil on canvas, 2009-2011

Just to demonstrate how broad the votes were scattered, there was a three-way tie for 2nd place (with seven votes each):
Lane Hagood, The Museum of Eterna at the Joanna
Kenn Coplan, Ultimate Kenn at Nau-haus Art Space
group exhibit, Pan y Circos at PG Contemporary (the "friends of Robert Boyd faction" really came through!)

And in third place, there was a six-way tie with  six votes each:
Charles LeDray, workworkworkworkworkwork at the MFAH
Francis Giampietro & Jeremy DePrez, The Power of Negative Feedback at Lawndale
Mark Flood at Cardoza Gallery
Marvin Zindler, Bayou City Noir at the Museum of Printing History
Upside Down: Arctic Realities at the Menil
Vija Celmins: Television + Disaster, 1964-9166 at the Menil

Of this entire list, the biggest surprises were what didn't make it to six or more votes, but among the winners, the most pleasant surprise for me was the quirky Marvin Zindler photo show at the Museum of Printing History.


Best Performance Art in 2011

This category was a little trickier, I thought, because of the transitory nature of performance. You had to be there to even really identify the piece, much less form some kind of personal judgment. The big winner, however, was:
Cody Ledvina, Gawd parents: I am real at BOX 13 (with 15 votes!)

Cody Ledvina's performance Gawd parents: I am real

There was a tie for second place with six votes each:
Dennis Harper and Friends, iPageant at the Joanna
Jim Woodring, Demonstration of Nibbus Maximus at Walpurgis Afternoon at Lawndale

And third place with four votes goes to:
The Bridge Club, Natural Resources at Lawndale

Most Significant Local Art-Related Events of 2011

This was my catch-all category where the events that shaped the ecology of the local art scene could be ranked. And the number one event with 16 votes was:
The Texas Contemporary Art Fair

Jason Willaford, Out of Site - Out of Sight, chrome plated oil barrels, 2010 at the Texas Contemporary Art Fair


Number two with 12 votes was:
The Houston Fine Art Fair

The fact that these two art fairs were ranked one and two shows how important respondents felt about art fairs coming to Houston. And it was important. Arturo Palacio told me that more people stopped by his booth at the Texas Contemporary Art Fair that went into his gallery all year. With attendance numbers of 10,000 batted around--most of whom were from Houston and vicinity--this was a big deal for all the local galleries that attended, as well as for the out-of-town galleries.

Coming in at third with 11 votes was:
Devon Britt-Darby vs The Art Guys

This category was my way of encapsulating a variety of events--the Menil acquiring the tree that the Art Guys married, Britt's coverage of that in the Chronicle, his counterperformance in marrying gallerina Reese Darby (and changing his name to Devon Britt-Darby), his confession of his former life as a meth-addicted male prostitute, his annotated road-trip (financed by being a male escort), and his firing from the Houston Chronicle. Certainly it got a lot of people talking.


Thanks everyone who voted, and happy new year!

The Invisible Curator: Underwear Art

Sometimes when you are checking out the new shows that have opened over the weekend, you will see pieces at different venues that seem like they should have been part of the same exhibit. That's the hand of the invisible curator, who arranges art exhibits that exist only in my mind. Call her my higher power. I think of her as Tyche. Here's the small exhibit she pulled together for me this weekend.


Donald Lipski, untitled, mixed media, 2010


Chris Hedrick, Tighty Whities, linden with clothes pins

The former piece is from the exhibit Plenitude at Barbara Davis Gallery. It is a group show with a bunch of blue-chip artists, including Donald Lipski, whose work I have been a fan of since seeing an exhibit of his in London in 1986 (!). He was to do a public sculpture for Houston at the water works up by Lake Houston. I went up there to see if it had been installed a year ago, but it wasn't. Apparently it never will be--according to Lipski's blog, the Department of Homeland Security declared the site was too sensitive to be open to the public, so the HAA was looking for another location. But that was in April, and Houston's finances are dire. Does anyone out there know what the status is on this?

Chris Hedrick's woodcarvings, like Tighty Whities, play with the idea of soft vs. hard, a subject that has fascinated sculptors since Phidias put his figures in wet robes on the Parthenon. I hope to review his current show at Nau Haus later this week.

Robert Boyd's 2011 Honorable Mention

All of the shows listed below were excellent, and on a different day, I might have placed any one of them in the top 10.

Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard at Center for Contemporary Craft. This was a very interesting show that included sculptures made of plaster and gold--where the percent of gold was determined by how much gold it would take to buy the thing depicted.




Stephanie Toppin's couch in Jim Peterson, Jr.'s garage

Stephanie Toppin's couch. Of all the things associated with the Art Car Parade this year, this is my favorite. After the parade, Toppin's couch was lost for several months until I happened to find it at Jim Peterson, Jr.'s house. Mystery solved!


The Time Travel Research Institute Presents by Patrick Turk at Art League. Instead of his usual dense psychedelic collages, Turk made these pieces have a sense of physical space and even added motion to some. Mindblowing.

Jim Nolan, Today is Tomorrow at Art Palace. Jim Nolan's art is what happens when minimalism goes downscale. Made often from items purchased at 99¢ Only stores, it is the perfect art for our belt-tightening times.


Jim Woodring, Lazy Robinson, charcoal on paper

Jim Woodring and Marc Bell, Walpurgis Afternoon at Lawndale. I'm picking a show I curated, which is a bit unfair. What can I say? I thought it was great--two cartooonists/painters whose work I've admired for decades, and between whom I felt there was a connection. It seemed natural.



Raul Gonzalez, More Work Ahead, ink and spray paint on floor laminate, 2010

Raul Gonzalez at the Caroline Collective. Raul Gonzalez is a real street artist--and by that, he paints Houston's streets and uses as motifs street signs. Indeed, the colors of street signs pervade his work. He has created the vision of Houston that seems most true.


Myke Venable, MV 25 Silver/Scarlet Red/Black, acrylic on canvas, 2011

Myke Venable at Sonia Roesch. The only way these paintings could be more minimal would be to turn them from two or three color paintings to one-color paintings. As a consequence of their minimal content, they lack autonomy--they collaborate, in a sense, with the room they're in. And that's what I like about them.

Southern/Pacific at Lawndale. Really lovely show filled with interesting pieces curated by recent transplant to Houston, Paul Middendorf. This was road-trip art--he picked up art in Portland, Oregon (where he used to live) and Marfa and finally Houston. It was a fine way to introduce Houston art viewers to some interesting out-of-towners.

 
Hagit Barkai, Aisen and Tyson, Oil on canvas, 2010

Hagit Barkai, Resistance at Nau-Haus. Hagit Barkai's paintings linger in my mind. It's not the extreme one, the ones showing highly distressed people--although those are good. It's piece like Aisen and Tyson and Home More or Less that stick with me.


Dennis Harper and Friends, iPageant at the Joanna. This show was a giant performance extravaganza. Dennis Harper constructed some of his patented oversized paper sculptures--this time of a 60s era television soundstage. It was within this construct, aided by multiple closed-circuit televisions, that Harper staged his variety show. I only hope it wasn't a one-time event.

Ward Sanders at Hooks Epstein. San Antonio artist Ward Sanders has had four shows at Hooks-Epstein, but for this one, he added a new element. In addition to his mysterious, lovingly-created boxes, he has a piece of text. It turns out his writing, at least in these short fragments, is excellent. The world of visual art could lose Sanders to the literary world.

Ibsen Espada, Reformulaciones at New Gallery. One of the original Fresh Paint artists, Espada has apparently laid low for a while. This show was a powerful (and hopefully triumphal) return. Muscular abstractions.


Sharon Engelstein's Green Golly got its own room at Pan Y Circos

Pan y Circos at PG Contemporary. Curated by yours truly. We had a huge space for this group show, and it turned out great. I am especially proud to have brought El Dinersito by Jorge Galvan to the attention of Houston's art crowd.

Robert Pruitt, You Are Your Own Twin at Hooks Epstein. Every time I've seen Pruitt's portraits, I've loved them. There seems to be a rising generation of artists and intellectuals who are heavily invested in African American identity and history and simultaneously into science fiction and gaming and other nerdy pursuits. For example, the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. And Robert Pruitt.

Kim Dingle at Front Gallery. The Front Gallery is Houston's newest gallery, and its smallest. The inaugural show, full of oil-sketches of hyper-active girls, was a fantastic beginning.

Lisa Qualls, absence at Koelsch. Here is a highly conceptual show (portraits of an ancestor who left behind no visual image) that is simultaneously highly personal. I found it quite moving.

Dissatisfaction: A Talk with Marzia Faggin

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

Recently two Houston critics published reviews of Marzia Faggin’s Dissatisfaction exhibition at d.m. allison art, which can be seen through March 2, and if I invoke them, it’s because they are informative. Devon Britt-Darby, writing for Arts & Culture Magazine, considered Faggin’s thirteen wall mounted three-dimensional panels to be a continuation of the work she showed at Nau-haus Art in 2011, which he described as “life-size painted cast-plaster still lifes of potentially addictive pills like Lithium, Xanax and Adderall, which she juxtaposed with equally convincing replicas of equally addictive chocolates, cookies and other sugary snacks.” Faggin’s new work, according to Britt-Darby, “keeps the same intimate, life-size scale, but ups the ante both conceptually and formally. Candies, some half-eaten; pills; and snuffed-out cigarettes now sit along expertly cast and hand-painted copies of books from Faggin’s personal library. And what a library it is: Junky by William S. Burroughs, Albert Camus’s The Stranger and Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye are among the volumes sharing real estate on what Faggin calls ‘details of a nightstand’ with scattered chocolates, capsules, and other bits of evidence of how the nightstand owner numbs or deflects his or her pain.”

Writing for the Houston Press, Abby Koenig described the objects on Faggin’s panels as those “one might find after a night of soul searching and debauchery,” and rightly associated the panels’ books with our yearning for meaning in life. The “hopelessness” that leads us to read Sartre, Burroughs and Bukowski, she suggested, explains our use of pills, booze, cigarettes and Kit Kat bars. The critic further noted how realistic the objects seem, “the details are so perfect; the rice crisps of the Krackel bar pop out of the plaster chocolate,” she wrote, which is precisely the reaction I had the first time I encountered one of Faggin’s panels of addictive pills at PG Contemporary in 2012.

Cumulatively the two critics provide a fine description of Faggin’s art. After talking to the artist I would like to add a tiny bit more.


Marzia Faggin, Detail of a Night Stand: Ham on Rye, 2013, Hand painted plaster (Hydrocal),12 x 12

Virginia Billeaud Anderson: Let’s get the topic of addiction out of the way, for anyone who thinks your art is about addiction, or wonders if you have had personal experience with addiction, either yours, family or friends.

Marzia Faggin: The art is not about addiction, it’s about existential angst, our need to understand human existence. I was thinking about what a lonely space a nightstand can be, the half-eaten chocolates, and other objects speak of "dissatisfaction." I have been smoking cigarettes since I was 13 and have quit at least 25 times, the longest stretch without being over a year when I was pregnant and nursing. Addiction to anything can be miserable and I empathize. Effects on the mind and body vary, but addiction can bring suffering and self loathing. I have friends without any addictions, friends who are addicts, and some are former addicts. The most common addiction among my friends is food.

VBA: Briefly describe the process of making casts - do you construct a mold from the real object, how is it done?

MF: When I began working I often incorporated pre-fabricated molds along with the original molds. For "Dissatisfaction" I constructed molds for everything except the art’s base, which I cast from a 12" x 12" pre-fabricated tile mold. I use a two-part silicone to make a mold of the objects, cast from real objects, and pour plaster into the molds. It's not a complicated process and is similar to baking. At first you follow the recipe, then you learn to eyeball the ingredients.

Collaboration with my brother Eric Faggin brought me to this. In early 2010 we worked together on a piece called Natura Morta for the group show Material and deStructure, curated by Zoya Tommy at PG Contemporary Gallery, which is now called Zoya Tommy Contemporary Gallery. We made a cast concrete frame above a bed of grass with flowers. When water was sprayed on the frame, the inscription Natura Morta, (“Still Life” in Italian) appeared. While Eric worked on the concrete frame, I experimented with materials to make the flowers, searched the Internet for materials and molds, eventually trying latex, alginate, putty, silicone, baking molds, as well as various types of plaster. About the time I decided to use Permastone, the artist Richard Soler suggested I use Hydrocal because it's lighter and whiter.

Two of my paintings in Zoya's show caught the attention of the critic Robert Boyd, who contacted me a few months later and asked me to be part of an exhibition he was curating for the Freneticore Theater Fringe Festival. The 15 plaster wall hangings I made represented my beginning in this art form.

Marzia Faggin, Detail of a Nightstand: The Stranger, 2013, Hand painted plaster (Hydrocal),12" x 12"

VBA: Do you sketch or design the composition before you create each panel?

MF: No, I don't sketch or design the compositions. I’m usually unsure about arrangement until I’ve completed the individual elements. It's like having a bunch of puzzle pieces that can be re-arranged, until I'm satisfied that the results communicate what I have in mind. For Dissatisfaction, I knew which books I would include, and also which objects - candy, cigarettes - would be “details of a nightstand,” but not the arrangement of the panels.

VBA: Are the “real” candy, pills, books or cigarettes in front of you to guide you?

MF: Yes, I have the "real" object in front of me as a guide, but I tend to make colors brighter, since I love color.

VBA: It must require precise brush handling to make plastic appear like real chocolate or Xanax. Is coloring a lengthy or tedious process? Make a comment about the brushes you use.

MF: The brushes range from size 000 to 6. Painting is labor intensive, and can take 8 hours to paint 3 chocolates, I spent 6 months painting half-eaten chocolates, so boring. I was not sure why I was doing it. A half-eaten chocolate represents something painful. Even the act of painting these chocolates depressed me.

VBA: Why do you think you are drawn to such precise manipulation of materials?

MF: I love to work with my hands, I love to paint, and I'm a "bit" obsessive. Working in 3-D suits my skills, I can more effectively express myself.

VBA: In the past when you painted, I can’t help but wonder if you had an obsessively representational style. Did your paintings and print art forewarn of the work you are doing now?

MF: I don’t know if my style was representational, but my technique was one that lacked visible brush strokes. Precision and color are very important. When I printed with Dan Allison I applied paint to some of the prints. Drawing is not my forte. But combining computer images with traditional techniques suited me because with the computer, images become objects that can be endlessly moved around, similar to the 3-D objects I create, and move around until I'm satisfied the composition expresses what I’m feeling.

Marzia Faggin, Detail of a Night Stand: Go Now, 2013, Hand painted plaster (Hydrocal), 12" x 12"

VBA: You were formally trained to manipulate images. According to your biographical material you studied graphic design at the Instituto Europeo Di Design in Milan, and paper conservation at Atelier Deltos di Simonetta Rosatelli. Surely experience in graphic design adds to this artistic expression, but do you think the chemistry you learned when studying paper conservation flavors the work with molds and cast plastic?

MF: Studying graphic design shaped me tremendously. It taught me to be precise and clean, even if I did not start out that way. The first months of school took some adjusting. I presented my exercises with fingerprints, smudges and creases on the paper and my classmates and professors were horrified. I didn't even know how to use a ruler. The X-Acto knife was suicidal, which is funny, because now the ruler and X-Acto knife are as indispensable as my hands. School taught me precision and patience. Paper conservation is precise and repetitive, patience is key in that work.

VBA: Let’s talk about the books. In our previous discussion you acknowledged their existential significance, and said you choose books that “relay the darker element of suffering.” Rimbaud, Sartre and Burroughs are bleak, but Camus! I remember dissecting The Stranger in a graduate school seminar, and thinking how perfectly its opening lines convey the absurdity of our existing as mortals within an indifferent universe. In Camus’s story, which you reproduced as a nightstand element, existence is alienated from meaning. Comment on your connection to the literature. Did you “seriously” study this literature, in an academic environment?

MF: I did not "seriously" study literature. I like to read, but don’t consider myself well-read. I gravitate toward books that question life, and entertain the psychological motivations behind behavior, reasons for hypocrisy, criminality, injustice, loneliness, violence and suffering, as well as the search for truth. I like books that make me think.

I want to say this, even if it sounds corny or lame. Ever since I was a child I've been hoarding candy, the brighter the colors, the better, for me candy is one of the most beautiful things in the world. As an adult I don’t have to hide my candy, and I have it everywhere, which is strange because I don't have much of a sweet tooth. This might seem to contradict my previous description of half-eaten chocolate bars as sad, but in my imagination chocolate absorbs sorrow, and candy seems to deflect it.

And this might be too corny, but in 2004 while living in Florence I decided to discontinue working as a graphic designer about the time of my first solo show in a bookstore called Libreria Martelli, organized by Paolo Giomi, the husband of Simonetta Rosatelli who operated Atelier Deltos where I apprenticed in paper conservation. My husband Manuel Terranova supported my decision to pursue a different career. We moved to Houston in 2006 when I was 7 months pregnant and the house we bought was near Texas Collaborative, Redbud and G Gallery, which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. About a year after having my daughter Isabella, I started to harass Dan Mitchell Allison, Gus Kopriva, Max Boyd-Harrison, and Heidi Powell Prera, bothering them in their galleries, humiliating myself. Moral of the story: If I hadn't moved to Houston, I might not have realized my goal of becoming an exhibiting artist. Houston has been incredibly supportive, people here gave me a chance, for which I will always be grateful, and particularly to Dan Mitchell Allison and Zoya Tommy for fostering my "career."

The Part 4: Best (and Worst) of 2011 -- The Houston Art Community Selects their Faves

(Continued from part 3)


Temple Hive by Monica Vidal wowed 'em at Box 13

Monica Vidal, Temple Hive at BOX 13. "I can't wrap my head around all the planning and measuring that goes into Monica's work. The scale of her work is really impressive, and I loved being able to walk into this one (a similar hive at Lawndale was sealed off). Her drawings are also quite nice." That's what an anonymous respondent thought. Maybe Vidal should make a super-giant hive for the West Oaks Mall art space. That would be worth the 20 mile drive to see!

Moving into his new studio. Sometimes the most important art event is purely personal. Earl Staley wrote that his most "memorable event was moving into a studio at 2711 Main St. The rest is noise." That's a great location if you find that you've run out of pthalo green--Art Supply on Main is just downstairs.


Nathan Green's show at Art Palace

Nathan Green, Fill the Sky at Art Palace. An anonymous respondent gave a thumbs up to this show.

Kenn Coplan, Ultimate Kenn at Nau-haus Art Space. One of our anonymous respondents wrote, "Kenn Coplan's solo show was incredibly entertaining. His pieces are crazy. They're so fun to look at and play with. His photography is also outstanding, but I get really excited by his wacky toys and rusty sculptures."


Duck! Curt Gambetta's Office Light at Lawndale


Curt Gambetta, Office Light at Lawndale. Emily Sloan gave the nod to this perversely claustrophobic outdoor installation by Curt Gambetta.


First Take: Okay Mountain Collective at Blaffer Gallery. This got a vote from Brett Hollis, with no word on whether he joined their cult.


Camp Bosworth keeps an eye on everything with Security Camera 1 at Southern/Pacific

Southern/Pacific curated by Paul Middendorf at Lawndale. "The most successful group show I've seen at Lawndale in a long time. I'm excited to see the next installment of this traveling project." That's what an anonymous respondent wrote about this Portland/Marfa/Houston show.


Susan Plum, Nuevo Fuego at PG Contemporary. An anonymous respondent wrote, "Susan Plum's show is just plain beautiful. All of that sparkling woven glass is mesmerizing. Her work feels both earthy and clean at the same time."

Kenn Coplan, Wayne Gilbert & Charles Krafft, Momento Mori at PG Contemporary. "I love Charles Krafft. Enough said. The three artists complimented each other nicely. Wayne's human ash paintings were perfect with Charles' human bone china pieces. Kenn's rust angels and dusty curio cabinet were haunting," was what an anonymous respondent wrote.

Jillian Conrad, Claire Falkenberg, Ian Pedigo, and Brion Nuda Rosch, Related Clues at Inman. An anonymous respondent wrote, "Well to be honest what i really like at Inman is Claire Falkenberg and Ian Pedigo. [M]ust have been 5 or 6 years ago when I [first] saw [Pedigo's] work. He does some pretty cool stuff, but I'm still not quite sure where he is coming from. First time to see Claire's work--like it so far." I thought Conrad and Rosch's work in this show was also excellent.

To be concluded in part 5!

Caras y Caretas

Nau-Haus has a show of masks by Richard Soler. I really liked the installation. Here are some photographs from the opening reception.