Aaron Parazette Keeps You Off Balance

Robert Boyd

Aaron Parazette's show at the Art League, Flyaway, includes on very large wall piece and six modestly-sized paintings. The difference in scale is so vast that it's really hard to see anything but Flyaway, the wall piece, when you walk into the gallery. It is facing the viewer and grabs your attention in such a way that it might be a number of minutes before you turn around and notice the other work.


Aaron Parazette, Flyaway, 2012, acrylic wall painting, 7' x 56'

Flyaway wraps around two walls. Each wall has a focal point where several lines converge. The intersections of these lines, and the edge of the painting itself, form flat geometric shapes. Parazette fills each geometric shape with a color form a narrow palette--dark green light green, dark blue, medium blue, light blue, black and white. This deliberate limiting of colors has been a prominent aspect of his art for a while now. The title of his current series of paintings, Color Key, refers to it. At his last solo exhibit, I found this approach a bit boring. But by putting it on the wall at this scale, Parazette changes the whole dynamic. Size matters. At this scale, the straight lines of the wall painting engage with the straight lines where the floor and ceiling meets the walls, and where two walls meet each other. The triangles and trapezoids echo the perspective space of the room. You are enveloped by the painting just as you are enveloped by the gallery itself. Flyaway loses the autonomy of an individual easel painting, but gains a dialogue with the architecture. Too many colors might have spoiled that dialogue. That was one thing the minimalists realized--keep it simple and suddenly it's not about the art object as an autonomous thing, it's about the viewer, the architecture, the object and their ever shifting relationships with one another. And that's what you get with Flyaway.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key 33, 2012, acrylic on linen, 15" x 22"

So the question is, how do the smaller paintings hold up against Flyaway? You have pieces like Color Key 33, with an even more restrained palette, where everything feels perfectly balanced in this perfect ellipse. This work is completely pleasant but not very exciting. The point that draws my eye and prevents it form being a work of dull perfection is the tangent pint in the upper right, where four lines converge at the edge of the canvas. They teach you not to do this in art school, and the way it pulls you in is why. It's the kind of rule-breaking you need to make this painting work.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key 36, 2012, acrylic on linen, 17" x 32"

Color Key 36 and Color Key 37 are interesting because they suggest three dimensions. They come across as orthographic projections and remind me a little bit of Al Held. And as with Al Held, there is a tension between viewing them as three-dimensional objects and a two-dimensional surface. The paintings don't allow you to make an easy choice between the two modes of seeing. It seems like an interesting departure for Parazette. But what I like most about them are the almost vibratory outlines of the various triangles and rectangles. The green shapes in Color Key 36 get a narrow orange outline, and the white shapes get a pinkish outline. The colors of the outlines shift as they are placed against larger areas of color (sky blue, black, white, yellow-green and a darker green). This shifting is what holds my attention here because even more than the ambiguously three-dimensional shapes, the shifting, vibrating outlines fail to resolve--and that is very interesting to look at. (Of course, these jpegs fail to do them justice.)


Aaron Parazette, Color Key 37, 2012, acrylic on linen, 20" x 15"

Each of these paintings has one further feature that helps to keep the viewer off balance--they aren't symmetrical. So despite a severely minimized number of visual elements, these Color Key paintings have tricky, unexpected elements. Looking at them is a little like listening to Thelonious Monk--they seem formal and austere but they repeatedly hit you with something unexpected.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key 34, 2012, acrylic on linen, 34" x 24"

This effect is especially pronounced with Color Key 34, which looks like it really wants to be a very well-balanced symmetrical composition. Parazette's imp of the perverse won't let the viewer off that easy. Again we have the narrow colorful outlines, which take on all the more significance in this otherwise grey-tone painting. And the arrangement of the partial circles on the canvas, which feels rational, in fact continually seeks to roll the whole thing to the right.

With deliberately limited means, Parazette plays little games with his viewers. The result is highly engaging and pleasurable. And I also want to recommend the catalog that the Art League published to accompany this exhibit. In it, we get to see a small sampling of earlier Parazette work. I was pretty much completely unfamiliar with anything before the "splash paintings" from the late 1990s and was therefore pretty surprised to see where this formalist game-player had come from. Suffice it to say, the game-playing has been there all along.

The Mandarin and the Street Artist

Robert Boyd

One of the coolest and yet most unexpected collaborations I've seen recently is Skywriting by Aaron Parazette and Daniel Anguilu on the side of Lawndale.


Daniel Anguilu and Aaron Parazette, Skywriting, 2013

Think about it. On one hand, you have Parazette, a professor at the University of Houston, a Core Fellow (1990-92), the Art League's 2012 Texas Artist of the Year. He has a graduate degree in art! Parazette paints geometric abstractions, for god's sake! The kind of things that have been confusing and occasionally enraging the homme moyen sensuel for over a century! He is the living embodiment of an elite, intellectual artist.

On the other hand, you Daniel Anguilu. His art career began when he started painting the sides of railroad cars. Now he has the quintessential working class Ralph Kramden kind of job in mass transit--he drives a light rail train. And he still does graffiti--just with permission now.

For the two to collaborate meant two different art worlds had to meet. But this meeting wasn't as unlikely as it may have seemed on the surface, mainly because the success and exposure within the art world that Anguilu has gotten. His murals are highly visible in Midtown, which is also a center of Houston's art world. He's had gallery shows and was one of the featured artists in a recent show at the Station Museum. (Even Texans linebacker Connor Barwin commissioned a mural from him for his condo.)


Daniel Anguilu and Aaron Parazette, Skywriting, 2013

And it turns out that the work works really well together. The two artists obviously agreed on a palette beforehand. Parazette's portion, though completely abstract, is sort of a landscape. There is a horizon line (and a sense of one-point perspective), there is a blue sky. Anguilu's part rests on the horizon line, extending above and below it, and because of this appears as landscape--perhaps rounded hills. That is part of the contrast between Anguilu and Parazette--Anguilu's work consists of interlocking curves while Parazette is all straight lines. Another difference is that Anguilu's work here (and in general) involves heavy black outlines, sort of like Georges Rouault. Parazette in contrast lays his areas of color next to one another with no outline.

Parazette's work ends up containing Anguilu's. But because of the density and fine detail of Anguilu, it competes equally for the eye's attention. And that is one thing I liked about this piece. They are competing visually. It's a collaboration, but it isn't meant to be a seamless blending of the two artist's work. Each has his own part that is highly recognizable as his. Neither surrender's his artistic vision to the other. Some collaborations are incoherent, and some are bland approximations of the solo work of each of the collaborators. Neither of those faults is present here. The elements created by each artists are wholly distinct and yet work beautifully in juxtaposition.

Aaron Parazette's Color Keys

by Robert Boyd

One of the challenges for any artist doing geometric abstraction is to avoid boredom. This is an oversimplification, though. Sometimes boredom is the goal--a boredom so thick and profound that it invites the viewer to fill it. Classic minimal pieces have this effect. Michael Fried wrote about this in "Art and Objecthood"--he called this quality "theatricality" and said it was the "negation of art." While I disagree with Fried's formalist puritanism, it is a useful distinction to make. A geometric abstraction by Kandinsky or Mondrian is an aesthetic object--what makes it a work of art is what it looks like, the arrangement of paint on the surface. An Yves Klein monochrome is an object where the relationship the viewer has to it is a major part of the piece--i.e., it is "theatrical." And you get painters like Ellsworth Kelly and Frank Stella who skate on the edge of this distinction. But what would you call a geometric abstraction that is reductive enough to be boring but not interesting as an object? I don't know, but I saw a lot of them at the Aaron Parazette show at McClain Gallery.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key #25, acrylic on linen, 2011

These paintings are called "Color Keys," which is apt. They look like color guides used by commercial designers, or the kinds of exercises student painters do to figure out what happens when you mix 50% ultramarine with 50% titanium white. I did this kind of exercise when I studied painting with Stella Sullivan. It was useful but tedious. And this kind of image has not lost its tedium for me in the intervening 30 years.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key #24, acrylic on linen, 2011

In earlier Parazette paintings, he would take flat areas of color, lay them against another flat area, but separate them by a thin line or barrier in a color that seemed to vibrate between the two others. I quite liked these--he was playing with optical qualities in a subtle and lovely way. He does this on some of the pieces here, and they are the best pieces in the show.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key #23, acrylic on linen, 2011


Aaron Parazette, Color Key #23, acrylic on linen, 2011

What is also pleasing about these pieces is that the area bound by the thin line of color is quite irregular. These area provide a contrast to the triangles that fill the rest of the paintings. These areas of color also create an ambiguous ground, creating a sense of space or depth.

These are the exception. The work here is flat in an uninteresting way. They neither engage the eye or the mind. Most of the paintings in this exhibit occupy the no-man's-land between modernist painting and minimalist object, and that no-man's-land is one boring place to be.


Aaron Parazette, Color Key #21, acrylic on linen, 2011

Pan Recommends for the week of September 6 through September 12

Oh my, it's Thursday again. This week is one of the biggest weeks in the year as everyone puts away their white shoes and madras slacks and gets serious about life again. There is so much artsy stuff happening this weekend that no one can possibly hope to see it all. We'll make an effort, though. But if you feel the need to pick and choose, here are our recommendations.

Fall Art Kickoff Slide Jam in the courtyard of Sewell Hall at Rice University, 7 pm, Thursday, September 6. Slides by various Core Fellows and Rice art faculty, a reception at the Matchbox Gallery Space, and music. These events are always fun and a good opportunity to see the work of Rice student artists.

FLYAWAY: New Work by Aaron Parazette at the Art League, 6 pm, Friday, September 7. Aaron Parazette is the Art League's Texas Artist of the Year, and in addition to exhibiting a bunch of his paintings, this show will include a new large site-specific painting.

SHIPPED: Work by Current BOX13 Artists Outside the BOX at 4411 Montrose, 6:30, Friday, September 7. Some Houston art lovers have never made the trek out to Wayside to see Box 13, so Box 13 is making the trek to Montrose to see you! Work by Elaine Bradford, Karen Brasier-Young, Michelle Chen-Dubose, Monica Foote, Michael Henderson, Janine Hughes, Kate Kendall, Jonathan Leach, David McClain, Jennifer McNichols, Tudor Mitroi, Kia Neill, Emily Peacock, Kristy Peet, Mark Ponder, and J. Michael Stovall--in short, some of the finest artists in town.

Karen Cytter: Video Art Manual at Diverse Works (the old space, not the new one), 8 pm, Friday, September 7. This was supposed to open at their new space in Midtown, but construction delays have caused a split opening--part of the show will be the denouement of the downtown location and the next part will be a premiere of the Midtown location. Don't show up at the wrong address!

ERIC ZIMMERMAN: Endless Disharmony & Telltale Ashes at Art Palace, 6 pm, Friday, September 7. Here's your chance to see if the editor of ...might be good might be good himself. His insanely detailed graphite drawings are definitely worth checking out.

In Plain Sight organized by Aaron Parazette at McClain Gallery, 5 pm, Saturday, September 8. In addition to his solo show at the Art League, Parazette has organized a huge survey of the current Houston painting scene--the artists included are Seth Alverson, David Aylsworth, Heather Bause, William Betts, Harvey Bott, Joseph Cohen, Pat Colville, Melanie Crader, Bill Davenport, Jeremy DePrez, Kent Dorn, Christian Eckart, Jane Eifler, Mark Flood, Francesca Fuchs, Ryan Geiger, Marianne Green, Lane Hagood, Alika Herreshoff, Steven Hooks, Perry House, Michael Kennaugh, Jonathan Leach, Cody Ledvina, David McGee, Tierney Malone, Emily McGrew, Marcelyn McNeil, Aaron Parazette, Brian Portman, Cheyenne Ramos, Susie Rosmarin, Robert Ruello, Beth Secor, Howard Sherman, Hana Shoup, Gael Stack, Myke Venable, Marco Villegas, and Kyle Young. Whew! I don't know how they are all going to fit in!

A bunch of exhibits at Box 13, 7 pm, Saturday, September 8,  2012. Shows by a bunch of artists at the Harrisburg location, including Karl Erickson, Andrew Falkowski, Kristy Peet, Christopher Tuttoilmondo-Holmes, Karen Brasier-Young and Benjamin Terry, whose paintings I recently saw and enjoyed in Dallas.

A Gallery Retrospective: 21 Years of Fine Craft at Goldesberry Gallery, 6 pm, Saturday, September 8, 2012. Oliver and Nancy Goldesberry are retiring with a retrospective show. A sale will last until December 24th. Goldesberry has been one of my favorite galleries for years, and their retirement will be a loss for the art scene and a big loss for the fine craft scene in town. If you don't make the opening, check out the sale--there will be many fine pieces available. But not the Virginia Scotchie piece above--I bought this one a few years ago from Goldesberry.

Fringe Festival Weekend 2 at Super Happy Fun Land, Bohemeos and Frenetic Theater, various times, Thursday through Sunday, September 6-9. After you've been to the openings, sit down and let dancers, actors, comedians and musicians entertain you. This weekend, I'm looking forward to The Knocking Within by ANIKAI Dance Company, John Cage: Happy 100th by George Heathco and Luke Hubley, and Crawling With Monsters by The Sleepy Border Town Insomniacs, among others!

And the thing is, this just scratches the surface. Check out Glasstire and Artshound for much more complete listings--and have a good weekend!

(And of course, if you have an opening or an event you'd like mentioned, please feel free to describe it in the comments. The more the merrier!)

All the Crazies: Questions for Jonathan Leach

Virginia Billeaud Anderson

When I read the list of artists included in McClain Gallery’s exhibition, In Plain Sight, which opens on September 8, it took me about two seconds to contact Aaron Parazette, the exhibition’s curator, and ask what possessed him to combine such dissimilar artists.

There are forty artists in the exhibition, and what diversity of style. Who would expect to see a painting by Perry House, hanging near a painting by David McGee, hanging near a painting by Jonathan Leach?

A disheveled mix, it turns out, was precisely Parazette’s intention. His curatorial aim, McClain’s press release explained, was to “highlight an array of styles, genres, and media ranging from well-established artists to up-and-coming painters,” and, “encourage a much-needed discourse between the diverse painting practices occurring in Houston.” “In Plain Sight,” Parazette told me, “is a sample survey of Houston painting. It is intentionally non-thematic and multi-generational, and meant to represent a full range of Houston painting.”

Sample survey! Those are pretty words for wide curatorial rein, which is appealing. A “non-thematic” show is the right thing to offset art’s officiousness. Instead of the usual super-charged self seriousness, the show calls for , drinking McClain’s booze, and enjoying some paintings. Remember that celebratory feeling we had in 2005 when Gus Kopriva organized Still Crazy After All These Years at Lawndale, and how the weird mix simply made us happy? McClain’s show will probably feel like that. And unless the prices are ridiculous, will undoubtedly sell a ton of art.

In the spirit of Parazette’s much-needed discourse, I contacted McClain exhibiting artist Jonathan Leach to ask a few questions. Leach is a superb colorist, and reproductions rarely do his art justice. The reproduction below downright disrespects it, but it gives readers who won’t make it to McClain an opportunity to see Recent Resonations, the painting he plans to exhibit.


Jonathan Leach, Recent Resonations, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, 72” x 60"

VBA - Some of the artists showing in In Plain Sight are a big deal. How do you feel about being included with all those artists at McClain?

JL - As far as where I think I fit in to the Houston painting lexicon, towards the bottom, with all the crazies, where an artist is happiest. There are some awesome artists in this show, and I am truly honored to be a part of it.

VBA – Resonations! Jonathan, that title?

JL - I know - it's not a real word, but it should be.

VBA - That word is as misplaced as Revertical from 2009. But what a beautiful painting that was, insistently architectural with columnar forms painted in delicious colors.

You have attracted a bit of critical attention from Houston’s illustrious art writers and some from further away. They all make the brilliant observation that you take inspiration from the urban environment, its architecture, highways and signage. Douglas Britt, who saluted your 2009 solo exhibition at Gallery Sonja Roesch as “one of the most beautiful installations I've seen all year,” captured your aesthetic succinctly and somewhat poetically with, “Leach combines a keen eye for architecture and urban landscape with dazzling opticality, bold directional patterns and beyond-vibrant color, not to mention an acrobat's sense of balance.” Garland Fielder wrote your paintings were “complex and balanced well, no small feat when your pallet is a Technicolor barrage of pigment,” and linked you to the Bauhaus. Robert Boyd, who has covered you several times on this blog, correctly noted your interest in color patterns and space, as well as the art’s glancing back to early Modernism’s geometric abstraction and to minimalism. And then there was that high blown critic who used a few words I never heard of, and aligned you with Frank Stella, which must have been fun.

Tell me what’s new. Is there something new you want to talk about, anything you would like readers to know that has not been said?

JL - Recent Resonations evolved from the work I have been doing on plexiglass, from my understanding of rhythm and negative space, which I have been toying with in those more sculptural works.

I think my work has taken a turn since moving to this city. The colors are brighter, the work is bigger and plasticism has taken over my understanding of composition. Rather than drawing so directly from the cityscape, as I did a few years ago, the abstractions that I have been creating recently are of a theoretical nature. I actually think that has quite a bit to do with the innate sense of "anything goes" that saturates this city's psyche and ultimately it's urban planning.

I am getting into drawing a bit more, ever since the series I created for the Unit "What's In Store" show. I have even begun scratching into the plexiglass of my paintings and sculptures to add that element of drawing or mark-making to my work. It allows me to add restlessness to what is normally a rigid process.

If Leach injects “restlessness” into an otherwise static approach, it is for the purpose of eliciting an emotional response. He stated this in a 2009 radio interview when he spoke of his abstract works’ “emotional resonance.” Viewers can look forward to more painted plexi sculptural works, and more abstraction on canvas in the vein of Recent Resonations as the artist furthers his investigations into form and negative space. But don’t expect him to drop cityscape and architectural imagery. “I am excited about what I saw in Berlin this summer, I was very inspired by that city’s architecture. I am preparing for a solo show at Gallery Sonja Roesch in March 2013, and I can already tell that the work is becoming more sculptural, though painting is still very much a part of it.”


Jonathan Leach, Minutes Away, 2009, Acrylic on canvas, 70”x 80" 

What Does It Take to Be Patron of the Year?

Robert Boyd

The obvious and cynical answer to the question above is "big checks." Particularly big checks to the artistic institution that is awarding the title "Patron of the Year." In this case, the institution is the Art League of Houston, and I have no idea if big checks were involved or what criteria at all were used to choose the 2012 Texas Patrons of the Year, Scott and Judy Nyquist. But from the point of view of local artists, they do one thing that well-qualifies them for the honor--they buy local art. And this honor affords them the opportunity to engage in what is the secret desire of all collectors--to show off their collection. I was kind of proud to notice that I had works in my modest collection by many of the same artists shown in this exhibit. So maybe I could be "Patron of the Year" someday--as soon as I start writing some big checks.

Here are a few notable pieces from the exhibit.



Adam McEwen, Jerrycan (water), 2007, powder-coated pressed steel, 18 1/2" x 13" x 6 1/2", edition 10 of 75

Jerrycan (water) by Adam McEwen apparently came with five gallons of water from Marfa, but I don't know what happened to the water...



Chuck Ramirez, Elderflowwer, 2006, pigmented inkjet prints, 60" x 48", edition 3 of 10

The late Chuck Ramirez created this photograph of Judy Nyquist's purse. One of his trademarks was to photograph objects isolated in a white, indistinct space, and this piece is a good example of that approach.



Gary Sweeney, You're Our Favorite Artist, 2008-09, woodblock print, 23" x 29"

Ain't it the truth? Gary Sweeney's piece should make folks who buy work for fundraisers fell just a little bit guilty. I confess I look for bargains at such events. But they are somewhat exploitative, no? Aside from a possible tax deduction, some "exposure", and good feelings, what does an artist get from donating art for silent auctions, etc.?



Joseph Havel, Leap Year, 1996-97, bronze with patina, 100" x 4 1/2" x 6"

Collecting sculpture is often quite difficult because it makes a lot more space demands than a painting or photograph. But Leap Year by Joseph Havel is the perfect sculpture for an individual collector--it has a tiny footprint. Anywhere you have 4 1/2" by 6" of floorspace, you can display this piece.



Joseph Havel, Leap Year (detail), 1996-97, bronze with patina, 100" x 4 1/2" x 6"

 
Joseph Cohen, Proposition #111, 2009, reclaimed latex and latex on Brazilian cherry and African mahogany, 13 1/2" x 10" x 1 1/2" (top) and Allison Hunter, untitled #1 (from the Blue Butterfly Series), 2011, digital c-print, 30" x 30"

This was an interesting pairing--Joseph Cohen's bold, plastic painting above Allison Hunter's delicate nature photo. The two works are both beautiful to my eye, so they have that in common.



Marzia Faggin, Fruit Loops, 2011, cast painted plaster, 6" x 6"

There were two vitrines full of smaller work, such as Marzia Faggin's pill and cereal combo, Fruit Loops. And this is a way for young collectors to get access to work--buy small pieces. Sure you'll end up with shelves of artistic knick-knacks, but what else are you going to put on those shelves? Humel figurines?



Rachel Hecker, Green Car Check, 2008, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 36"

Rachel Hecker paints (among other things) the little scraps of paper that have scrawled writing on them that inhabit our lives--like post-its. Her meticulous, impersonal painting style invests these ephemera with weird (and it has to be said, undeserved) dignity.



Aaron Parazette, Study for Jake, 2009, colored pencil on paper, 20" x 15"

These sketches by Aaron Parazette are of the word "Jake", the name of the Nyquist's son. What's neat about them is that we see the designer in Parazette at work--trying out different variations of the same basic idea.



Robin Utterback, Untitled (no 1064), 2002, acrylic on canvas, 78" x 69"

Robin Utterback was one of the Fresh Paint alumni and was tragically murdered in 2007. I apologize about the spotty lighting on this painting, and I want to note that the front gallery at the Art League was really badly designed. It has tall large windows that let in direct afternoon sunlight. In addition to potentially damaging some artwork on display, it is really distracting.



Woody Golden, Study River Stones, 2007, collection of seven, paper and glue, 3" x 2 1/2" each

Woody Golden takes colored paper, laminates it together into a kind of board, then sands it down to resemble river stones worn smooth and round by erosion. These are another example of artwork that doesn't cost a collector to much yet leaves the collector with something charming and lovely.

That's actually the real virtue of this show. It has items that are small and intimate, items that were gifts from artists, and multiples--in other words, it is almost a primer for a beginning collector. It can be intimidating if you want to buy art but have a limited income (like most of us). You walk into a gallery and look at the prices and it's scary. You don't see how you can even start. The Nyquist collection contains some works that I'm sure they paid a pretty penny for, but it also contains work that probably didn't cost all that much--but which probably brought them as much pleasure as many of the more expensive pieces.

People Keep on Painting in Houston

Robert Boyd

Twenty-seven years ago, the Houston Museum of Fine Art mounted an exhibit called Fresh Paint. It featured work by 44 painters and attempted (unsuccessfully) to define a Houston school of painting. Aaron Parazette's goal with In Plain Sight (on view at McClain Gallery) is more modest. In the catalog for the exhibit, Parazette wrote, "While there has been no shortage of opportunities to see paintings created by Houston artists, the opportunity to consider a large group of such work has been missing." That is one thing In Plain Sight accomplishes. Another, perhaps, is to introduce collectors to the work of local painters they may not have yet seen. McClain is a blue chip gallery, and being shown there potentially provides entrée for artists who have mainly shown in alternative art spaces or smaller galleries.

Parazette adds that "the exhibit is non-thematic and multi-generational by design, with the work selected to represent a full range of painting being made in Houston." The word "multi-generational" jumped out. Many of the Fresh Paint painters are still around and painting. Were any of them were included in In Plain Sight? Just two as far as I can see, Gael Stack and Perry House.

Unlike Fresh Paint, In Plain Sight makes no claims for its content except that it is broadly representative of work in Houston. However, choosing to do a painting show implies that painting is really important in Houston. And let's acknowledge that painting is the most economically viable fine art in town. It's easy for galleries and art fairs to show and easy for collectors to acquire. It doesn't require a lot of floor space to display it. It lasts a long time. It's highly optical. And this show certainly demonstrates that there is painting being done for all tastes. (But I'd like to see similar shows for other genres of contemporary art in Houston--as well as shows for those liminal works that don't easily fit into one genre or another.)

Here are a few--but just a few--of the paintings in In Plain Sight that I liked. The show is up through October 13, and I highly recommend stopping in and checking it out.


Bill Davenport, It's hard to be hip over 30, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 27" x 29"

It was nice to see a Bill Davenport painting if only to remind us that Bill Davenport can paint very well. I don't think of Davenport as a painter per se--Bill's Junk is sort of a social sculpture, and a lot of his other work is sculptural, participatory or both. But painting is a part of his work as well.


Christian Eckart, 3 Unit Superimposed Circuit Painting 2006, 2006, acrylic urethane on 1/2" aluminum plate, 115" x 84"

This sleek beautiful piece by Christian Eckart makes me think of old-timey slot-car race tracks.


Jeremy DePrez, Totem, 2012, acrylic, oil and wax on canvas over shaped support, 77" x 44"

It's hard for me to imagine Jeremy DePrez making a work titled Totem, much less a colorful Sean Scully-like painting like this. But he did and it's great.


Lane Hagood, Hand Painting, 2012, oil on canvas, 64" x 48"

So much of what Lane Hagood does are dumb paintings of smart things. Hand is kind of a dumb painting of a dumb thing that you can't stop looking at. That, in essence, is the mysterious power of Lane Hagood.


Mark Flood, The Things, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 87" x 83"

Mark Flood has split his painting into two streams--cynical dyspeptic misanthropic paintings on one hand and beautiful abstractions incorporating lace on the other. With The Things, he seems to have achieved a synthesis of the two.


Pat Colville, Gray Form, 2011, acrylic on canvas on panel, 36" x 36"

Pat Colville is someone who should have been in Fresh Paint but wasn't for some reason. She's a Houston art treasure. She does paintings that make me think of biological or mineralogical  forms seen under a microscope. I love the way the forms float.


Ryan Geiger, the deeper i dig, the deeper i get (right panel), 2012m acrylic on paper, each panel 30" x 22"

I wasn't really aware of Ryan Geiger's work when I saw this piece. The text and the fine rendering give it a hint of Wayne White. I certainly want to see more of his work after seeing this piece.


Susie Rosmarin, (title unknown), 2003, acrylic on canvas 72" x 84"

Susie Rosmarin's optical effect paintings are hypnotic. But it's difficult to get their colors right in a photo--which is my way of apologizing for getting them wrong here. Just go see the exhibit!


William Betts, Frigate, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 72"

William Betts is best known for his paintings based on images from CCTV surveillance. This image of a warship seems to be filtered through some digital imaging system, which gives it a curiously in-the-moment feeling.



Cheyane Ramos, Item, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 24"

Cheyanne Ramos has incredible painting skills, but she isn't showing it off in Item and an earlier similar painting, Kerri Green and the Living Unicorn. She seems to be playing with the concept of "fan art," including the awkward painting (those bizarre highlights, for example) and the weird couplings. The funny thing (for me, at least) is that the pop culture references fly right over my head. I think these figures exist in some pop culture property, but I have no idea which. I also love her snazzy new signature.

Joseph Cohen: A Closer Look

By Virginia Billeaud Anderson

Over the course of two articles packed with images and written in his unfailingly sardonic style, Robert Boyd reviewed the Houston Fine Arts Fair. Boyd’s first article covering art he “loathed” was lacerating. “Inept,” “hideous,” “gimmicky,” “bad is bad,” “distressingly common,” “utter vacuity,” “endless banality,” were just a few of its asperities. While I was cringing, Boyd published his second article about the art he “liked,” included in which was Joseph Cohen’s Proposition 357, a sculptural and strangely colored painting championed by the critic as possessing an “unearthly flavor.”

Others share Boyd’s regard for Cohen’s art. Aaron Parazette for instance included Cohen in In Plain Sight, an important show of 40 Houston painters currently at McClain Gallery, promoted by Catherine Anspon in her glossy mag as “the most significant roundup of Houston painting talent in double decades.” Wade Wilson bestowed upon Cohen a solo exhibition at Wade Wilson Art in January of this year, following several years of the same. And Peveto on Colquitt Street will be exhibiting Cohen’s work in the exhibition Ten Propositions, scheduled to open on September 27. Concentrated gallery representation and critical attention made me want to take a closer look at Joseph Cohen’s art.


Joseph Cohen, Proposition 357, 2012, Pigment, diamond dust, varnish on birch, 29" x 23" (exhibited at the Houston Fine Arts Fair)

There was no better way to begin this profile than to ambush Parazette and ask the reason he included Cohen in In Plain Sight. “I have known of and been interested in Joseph's work for the past few years,” Parazette said, “and included him in the show because he represents a very particular type of painter: process oriented and drawing on a sort of paint alchemy. In his working process he seems to set the paint in motion and then--while guiding it to some degree--he lets it find it's own conclusions on the way to being, a delicate and sensitive balance between an artist and his materials. When it succeeds the results are both beautiful and magical.”

As expected, Cohen has inspired lofty meditations. Houston’s illustrious writers enjoy framing his art against the Concrete painting movement, characterizing it as neither a form of representation nor abstracted or distilled from something else, existing solely as color and physical matter. They make comparisons to Joseph Marioni and Robert Ryman and discuss philosophical underpinnings. Some critics veered into the topics of Spinoza and infinity. Everybody gets to feel smart. About this categorization, Cohen said his art is “partially aligned” with concrete art.

“Partially” denotes Cohen might be up to something broader and more complex than simply adhering to definitions of concrete art. Some of the Italian works exhibited in January, one shown below, point to this. Defined by formal properties, derived from no source and referencing none, they relate to the concrete, yet seem to have a conceptual element as well as representational qualities through associations with antiquities and architecture. Robert Boyd picked up on dual essence back in January 2010 when he reviewed Cohen’s exhibition at Wade Wilson. “Cohen is not forging a path of the concrete, he’s exploring a path away from concrete art,” Boyd wrote.

As was Cohen’s intention, the art’s physical properties catapulted Boyd into an emotional experience with color and light. “The end result is a group of paintings that are interesting to think about,” Boyd wrote, “but more importantly, are visually stunning. Cohen’s handling of this plastic paint and oddball colors is beautiful, and his thick, textural painting is positively chewy….Cohen may not be a concrete purist, but he is all about giving his viewers real visual pleasure.”


Joseph Cohen, Proposition 260, 2011, Reclaimed paint, gold, lapis lazuli, pigment, varnish, and oil on panel, about 29 x 23 (Exhibited in January 2012)

VBA – Were the Ten Propositions you made for Peveto created after the art you made in Italy and exhibited in January 2012, meaning are the Ten Propositions your newest works, and if so do they involve any new process or source of inspiration?

JC - The Ten Propositions to be exhibited at Peveto were made after the Italian works. They are the newest works and incorporate aspects of the Italian works (the incorporation of precious materials), while developing on the framework of my working practice as well. My works in a sense are hybrid painting/sculptures. They are physical objects that are heavily entrenched in the history and activity of painting. The Ten Propositions will express the two fundamental natures of my chosen medium (paint): the physical and the chromatic. Some of the works' "aboutness" will reside predominantly in the physical tactile nature of the medium, while others will deal predominantly with the chromatic nature of the medium. The forms of the work will have a direct relationship with the architecture that the work exists in. There will be a newfound sense of playfulness in some of the works and the manner in which they engage the space around them.

VBA – I want to better understand your process, materials and application. So let’s take for example Proposition 333 which will be exhibited at Peveto. My press release listed pigment, diamond dust and varnish on birch as its materials. What are the pigments?

JC – The pigments are cadmium, ruby, lapis lazuli, and cobalt.

VBA – How many layers?

JC - Literally hundreds of layers, all brushed on layer by layer.

VBA – What in the world is diamond dust?

JC - 22 kt. gold, platinum, and silver.

VBA – How do you see the role of the unconscious mind in your work? Do you proceed in an intuitive spontaneous, manner, an altered state, or stream of consciousness-like manner – do any of these apply? Interpret the mental process.

JC - I see the mental process embracing an active engagement with the act of painting. Through the activity of physically engaging with the art over a period of time, the work becomes a historical record of the activity of painting. For me this is an important aspect to the work and signals to the importance of the role of the artist's hand in the creative process. There is a level of intimacy that becomes ingrained in the work through this approach. The sincerity of this method of working also subtly asks for the viewer to approach and engage with the art object in an active manner. When viewed from different angles and perspectives the works will shift the viewer's perception.

VBA - Is there anything you want to add to all the fuss, anything you want to say, want people to know about you, your career or the Ten Props at Peveto?

JC - I simply would ask the viewers to look at the works. Take time and view them from different angles and times of the day (as a shift in light begets a different feel from the work and may alter a preconceived notion of how the painting exists). My works call for a slowing down, allowing for a calming respite in which one may contemplate. When the works are seen as physical objects in this world (not trying to represent nor abstract from anything in this physical world) they are more accurately realized and may in turn serve as metaphors and/or aids in our existence.

Joseph Cohen, Proposition 333, 2012, Pigment, (cadmium, ruby, lapis lazuli, cobalt), diamond dust, (22kt gold, platinum, silver,) and varnish on birch, 34" x 27" 

Art I Liked at the Houston Fine Arts Fair

Robert Boyd

I was pretty down on a lot of the art I saw at HFAF this year. But I did see art I liked. The thing is that good art takes time. It requires contemplation. And an art fair is an environment antithetical to that. The bad art tends to be unsubtle. It screams at you from the walls. It's like a spotlight shining on your face. It makes it hard to see anything else.

But I made the effort. I spent five hours going from booth from booth, trying my best to screen out the glare from the loud, bad art to see what I could see that was good.  And the good is the subject of this post.

One note--I liked a lot of local art. Does this mean that I think local art is better than art from other places (on average)? That I am a chauvinist for art produced in Houston and vicinity? In my defense, I think the reason that I favored the local is because when I see a painting be, say, Geoff Hippenstiel, I am not seeing that painting in isolation. I am seeing the latest stage of a painter whose work I have been observing for a while now. I don't have that privilege for most out-of-town artists. If I am perplexed by what they are doing, I don't have any idea what their concerns as an artist are or how they reached this point. If I was living in Chicago or Seattle, I'd have similar experiences with their local artists. Familiarity breeds understanding and that ironically leads to what is effectively a local bias.

You'll also see that I like a lot of old things--Latin American Constructivists pieces (well represented at HFAF), abstract expressionist work, and surrealist objets. And there is a lot of photography on my list. I've tried to group similar works together, as if I were curating an exhibit. Hopefully that will help reduce the noise of such divergent work. As I said in my post on the art I hate, your mileage may vary.



Melitón Rodríguez, Carolina Carballo, Medellín Colombia, 1899, silver gelatin print at FotoFest

This cheesy studio portrait by Melitón Rodríguez from over a hundred years ago is made unexpectedly surreal because of the the rifles held by the young women.



Pía Elizondo at Patricia Conde Galería



Federico Gama at Patricia Conde Galería



Cannon Bernáldez at Patricia Conde Galería

One can't look at this piece by Cannon Bernáldez and not think of the Wicked Witch of the East in The Wizard of Oz.



Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers #20, photograph, 20” x 17.25”, Paul Kopeikin Gallery



Alejandro Cartagena, Carpoolers #21, photograph, 20” x 17.25”, Paul Kopeikin Gallery

I imagined Alejandro Cartagena sitting on an overpass, camera ready, for many days to get this series of photographs.  I found the series quite powerful and timely.



Aaron Parazette, Color Key #6, 2009, acrylic on linen at McClain Gallery

For me, it's the two tangent ellipses and the small green stripes separating the pink and orange stripes that make this piece by Aaron Parazette work. And the concentric circles radiating out from the tangent point. 



Dion Johnson, Helium, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 72" x 144" at Western Project

Dion Johnson's shaped canvas and overlapping colors initially struck me as a bit chaotic, but spending some time with it leads me to believe that the geometries here are no less deliberate than those in Aaron Parazette's painting.



Joseph Cohen, Proposition 357, pigment, diamond dust and varnish on birch, 29 1/2" x 23 1/2" at Avis Frank

The diamond dust in Joseph Cohen's works at Avis Frank gave these monochromatic and bichromatic paintings a rather unearthly luxe flavor.



Cathy Choi at Margaret Thatcher Projects

I was struck by the similarity between Cathy Choi's work and Joseph Cohen's.



Heidi Spector at Margaret Thatcher Projects

Lots of the work at Margaret Thatcher Projects featured artists working in brightly colored resin or plastics, as with this piece by Heidi Spector. The booth had a playful feel.


Omar Chacon at Margaret Thatcher Projects

I think people were quite taken with Omar Chacon's paintings last year, so Margaret Thatcher Projects brought back more Chacon pieces for an encore.



Luis Cruz Azaceta, Urban Jungle, 2011, serigraph, 36" x 41"

Of course, for intense color, silk screen is a venerable, low-tech medium, as Luis Cruz Azaceta demonstrates.



Al Souza, Blinky, puzzle parts and glue on wood, 2002 at Pavel Zoubok Gallery

Al Souza had this brightly colored puzzle piece in the fair. I always wonder with his puzzle pieces how quickly the colors fade, given that puzzles are printed with cheap inks on offset litho presses.



Joaquin Torres Garcia, Constructif dedique a Manolita, 1931, oil on cardboard at Sammer Gallery

It was astonishing to see this early constructivist work by Joaquin Torres Garcia at the fair. But Latin American constructivism seemed to be a theme this year.



Lolo Soldevilla, untitled, 1959, collage on cardboard at Arevalo Gallery

Like this angular collage by Lolo Soldevilla.



Manuel Alvarez, Pintura, oil on canvas, 45 cm x 70 cm at Sammer Gallery



Juan Mele, R783, 1999, oil, wood blocks at Arevelo Gallery

I especially liked this wood contruction by Juan Mele.



Theodoros Stamos, Morning Wind, 1957, oil on canvas, 70 3/4" x 57" at Hollis Taggart Galleries

And North America's abstractionists were not left out, as with this handsome Theodoros Stamos.



Norman Bluhm, untitled, oil on paper mounted on masonite, 41" x 28 3/4" at Hollis Taggart Galleries

But my favorite abstract expressionist painting in the show was this untitled piece by Norman Bluhm.



Robert Motherwell, Hollow Men Suite, lift-ground etching and aquatint, chine colle (one of seven prints), 11 1/4" x 12" each at Jerald Melberg Gallery



Robert Motherwell, Hollow Men Suite, lift-ground etching and aquatint, chine colle (one of seven prints), 11 1/4" x 12" each at Jerald Melberg Gallery

And there was a beautiful suite of tiny etchings by Robert Motherwell.



Francisco Larios, Doppelganger Delirium, 2012, mixed on canvas, 78" x 70" at Drexel Galeria

Francisco Larios creates a more modern abstraction with Doppelganager Delirium where recognizable graphic elements are mixed with a painterly textured surface. It makes me think a little of Lari Pittman.



Geoff Hippenstiel at Devin Borden Gallery

What jumped out at me in this painting by Geoff Hippenstiel was the black bar--it felt like a new element, something I hadn't seen in his work before.



Antonio Murado, Black Bear, 2011, oil on linen, 83" x 63" at Holly Johnson



Antonio Murado, untitled (1003), 2010, oil on linen, 31" x 37" at Von Lintel Gallery



Antonio Murado, Untitled (956), 2010, oil on paper, 11" x 15" at Von Lintel Gallery

Antonio Murado had work in two different galleries at the fair, and I was struck by all of it. Unlike Hippenstiel's thick impasto, Murado works with very thinned-down paint, creating transparent layers which he employs to various ends. The effect is subtle and sneaks up on you--therefore making it difficult work to see at an art fair.



Alexander Calder, untitled (Spoon), c. 1940-43, sterling silver at Schroeder Romero & Shredder

In addition to this delightful Alexander Calder spoon, Schroeder Romero & Shredder had a selection of gorgeous Man Ray photographs.



Annette Sauermann, No. 4 Kopie, 2012, sandpaper, white cement & light filter on board, 40 1/2" x 39 3/4" at C. Grimaldis Gallery

Pieces like No. 4 Kopie by Annette Sauermann, with its subtle shades of grey, seemed destined to be overlooked in the visual cacophony of the art fair.



Retna at New Image Art

Likewise the inkwash calligraphy of Retna.



Carol Young, Untitled, 2012, ceramic installation, 78.7" x 30.7" x 11.8" at Beatriz Esguerra Art



Carol Young, Untitled (detail) , 2012, ceramic installation, 78.7" x 30.7" x 11.8" at Beatriz Esguerra Art

I was quite taken by Carol Young's ceramic installation, which suggested themes of memory and age. It felt deliciously out of place in this venue with so much concentration on "the new." I was reminded a little of Ilya Kabokov's installation School No. 6 at Marfa.



Johannes Girardoni, Exposed Icon 62, 2012, C-print with commercial paint mounted on aluminum, 60" x 40" at Tomlinson Kong

Johannes Girardoni also approaches memory in his work-or specifically forgetting.

 
Sarah Frantz at David Shelton Gallery

Sarah Frantz likewise deals with forgetting or eliminating. Young, Girardoni and Franz all showed work that felt mature and wise, in contrast to some of the more typical art fair work which is brash (which is not a fault) and/or imbecilic.



Sarah Frantz at David Shelton



Erick Swenson, Sketch for Dressage, 2011, urethane resin and paint on MDF, 15 1/4" x 4 1/2" x 10 1/2" at Talley Dunn Gallery

The octopus lost, I guess.

 
John Adelmann at Darke Gallery

John Adelman had a great selection of paintings at Darke Gallery. These works are the result of an obsessive process, and it is the process that interests Adelman, but the results are quite beautiful.

 
Leandro Erlich, Neighbors, 1996 at Core Factor (MFAH)



Leandro Erlich, Neighbors (detail), 1996 at Core Factor (MFAH)

Not surprisingly, some of the best work at HFAH was at the CORE Program exhibit. Neighbors by Leandro Erlich had a feeling of loneliness and paranoia. I was reminded of Edward and Nancy Kieholz's Pedicord Apartments or even certain Edward Hopper paintings.



Maritta Tapanainen, Eye of the Beholder, 2010, paper collage, 15" x 17 1/4" at Pavel Zoubok



Mark Greenwalt, Large Synthetic Head, 2012, acrylic on panel, 59" x 43 1/2" at Hooks-Epstein Galleries

Mark Greenwalt has a great show up right now at Hooks-Epstein Gallery.



Richard Colman at New Image Art

There is something slightly disturbing about Richard Colman's painting at New Image Art. Trying to understand what is being depicted (beheadings?) within this setting that seems simultaneously ancient and science-fictional. The work grabbed my attention and held it.



Robert Pruitt, Up Up in the Upper Room, 2012, conte and charcoal on hand-dyed paper, 73" x 61" at Hooks-Epstein Galleries

This is the first time I've seen Robert Pruitt depict a group scene (as opposed to an individual portrait). The two viewers (connoisseurs? casual art fans?) look at the sculpture (or ritual object) being shown by the third woman. In a way, it could be a depiction of an episode at an art fair!


  Robyn O'Neill, Symbiosis, 2008, graphote on paper, 36" x 44" at Talley Dunn Gallery



Rodolfo de Florencia, Madame Chocolat, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 56" x 43" at Drexel Galeria

Rodolfo de Florencia caught my eye with this genuinely bizarre image of auto-cannibalism. The richness of the painting combined with its utter eccentricity were what appealed to me so much about it.



Trenton Doyle Hancock, Friends Indeed, 2000 at Core Factor (MFAH)

There were several Trenton Doyle Hancock pieces at the fair, but this one, with its skein of roots and words, appealed to me the most.



Wayne White at Westen Projects

Wayne White is always welcome.



William Betts,View from the Standard, NY, 2010, acrylic paint on reverse drilled mirror acrylic, 60" x 40" at Holly Johnson Gallery

As is William Betts. This was one of his pieces where a photographic image is placed into a mirror by drilling out tiny holes and filling them with acrylic paint (presumably some computer-controlled machine actually does this--I don't see how human hands could accomplish it). Because it's an image on a mirror's surface, it is quite difficult to photograph--an effect that Betts may have deliberately sought.