Austin Art Exhibitions

 

Current

 

 

Travelogue Series: Un-Tying Our Cosmic Ancestry

 

Host: Art Galleries at Black Studies, Christian-Green Gallery, 201 E 21st St, Jester Center A232
Dates: September 15, 2023 – December 9, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 14, 6-8 pm

 

Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees’s Un-Tying Our Cosmic Ancestry is a collaborative, multisensory artwork that evokes the Cosmos to explore how we might find paths to an ancestry that connects us all. TwoTrees developed the exhibition during a three-week residency in Austin at the Art Galleries at Black Studies, creating the visual landscape, and the accompanying sonic environment of vocables—sounds without literal meaning—with sound eco-archaeologist Gideon Crevoshay. At the exhibition opening, Crevoshay will direct the soundscape as an “enlivening,” a live sonic activation of the gallery.

Un-Tying Our Cosmic Ancestry is a companion exhibition to Falling into Language, to be on view at the Idea Lab. Both are the latest iterations of TwoTrees’s Travelogue Series—an ever-evolving exploration of Spirit, Nature, and the journey to the Cosmos.

 


 

 

Anthroposonic: A Sound Work by Michael Curtis Asbill

 

Host: ICOSA Collective, 916 Springdale Rd
Dates: September 13, 2023 – October 12, 2023, work activated from sunset to sunrise each day, (7:30pm – 6:30am)

 

ICOSA Collective is proud to present ”Anthroposonic,” a sound work by Michael Curtis Asbill. “Anthroposonic” is at its core a field recording of fracking in progress, recorded in a residential neighborhood, Arlington, TX. Looped, stacked, waning, waxing, never ending.

“I’m just at the mercy of which way the wind blows.” – Kim Fiel. ‘As fracking increases in the Barnett Shale, Arlington city leaders avoid scrutiny’, Haley Samsel and Amal Ahmed, Fort Worth Report, 12/26/2023.

 


 

 

Helmut Barnett: Revelations

 

Host: Wally Workman Gallery, 1202 W 6th St
Dates: September 9, 2023 – October 1, 2023

 

Starting in a loft studio on what was in 1975 a quiet Congress Avenue and now working in a 100 year old house on the east side, Barnett has been a part of the evolving Austin art community for over 45 years. This upcoming show exemplifies the range of Barnett’s talent, featuring geometric and organic forms on large canvases as well as large scale collages incorporating found material.

 


 

 

If the Sky Were Orange: Art in the Time of Climate Change

 

Host: Blanton Museum of Art, 200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Dates: September 9, 2023 – February 11, 2024

 

This special two-part exhibition explores the history and contemporary urgency of climate-related issues. Guest curated by journalist Jeff Goodell, who has written extensively on the topic, If the Sky Were Orange is the first exhibition at the Blanton to explore one topic across several of the museum’s temporary gallery spaces.

 


 

 

Veronica Ceci: The White Paintings

 

Host: Link & Pin Gallery, 2235 E 6th STE 102
Dates: September 7, 2023 – September 30, 2023
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 7, 6-8 pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 21, at 7:30 pm

 

“The White Paintings” presents textile and paper works that address themes of labor and gender equity. Begun in 2018, the ”White Paintings” are an ironic response to the male dominated history of abstract art. Textural elements, such as towels, sheets, and mops, have been sourced directly from the artist’s labor as a professional cleaner. They were what would traditionally be considered a white hue when new. The act of removing dirt from surfaces and absorbing the excretions of the body has painted them. Used in this way until they are literally worn out or too dingy to be functional in a commercial setting, they are then made into artworks.

As the series has progressed, the pool of textile sources from which the artist has drawn has expanded. Additionally, some works are themselves tools for cleaning, as in WPIV which was utilized as part of the performance FUtility III in 2021. In mixing new materials with old, the artist juxtaposes the dream potential of cleanliness with its unavoidable and imminent failure as the dirt of time accumulates.

 


 

 

Tactile Intimacy: Portraiture of M. J. Hale

 

Host: Unchained.Art, 1601 E Cesar Chavez
Dates: September 7, 2023 – October 15, 2023
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 13, 5-8 pm
Artist Meet & Greet: Saturday, September 16 & Friday, September 22, 5-8 pm

 

In the heart of Berlin’s vibrant art scene, a narrative of resilience, dedication, and artistry unfolds. We are delighted to present an exclusive showcase of M. J. Hale’s work, an English born painter whose remarkable oil portraits have started gaining a following.

His first solo exhibition in Austin blends classical and contemporary influences and brings tactile intimacy to life. Hale’s oil paintings, some inspired by the classical greats, go beyond mere representation. His use of impasto textures, thoughtful color choices, and occasional collage elements endow his work with a tactile quality that invites a deeper connection between the viewer and the subject. A sense of touch seemingly transcends the canvas. Hale’s work bears the weight of classical influence, yet his pieces exude a refreshing modernity.

 


 

 

Travelogue Series: Falling into Languages

 

Host: Art Galleries at Black Studies, Idea Lab, 210 West 24th St, Gordon-White Building 2.204
Dates: September 7, 2023 – December 1, 2023

 

Kaylynn Sullivan TwoTrees’s Falling into Language immerses viewers in moving and still images of indigo ink paintings and invented languages. These visuals are accompanied by a collaged soundtrack of vocables—sounds without literal meaning—recorded around the world. Together, these elements invite us to imagine an excavated world of unknown origin and consider what our own origin stories might be.

Falling into Language is a companion exhibition to Un-Tying Our Cosmic Ancestry, that will be on view at the Christian-Green Gallery. Both are the latest iterations of TwoTrees’s Travelogue Series, an ever-evolving exploration of Spirit, Nature, and the journey to union with the Cosmos.

 


 

 

Tactile Intimacy: The Portraiture of M.J. Hale

 

Host: Unchained.Art, 1601 E Cesar Chavez
Dates: September 3, 2023 – October 15, 2023

 

In the heart of Berlin’s vibrant art scene, a narrative of resilience, dedication, and artistry unfolds. We are delighted to present an exclusive showcase of M. J. Hale’s work, an English born painter whose remarkable oil portraits have started gaining a following. His first solo exhibition in Austin blends classical and contemporary influences and brings tactile intimacy to life.

Hale’s oil paintings, some inspired by the classical greats, go beyond mere representation. His use of impasto textures, thoughtful color choices, and occasional collage elements endow his work with a tactile quality that invites a deeper connection between the viewer and the subject. A sense of touch seemingly transcends the canvas. Hale’s work bears the weight of classical influence, yet his pieces exude a refreshing modernity.

 


 

 

I am Clay Hill: New Work by Kalee Appleton

 

Host: Ivester Contemporary, 916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 2, STE 107
Dates: September 2, 2023 – October 14, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 2, 7-9 pm

 

Ivester Contemporary is proud to present, I am a Clay Hill, a solo exhibition of new work by Kalee Appleton. The photographs in the exhibition, I am a Clay Hill, were captured during an artist residency in the Val d’Orcia region of Tuscany during the summer of 2023. Here, an untouched and idyllic expanse of picturesque hay pastures, fields of wildflowers, and olive groves stretches for miles. Amidst this bountiful landscape, a striking contrast emerges in the form of vast clay hills devoid of any vegetation—a lunar-like terrain dotting the rolling hills of Tuscany.

 


 

 

Lisa Brawn: Birdland

 

Host: Yard Dog Art, 916 Springdale Rd, Bldg 3, STE 104
Dates: August 31, 2023 – September 20, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 5, 7-9 pm

 

Lisa Brawn’s Artist Statement: I have been experimenting with primarily figurative, portrait genre painted woodcut blocks for over twenty years since being introduced to the medium by printmakers at the Alberta College of Art and Design (now AUArts). I don’t make prints from the woodcuts, but prefer the tactile quality of the blocks themselves.For the past several years, I have also been extremely interested in amateur ornithology and have carved over a thousand studies of wild birds, working exclusively with reclaimed and upcycled wood. The most recent development in this series is the use of damask, geometric, and katagami patterned backgrounds. These patterns flatten the picture plane and create a visual intersection between the chaotic beauty of nature and the controlled beauty of design.

 


 

 

Forces of Nature: Ancient Maya Art from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

 

Host: Blanton Museum of Art, 200 E Martin Luther King Jr Blvd
Dates: August 27, 2023 – January 7, 2023

 

For the ancient Maya, the natural world was both a source of nourishment and danger. From the sun to wildlife to maize crops, forces of nature manifested supernatural beings that were inseparable from their lives. This exhibition explores the rich world of the supernatural in ancient Maya art, through 200 works from LACMA’s notable collection — including ceramic vessels and figurines, and greenstone jewelry from present-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. These ancient artworks showcase how artists portrayed the supernatural world and how royalty acquired and displayed their own supernatural power. The Blanton presentation is organized by Rosario I. Granados, Marilynn Thoma Associate Curator, Art of the Spanish Americas.

 


 

 

Ariel Wood | raze

 

Host: grayDUCK Gallery, 2213 E Cesar Chavez
Dates: August 26, 2023 – October 1, 2023
Opening Event: Saturday, August 26, 7-10 pm

 

raze is an exhibition centering bodily experiences of installation, deconstruction, extension, alteration, looking, and being seen. Raze, as in “to pick clean; to tear down; level to the ground,” becomes directionally complicated when what is being destroyed is below ground level, or perhaps hanging from the ceilings. To bring it to the ground may not be an act of destruction; just as being shaved clean might feel like an act of rebirth.

Ariel Wood makes objects and structures evoking plumbing and drainage. This system of infrastructure is inherently physical — its fluidity requires the utmost connection between parts — as well as political. How the human body encounters a bathroom, and more specifically a public restroom, is especially charged as these spaces purport to demonstrate gender, intimacy, privacy, and hygiene. This mix of physical materiality and sociopolitical pressures gives plumbing an implicit set of relationships that Wood works to manipulate, emphasize, and transgress.

 


 

 

Words into Worlds: Creating Place in the Theatre

 

Host: Harry Ransom Center, 300 W 21st St
Dates: August 26 – February 4, 2024

 

Playwrights are visionary storytellers. They are the first to conjure the world of a play or musical. Through evocative descriptions, they literally and figuratively set the stage for the story to unfold. Scenic designers must then interpret and physically realize the writer’s words.

The renderings and set models displayed in Words into Worlds are works of art created to serve a practical purpose—to allow other members of the production team (the director, other designers, performers, construction crew, etc.) to understand what the set will look like before it has been built.

See displays from landmark American and British theatre productions from the past century, which bring together the iconic work of writers like Adrienne Kennedy, Arthur Miller, Robert Schenkkan, and Tennessee Williams, with award-winning designs from artists like Boris Aronson, Beowulf Boritt, Jo Mielziner, and Norman Bel Geddes.

 


 

 

Art in Words: Prints from the 20th Century to Today

 

Host: Harry Ransom Center, 300 W 21st St
Dates: August 26 – February 4, 2024

 

What can words communicate visually? Where does reading blur with viewing, changing the ways in which we do both? Art in Words showcases works by artists from the mid-twentieth century to today who have employed text in advancement of their visual arguments.

Featuring collaborations between fine presses and artists, examples of typographic and concrete poetry, and experimentations in pop and surrealism, the exhibition puts prints by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ed Ruscha in conversation with works by Charles Henri Ford, Kristin Calhoun, David McGee, and others. Drawing on recently acquired prints as well as from existing materials in the Ransom Center’s permanent collection, Art in Words includes works for which text and image operate in co-equal dialog, and critically considers the possibilities of letters and words to act as visual artistic media.

 


 

 

Mother/Land

 

Host: Central Library Gallery, 710 W Cesar Chavez St
Dates: August 24, 2023 – November 5, 2023
Artist Reception: Thursday, August 24, 6-8 pm, 2nd floor gallery
Animation Screening: Gefilte Fish, November 4, 1:30-2:30 pm

 

Yuliya Lanina’s exhibition, “Mother/Land,” delves into the artist’s complex relationship with the war in Ukraine. Through animation, sculpture, and installation, Lanina continues her introspective exploration of the emotional and physical impact of war and trauma.  The exhibition’s centerpiece is a large animation she created during her residency at Artpace composed from emotionally charged ink drawings she started making since the war began. The continuous scroll of images represents the artist’s experience of the war from afar. Accompanying this moving animation is by a soundscape by Nina C. Young containing fragments of melodies from the Ukrainian national anthem, sirens, and birdsong. Lanina’s drawings will also be the view.

@yuliya.lanina yuliyalanina.com

 


 

 

Ed Barr: Condo

 

Host: Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd
Dates: August 19 – September 23, 2023
Artist Reception: Wednesday, August 23, 2023, 7-9pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 7-9pm

 

Reflecting the rise of condos throughout the Austin downtown area, Ed Barr’s installations evoke a sense of luxury and presumed success. Upon closer inspection, the work elicits questions concerning hierarchy, and addresses issues of loneliness, conformity, and materialism while uttering recriminations about homelessness and wealth disparity.

 


 

 

reVISION: Art in the Making

 

Host: Artworks, 1214 W 6th St STE 105
Dates: August 19, 2023 – September 30, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 26, 2-5 pm

 

Artworks Gallery presents reVISION: Art in the Making by Les Satinover. An exhibit of meticulous graphite drawings used as fully rendered and resolved future paintings. The exhibit displays one stage of his rigorous artistic process for the public. He celebrates the male form in different poses of nude subjects with “tonality, restraint, delicacy of marks and harmonious touches”.

 


 

 

The Long Lives of Very Old Books

 

Host: Harry Ransom Center, 300 W 21st St
Dates: August 19, 2023 – December 30, 2023

 

Explore the stories behind books published by Europeans between the mid-fifteenth and late-seventeenth centuries, tracing them from printing houses into the hands of generations of collectors and bookbinders and, ultimately, modern research libraries like the Ransom Center. Visitors will encounter a number of exceptional objects, including a Don Quixote that has been annotated by a class-conscious reader and all three of the Center’s copies of the Shakespeare First Folio, which celebrates its 400th anniversary this year. Other notable volumes among the more than 150 on display are a Bible that purportedly traveled to New England on the Mayflower, a geographical encyclopedia in Greek that made its way from the press of Aldus Manutius in Venice into the Islamic world, a group of playbooks implicated in a series of high-profile thefts, and a sixteenth-century book that a Harvard undergraduate started to use as his personal diary in the late 1960s.

Drawn almost exclusively from the Center’s own collections, objects in the exhibition testify to the value of treating early books as historical artifacts, of moving beyond their printed content to evidence of how they were originally made, who owned them, where they’ve traveled, and how they’ve been read, used, abused, and altered over the centuries. Looking carefully at particular copies of the books that survive offers glimpses into the lives of people who have come before us, glimpses that can help us develop new narratives about the past and better understand our own values today.

 


 

 

Borderless: Darcie Book and Vy Ngo

 

Host: ICOSA Collective, 916 Springdale Rd
Dates: August 17, 2023 – September 16, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, August 18, 7-10pm

 

ICOSA Collective is proud to present ”Borderless,” an exhibition of new work by Darcie Book and Vy Ngo. The artists invite you to experience an abstract landscape that considers the limitless possibilities of existence in a space without confines.

Materially and conceptually, Book and Ngo consider the realms where boundaries meet and redefine them to build new worlds. Incorporating sculptural painting, installations, and natural materials, the artists remove barriers separating humans from land and humans from each other.

“Borderless” is an exhibition about world-building, and about forming unexpected connections.

 


 

 

Imagined Worlds

 

Host: Central Library 6th Floor Living Room Gallery, 710 W Cesar Chavez St
Dates: August 8, 2023 – October 16, 2023

 

This exhibit showcases Julio Moreno’s diverse portfolio, including artistic and design-focused work, featuring his illustrations in collaboration with author Doug Dixon on the children’s picture books: Don’t You Mind! My Waistline; Don’t You Mind! My Hairline; The Amazing Mr. Pickle Pop; and Johnny Da Kota’s Off-Road Adventure.  Moreno’s artistic style is reminiscent of classic children’s books and television, but with his unique flair. Come and explore the world of Moreno’s playful and joyous creations! (All art and text in the children’s picture books is Copyright 2022/2023 Douglas Dixon, and may be used only by permission.  All Rights Reserved.)

Julio Moreno is a designer and artist born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. Moreno developed his unique nostalgic art style, blending modern techniques and a classic aesthetic, while completing his degree at the University of Texas’ School of Design.  His work is colorful, imaginative, and full of character, captivating young readers and adults alike.  Austin-based author Doug Dixon, originally from Evansville, Indiana, has worked with Moreno, as both seek to inspire and delight children, while fostering a love of reading and creativity.

 


 

 

Patrick O’Brien: Abstract to Alien Light Paintings by a 3-Eyed Man

 

Host: Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd
Dates: July 29, 2023 – September 23, 2023
Artist Reception: Wednesday, August 23, 7-9 pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, September 13, 7-9 pm

 

Light Paintings is a series of monochromatic abstract images created by long-exposure photography. Using a unique process, Patrick O’Brien AKA the 3-Eyed man captures stationary objects through a camera in motion, utilizing the camera as a brush and the subject as paint.

 


 

 

Mary Day Long: The Year of the Pandemic

 

Host: Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd
Dates: July 29, 2023 – September 23, 2023
Artist Reception: Wednesday, August 23, 2023, 7-9 pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, September 13, 7-9 pm

 

Captured over the course of a year, “The Year of the Pandemic” is comprised of photographic images taken by Mary Day Long. The viewer will see humans, while scarce in early images, appear more and more frequently. Snow arrives and melts away, dry creek beds fill with water, bare trees start to leaf out, storms build and fade, summer sets in and dries out the landscape, trees drop their leaves, and winter returns.

 


 

 

Concrete to Canvas

 

Host: West Chelsea Contemporary, 1009 W 6th St #120
Dates: July 22, 2023 – September 17, 2023
Opening Event: Saturday, July 22, 2-4 pm

 

“Concrete to Canvas” showcases a curated collection of artworks by renowned artists who have made significant contributions to the Graffiti and Street Art Movements and stands as West Chelsea Contemporary’s most expansive and comprehensive exhibition in this genre.

The exhibited works highlight the mastery of contemporary artists who have excelled in the realms of graffiti and street art. Among the featured artists are esteemed creators and friends of the gallery such as Blek le Rat, Cey Adams, LadyPink, Shepard Fairey, Banksy, Richard Hambleton, Vhils, Swoon, PhoebeNewYork, and many more.

 

 

 

 

Upcoming

 

 

Window Dressing XXX: The Amazing Hancock Brothers

 

Host: ICOSA Collective, 916 Springdale Rd
Dates: September 18, 2023- September 25, 2023 (visible 24 hours/day)
Opening Reception: Friday, September 22, 8-10 pm

 

“It was probably somewhere between Wichita Falls and Dallas in mid 1990s when we came up with the name Amazing Hancock Bros. Before that we were just John and Charles Hancock showing at a Tulsa house party or dingy alternate space or in the independent art cell Big Snuff art group. We were art hungry, feral, and we drank too much.

We were strongly influenced by German Expressionists, comic books, late-night black and white horror movies, and the cosmic cow punk ethos. We emerged from central Texas to take our rightful place in the pantheon of art history, only to be turned away for lack of adequate visas, transit papers and coherent curriculum vitae. How were we to know?

Born of a southern white man and a northern Japanese mama we were raised in Waxahachie, Texas. Separated by only 18 months – we are Texanese brothers through and through. We were brought up in a time of great social upheaval: Vietnam war, desegregation, sonic booms and the mysterious disappearance of the Texas Horned Toad. But that was all decades before we came up with print bombing and eyeball registration… even before we were called the OGs of modern printmaking.

No one told us NO you can’t do that. Not in so many words and there were things we could have done better or should have looked up in the manual but didn’t. There were the all-knowing glances which were misread as come-ons or were downright ignored.”

 


 

 

Offering: A Balm in a World of Wounds by Valerie Fowler

 

Host: Cloud Tree Studios & Gallery, 3411 E 5th St
Dates: September 22, 2023 – October 14, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 7-10 pm (featuring Three Spells, a 20 minute performance piece by Robin Chotzinoff and Malena Pennycook at 8 pm)
Artist Talk: Saturday, October 7, 2 pm

 

From Valerie Fowler – ’“Offering: A Balm in a World of Wounds” comprises 17 oil paintings, large and small. I began this body of work with ‘Offering,’ a diptych – a pair of canvases over which I painted a composition of intuitive, free form, almost symmetry. Three more large diptychs followed. In the beginning I was thinking about the rhythms, patterns and geometries of the plant world–how nothing in nature is perfectly symmetrical, but that there are consistent patterns. Then I began to think about humans in nature, as part of nature, not supreme in nature, and also about the imperfect symmetry of human bodies. I became especially concerned with female bodies. This work concerns broken patterns: generational pain and subsequent healing; death, rebirth and regeneration; sacrifice, ceremony, and also, vulnerability, with all its complications.’

 


 

 

Ofrenda de la Comunidad

 

Host: Mexic-Arte Museum, 419 Congress Ave
Dates: September 22, 2023 – November 26, 2023

 

Día de los Muertos, a tradition that beautifully melds the realms of the living and the deceased, comes alive within the Mexic-Arte Museum. Each ofrenda tells a story, adorned with recuerdos, photographs, and tokens of affection, a poignant tribute to those who have journeyed beyond.

This year, the Mexic-Arte Museum invites the community to participate in this time-honored custom by contributing a photograph of a cherished loved one or someone you deeply admire who has passed away to their Ofrenda de la Comunidad. With your participation, the gallery transforms into a shared space of remembrance and homage, where the lives of our ancestors and friends are celebrated collectively.

Join the Mexic-Arte Museum in preserving the richness of history and memory as they gather again to honor the legacy of the past 40 years. Your photograph is more than an image; it’s a thread in the tapestry of our communal narrative.

 


 

 

40 Years of Día de los Muertos

 

Host: Mexic-Arte Museum, 419 Congress Ave
Dates: September 22, 2023 – January 7, 2024
Opening Reception: Friday, September 22, 6-9 pm

 

Mexic-Arte Museum is excited to announce its upcoming exhibition this fall: 40 Years of Día de los Muertos. This exhibit presents an impressive collection of artworks created by artists with an intimate connection to the Mexic-Arte Museum and the Austin community. The exhibition will begin with an opening reception on September 22, 2023 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. Guests will be able to enjoy music, a special poetry reading from La Catrina y Posada, and refreshments.

 


 

 

Darden Smith: Western Skies – Prints and Drawings

 

Host: Davis Gallery, 837 West 12th St
Dates: September 23, 2023 – October 28, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 4-7 pm

 

Darden Smith is a Texas original with a renaissance creative mind. He is a songwriter, poet, photographer, visual artist who embraces the abstractions of Texas’s wide open spaces in all its intimate detail. Through his latest work he takes you into his travelog sketchbook and minimalist creations caught in mid-impression. Some colorful and bold with a strong printers hand, others mere wisps of thought, they are reflections on the flora and horizons of the greater American Southwest.

Darden’s work has shown throughout Texas, to rave reviews. He pulls influences from cartoons, line drawings, Karl Blossfeldt’s nature photography, the paintings of Cy Twombly, Francesco Clementi’s watercolors, his quite extensive stamp collection, and what he calls rhythmic visual dissonance – the objects and repeated patterns of our lives.

Davis Gallery is proud to present Darden Smith’s latest work “Western Skies – Prints and Drawings.” Forty plus images on paper and print that show the range and depth of his visual senses.

 


 

 

dARKagEs: New Work by Leon Alesi and John Mulvany

 

Host: ICOSA Collective, 916 Springdale Rd
Dates: September 29, 2023 – October 28, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, September 29, 7-10 pm

 

In “dARKagEs,” Leon Alesi and John Mulvany aim to unearth, uncover and breathe new life into images and artifacts that until relatively recently may have seemed invisible, hidden and unknowable. The artists’ use of the neologism “darkages” as the title of the exhibition might seem to suggest that we are currently living through a new dark age- a time of ignorance, fear and oppression with a stagnation of advancement in science and culture. Our uncertainty about accelerated technological advancements in AI and our collective anxiety about the climate and the future hums in the background as context.

Leon Alesi’s photographs, collages, assemblages and found objects embody a sophisticated folk-art sensibility suggestive of an imagined past that echoes into the present. As much an exercise of recording history as it is an experiment of alchemy. Alesi’s Ancestors series – remnants of cedar piers unearthed from the foundations of partially demolished houses in his neighborhood live again as sculptures that stand as witnesses to images depicting their own fall into obscurity and abandonment. For his assemblages, foraged detritus communes with the incorporeal and the previously unseen transforms into an Anthropocene Age avatar.

John Mulvany’s paintings originate in extensive photographic research from Victorian-era natural history museums and West Texas taxidermy shops. Mulvany creates digital collages that embed taxidermy animals into contemporary landscape dioramas which are then reimagined through AI image generation technology. The animals in the paintings are approximations of life, evoking a sense of simultaneous presence and absence, permanence and transience, the real and the unreal.

Throughout the exhibition Alesi and Mulvany find common threads with which to collaborate, utilizing key elements of both artists’ themes and processes. The installation of a natural history museum-style diorama in the window of the gallery opens and completes the narrative.

 


 

 

Neal Flynn: Access

 

Host: Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Rd
Dates: September 30, 2023 – November 25, 2023
Artist Reception: Wednesday, October 11, 2023, 7-9 pm
Artist Talk: Wednesday, October 25, 2023, 7-9 pm

 

Neal Flynn’s exhibition of mostly new assemblage, collage, and site-specific intervention explores ideas relating to nostalgia, loss, violence, ownership, and modern Western culture.  Flynn’s artistic practice involves collecting, journaling, photographing, researching, and responding to the rapid changes in our society, and is informed by his experience as a young, white, cisgender male, gay artist, arts professional, and learner/educator. The materials and imagery he works with are sourced from a restless, Americentric culture of advancement and forgetting

 


 

 

Sarah Ferguson: Continuum

 

Host: Wally Workman Gallery, 1202 W 6th St
Dates: October 7, 2023 – October 29, 2023
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 7, 6-8 pm

 

On Saturday, October 7th, 2023, Wally Workman Gallery will present a solo show with painter Sarah Ferguson. Entitled “Continuum”, this show embarks on an artistic journey delving into the profound connection between life, death, and the mysteries beyond. Through a harmonious interplay of finespun colors, shifting planes, and symbolic use of gold, the intention is to inspire viewers to delve into the enigmatic realms of existence and contemplate the patterns and milestones that govern our collective journey.

Sarah Ferguson is an admirer of the Light and Space art movement, Minimalism, Hard-edge painting and Geometric abstraction. She lives and works in Austin, Texas.

 


 

 

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