 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
||||||
|
  Ann Richards (l) and Eileen Maxson |
Arthouse Texas Prize: Big Winner Eileen Maxson! Arthouse Texas Prize: Big Winner Eileen Maxson! By Rachel Koper Texas Excess was the name of the party to announce the first winner of the Arthouse Texas Prize, the new regional art award with a $30,000 honorarium attached. A glittering crowd gathered in the Driskill Hotel's grand hallway on Friday, Nov. 4, to watch Eileen Maxson of Houston take home the goods. Visual artists are not known for their speechifying, and Eileen was thrilled beyond words as she accepted the award from former Gov. Ann Richards. Richards mentioned the frontier heritage of Texans and said the award acknowledged the role of visual artists as cultural leaders. The four finalists - Ludwig Schwarz of Dallas and Houston artists Robyn O'Neil, Robert A. Pruitt, and Maxson - were all present and enjoying the limelight. Arts professionals, artists, and business leaders from across the country rubbed shoulders and showed their support. Before the announcement, jury member James Elaine, curator from the UCLA Hammer Museum, said there was quite a bit of disagreement while narrowing the field of 129 nominations down to the four finalists but that this last round of voting was nearly unanimous and went quickly. According to Sue Graze, director of Arthouse, "The jury enthusiastically embraced the merit of her work and her authentic artistic voice. They are thrilled to participate in launching her career." Arthouse achieved Mission Success with this memorable event, creating a benchmark for fun downtown parties in Austin and setting a significant standard for supporting visual arts across Texas. Congratulations to Eileen Maxson, and here's wishing that all of the finalists have an outstanding 2006. (Excerpt from Culture Flash) By Robert Faires Arthouse Texas Prize recipient Eileen Maxson may have been the big winner where the new regional art award is concerned, but she wasn't the only winner. Robyn O'Neil - she of the large, intricate landscapes often populated by dozens of tiny middle-aged men - snagged the 2005 Arthouse Texas Prize People's Choice Award, based on the votes of visitors to the exhibition of work by the prize's four finalists. And what does she get? An exclusive Arthouse Texas Prize 2005 People's Choice belt buckle. Well, they can't give 30 grand to everybody. For more information, visit www.arthousetexas.org. |
|
|
|
||
 Tyler by Denny McCoy |
Painting and classical guitar By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin How long do you actually spend looking at a work of art? In truth, probably not long enough. Even the most dedicated gallery-goer these days is not likely to contemplate a single painting for more than a few minutes. And then consider the other ways we spend at galleries: the over-crowded social-oriented openings or the awkward and too-long artist's talk. That's why it's welcome to see a local gallery mix it up a bit and go beyond the standard format, as D. Berman Gallery did Saturday when it hosted classical guitarist Steve Kostelnik in a concert designed to complement the color-field paintings of Denny McCoy in "The Blue Paintings." About 30 people filled the semi-circle of chairs in the light-filled gallery as Kostelnik, a sensitive and nuanced performer, played an emotionally varied hourlong program that included Bach's baroque precision and Rodrigo's flamenco-flavored modern stylings. Good thing that McCoy's paintings withstood the intense scrutiny Kostelnik's concert inspired. In this latest series, McCoy covers his canvases with vertical bars in various shades of blue. Depending on the light in which you view - and how much time you spend looking - the vertical stripes seem stable and flat at first. But then, as is true to the Op Art and Color Field traditions that McCoy is channeling, the differentiations between the blue bars begin to dwindle. The striped paintings seem to vibrate, their colors seemingly morphing together or separating. It's a nifty effect, and McCoy handles it well. Whether you look at length depends on your taste for such optical illusions and aesthetic austerity when no guitar music is provided. "The Blue Paintings" continues 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays through Dec. 2 at D. Berman Gallery, 1701 Guadalupe St. Free. 477-8877. www.dbermangallery.com. |
|
|
|
||
 Vine by Jill Thrasher |
Jill Thrasher: A Studio Portrait By Benné Rockett The visual experience of Jill Thrasher's work in "A Studio Portrait" offers an opportunity to explore all phases of printmaking. She has documented in prints the basics of the process and the special relationship forged between artists and place. In most instances, Thrasher is drawing directly onto the litho plate or cutting the design into the linoleum or wood block. She has chosen the Slugfest environs, from studio cats and gardens to the friendship of Slugfest founders Margaret Simpson and Tom Druecker, as her inspiration. Litho Piece, 40 Prints keenly documents the dichotomy between the constant movement of the printmaker - cutting, graving, boring, gouging, scraping, and scratching - and the model's effort to remain still during prolonged poses. Litho and several other works illustrate the intense physical demands of printmaking. By referencing anatomy diagrams, Thrasher pulls the physicality of the process and the understanding of anatomy into a tight circle, with attention to drawing a constant demand. The keen, fresh pleasure of cutting into a block of wood with a knife or graver to bring forth a composition of different levels, of heights and depths, and the ensuing intoxication of viewing the first print are evident in the nine prints that compose Vine. In the contrast between the darkened surface of the Clematis vine on the wood block, the lighter shade of the wood grain that creates the garden grid armature, and the placement of the model, Thrasher has captured the breathless suspense of awaiting the outcome of a first proof. Thrasher's work can be seen during the East Austin Studio Tour, Nov. 19-20. |
|
|
|
||
Tyler by Denny McCoy |
Denny McCoy: The Blue Paintings By Robert Faires With this latest exhibition by native Texan Denny McCoy, truth in advertising is not an issue. The seven canvases on display are indeed blue ... and little more than blue. Except for one work with a mischievous red stripe along its left side and the occasional foam-green bar sneaking into this frame or that, what you have here are artworks consisting of flatly rendered vertical bars of various widths in assorted shades of blue: azure, cerulean, robin's egg, navy, cobalt, cornflower, sapphire, indigo, and so on. Because the paintings are so straightforward, one might be tempted to dismiss them with a cursory look. But these are works that reward the patient viewer. Turn off that omnipresent ticking clock inside your head, let your eyes go slack, and these fields of blue shimmer to life, with bars surging into the foreground here or receding into the background there, bleeding one into the other, vanishing and then reappearing, the distinct hue of one blue somehow consuming its neighbor or even overwhelming the entire canvas for an instant before retreating innocently back into the confines of its own column. An old trick, to be sure, long established in the fields of optics and color theory and even exploited in the art world during the poppy heyday of Op Art, but it's one that can still stimulate a visual tingle when you relax into it and let it do its stuff. You feel like you're seeing something magical take place, the movement of a world beneath the world we move through, that secret level of existence where colors have spirits and can shift and jump and interact with one another, like toys that come alive after their young owners have fallen asleep. So what if it's just a hiccup of the brain striving to process the relationship of colors in close proximity? It works like a charm. McCoy's color of choice yields even more wonders when you allow your mind to loosen as much as your eye. Unfixed in place and time, your thoughts will begin to drift through all the varied associations we make with these shades of blue: the sky colored by season and hour of the day, bodies of water in various parts of the world, the tint of precious gems and metals, perhaps an elderly woman's frosted hair. As it wanders through these connections, your mind may also be categorizing the vertical bars into familiar shapes - poles, windows, doorways - so that out of these abstract fields of blue rise up random little scenes: a slice of summer sky glimpsed between two buildings in shadow, an alley passageway at twilight, channels of water cutting through a field of ice. It's startling and rather fascinating to have these simple columns of flat blue paint suddenly transporting you to such distant yet distinct settings. But it's testament to that staggering variety in the world and how much of it we pick up on even when we're not aware of it, how ten thousand things can be bound up in something as simple as what we call blue. |
|