EXHIBITIONS
UTOPIA is a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Jesus De La Rosa that explore place through imagined landscapes. The idea of migration through landscape is represented through the black rosette designs, which travel, hide, rest, and are sometimes totally absent throughout the paintings. Jesus’ work demonstrates a personal and unique relationship between abstraction and landscape, culminating through luminous surfaces of acrylic paint and a wide variety of media. He layers and carves back into these rich crusts, revealing a personal history that records the individual journey and repose of the works themselves.
OPENING May 1st during
McAllen Artwalk, 6-10PM
On View through May 22, 2009
ManicHaus, Modern Art Space
1301-B North Main St.
McAllen, TX 78501
956.618.5770 office
956.207.0940 cell
Gallery Hours:Tues-Fri: 1-6PM
Sat: By Appointment/Special Events
___________________________________________________________________
Six Shooter
Six Artists From South Texas
Invitational Group Exhibition
Feb 16 - Mar 20, 2009
Artist Reception: Thursday, Feb 19th, 5-7pm
Gaddis Geeslin Gallery
Sam Houston State University
1028 21st Street
Huntsville, TX 77341-2089
936.294.1315
____________________________________________________________________
The Good, The Bad & The Altered
Invitational Group Exhibition
Jan 17 - Feb 28, 2009
Opening: Saturday, Jan 17, 5-7pm
K Space Contemporary
415 D Starr St., Corpus Christi, TX, 78403
email: info@kspacecontemporary.org
361.887.6834
____________________________________________________________________
Singularity
Group Exhibition
Dec 5-19, 2008
Reception: Friday, Dec 5th, 6-10 pm
Manichaus
1301-B North Main Street
McAllen, Texas 78501
956.207.0940
____________________________________________________________________
Self- Portrait: Inner Voices
Rusteberg Gallery
October 21 - November 15, 2008
Invitational Group Exhibition, Curated by Carlos G. Gomez
Opening reception: October 21, 2008, 6:30- 8:30 pm
UTB/TSC • 80 Fort Brown • Brownsville, TX • 78520
(956) 882-7097 • gallery@utb.edu
The Art Gallery in the Rusteberg Building is proud to present “Self-Portrait: Inner Voices” A collection of art produced by several artists that include: Sam Coronado, Carlos G. Gómez, Toni Hudson, Sandesh Kadur, Bret Lefler, Chris Leonard, Jack Lewis, Daniel López, Cesar Martínez, Noel Palmenez, Jesús de la Rosa, Nancy Sclight, Richard Smith, and Paúl Valdez. Their work consists of mixed media, printmaking, painting, and ceramic sculpture.
Curator's Statement:
An inner voice is an exhibition beyond the making of art and instead becomes a window or portal into the vision or projection by which the artist chooses to convey their truth. In this case, it is a mere self-portrait that echoes who and what they are at that given moment in their life.
- Carlos G. Gomez
____________________________________________________________________
Del Otro Lado
Curated by Angel Quesada
October 1-October 24, 2008
Reception: October 1st, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
JPMorgan Chase Heritage Hall
712 Main St. Houston, TX 77002
artshound
Art League Houston, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, is pleased to announce the opening of Celebrating Diversity Through Art: Del Otro Lado (From The Other Side), which takes place at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase Building in Downtown Houston, and runs from October 1 – October 24, 2008, as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Curated by Angel Quesada and featuring the work of:
Anna Pilhoefer (El Paso)
Lucilla Flores (Austin)
Jesus De La Rosa (McAllen)
Joe Peña (Corpus Christi)
Joe Romero (Lubbock)
Fernando Lafuente (Austin)
Del Otro Lado is the first in a series of four visual art exhibitions that focus on cultural heritage month celebrations. Celebrating Diversity Through Art is a unique collaboration between JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston, which highlights emerging artists representative of diverse communities.
Curator Angel Quesada is an Austin-based artist who was raised along the Texas Borderlands/Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a place rich in history and folklore.
He grew up in a number of border towns, including Larado, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio. Both his parents still live and work along the border for the United States government. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied painting, printmaking, and interrelated media.
Quesada has had exhibitions at venues that include Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Galeria Vito Alesio Centro Corporal in Saltillo, Mexico, and the Casa De Sousa in Los Angeles. He has curated shows at Texas A & M University in Corpus Christi, and the Mexican American Cultural Center, Mexci-Arte Museum, and the International Center in Austin. His most recent curated exhibition was Enmascarados: an homage to Lucha Libra for Pump Projects Art Complex in Austin, Texas.
About Art League Houston
Art League Houston is one of Houston's longest operating non-profit visual arts organizations and was the first alternative art space in Texas. Founded in 1948 and incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1953, Art League Houston (ALH) was created to promote the public appreciation of and interest in the visual arts. During the past 60 years, ALH has provided over 760 exhibitions to the Houston community, showcased the work of nearly 22,200 artists, and instructed over 35,000 students through the Art League School and Outreach Program.
Art League Houston
1953 Montrose Blvd
Houston, Texas 77006
(713) 523 - 9530
alh@artleaguehouston.org
____________________________________________________________________
Red Hot Red Dot
Women & Their Work
September 18, 2008
Opening: September 18, 6-9pm
1710 Lavaca St.
Austin, Texas
(512) 477-1064
____________________________________________________________________
It's Not Easy
July 24 - August 29, 2008
Opening: Thursday July 24, 7-10pm
Exit Art
475 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
(212) 966-7745 ext. 15
It’s Not Easy is an exhibition inspired by the recent tidal wave of efforts to go “green”. Curated entirely through email submissions, this exhibition will contain image and text responses to the question: What does ‘green’ mean to you? The over 200 international works exhibited in It’s Not Easy were chosen from almost 700 submissions.
E-mail submissions will be printed
on 8 ½” x 11” recycled paper and exhibited in Exit Underground. Upon the closing of the exhibition, all printed entries will be kept in Exit Art’s permanent archive where they may be exhibited again at any later date.
Lauren Rosati
Assistant Curator
____________________________________________________________________
Piece by Piece
KSpace Contemporary
May 16 - July 6, 2008
Opening: Friday May 16, 6-8pm
Corpus Christi, Texas
info@kspacecontemporary.org
(361) 887-6834
____________________________________________________________________
“Embracing Chaos” The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists (YLA) Exhibition
May 22-June 20, 2008
Opening Reception May 22nd 5pm-7pm
Weil Gallery,Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Corpus Christi, Texas The Department of Art and University Galleries presents Y.L.A. #12 (Young Latino Artists): Embracing Chaos, on display through Friday, June 20, in the Weil Gallery, Center for the Arts. The exhibit includes photography, paintings, drawings and sculpture created by six young artists from across Texas. The exhibition is free
and open to the public. For more information, call 361.825.2386.
____________________________________________________________________
5x7: Art Splurge and Exhibition
Arthouse Jones Contemporary Center
Invitational Group Exhibition (Traveling to Inman Gallery in Houston)
May 18 - June 1, 2008
____________________________________________________________________
Texas National 2008
April 5 - May 18
The Art Center @ The Old Opera House.
This annual juried competition and exhibition annually attracts entrants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It provides emerging artists an opportunity to have work juried by internationally acclaimed artists and presents new and innovative art to regional audiences.
Stephen F. Austin State University Box 13001, SFA Nacogdoches, Texas 75962-3001 (936) 468-4804
____________________________________________________________________
Systematic Drawings
April 17 - May 9, 2008
Reception: Thursday April 17th • 6-8pm
Mid-Valley Campus, McAllen, Texas
March 11 - April 11, 2008
Reception: Tuesday March 11th • 6-8pm
Pecan Campus, McAllen, Texas
South Texas College Library Art Gallery
libraryart@southtexascollege.edu
(956) 872-3488
____________________________________________________________________
“Embracing Chaos” The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists (YLA) Exhibition
September 14, 2007-February 23, 2008
Mexic-Arte Museum 419 Congress Ave.
Mexican American Cultural Center Gallery (M.A.C.C.) 600 River St., Austin, Texas
Mexic-Arte Museum presents the 12th Annual Young Latino Artists Exhibition at the Mexican American Cultural Center (M.A.C.C.). This year’s YLA #12 titled “Embracing Chaos” will open at the inauguration of the new Mexican American Cultural Center Gallery on Saturday September 15th and will be on view through February 23, 2008. YLA #12 is curated by Angel Quesada, an Austin-based artist who will present art work from six young artists. The artists in the show demonstrate a desire to continue producing art which is restless, dynamic, and relevant to the theme of the show.
Mexic-Arte Museum is dedicated to developing awareness of young Latino art and sharing its importance to our community. “The theme “Embracing Chaos” shows the behavior of chaotic systems which appear to be at random because of an exponential growth of errors in the initial conditions of the work. This early period in an artist’s career is often unrefined but not untrained, unversed but not unskilled. It is during this period where you will find young artists “Embracing Chaos” and searching for their personal style. The artists in the show will demonstrate their style related to the theme of the exhibition.”
“This exhibition attempts to reveal the ember of creativity, “Quesada said. “In my aesthetic for “Embracing Chaos” there exists an invisible line linking the act of making art with the viewer.”
Young Latino Artists whose works can be seen at the Mexican American
Cultural Center :
Gerald Lopez - Corpus Christi, TX
Jesus de la Rosa - McAllen, TX
Chuy Benitez - Houston, TX
Anna Pilhoefer - El Paso, TX
Enrique Martinez - San Antonio, TX
Lucilla Flores - Austin , TX
Curator's Note by Angel Quesada
In curating this exhibit I wanted to select artists whose aesthetic fit seamlessly into my evolving idea of chaos. I also wanted to present a pluralistic view of what it means to be a Young Latino Artist in these times. In fact, the theme evolved parallel to the process; it was the method that determined the outcome. Instead of prescribed or highly ordered system to select art, and therefore a theme, I employed a different style of arriving at the concept.
Chaos informed my curatorial method, and as such informed the content of this exhibit. I once asked a Physics Engineer what he predicted as the future trend of art making? His answer was simple: "it is without a doubt going to embrace chaos." This year's exhibit called "Embracing Chaos" is about accidents and denials. I went looking for accidents, following my wants and searching for these "appropriate
accidents". The only challenge was to deem which accidents were appropriate for the exhibition. Often we associate accidents as adverse, or as a disaster here to mess up some nice plans. I wished to find artists in which I could identify with something inside myself. I realized that this would mean I would have to connect with artists who are traveling in similar ways exposed to a certain quality of chaos.
The content of the show features artists engaged in rule-breaking and defying the established canons of both Latino art and community. In this regard, the show is also about denial. It is a denial of the status quo and validation based on stereotypes. The artwork is set firmly in denial, never needing to play the Latino card to exert accreditation or substance. It is a denial of culture, conformity and inherits the anxiety of individualism. In this sentiment, I present a show that is at once full of conviction but is also a series of perfect accidents. A vehicle of disorder pays no mind to intelligence, strength, integrity, or good intentions
ART REVIEWS
CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER-TIMES
Exhibit at K Space inspires dialogue
Manner in which art is displayed is
part of art itself
May 22, 2008
By Elizabeth Reese PhD
If art exhibitions can be considered visual dialogues, then a terrific conversation is happening downtown at K Space Contemporary." Piece by Piece: Drawings by Jesus de la Rosa and Paintings by Paul Valadez" presents the work of two artists who use images to discuss personal experiences with gratification, time, identity, history and culture. Moreover, the clever presentation calls viewers not only to engage with the exchange on the walls, but also to explore the connective conversations within. Each artist plasters at least one large wall, almost floor to ceiling, side by side, piece by piece, with his works of art. The effect is stunning. Covering the gallery walls on the left are Valadez's text-based, sign-like paintings, while de la Rosa's enigmatic, mysterious drawings cover the right side. This method of presentation is considered a form of installation art where the manner in which the work is displayed is part of the work of art itself. The context in which art is experienced always affects the viewer's interpretation of the work. In "Piece by Piece," viewers can enjoy investigating the whole exhibition, one grouping of art at a time, and each work of art on its own. Delicate and demanding, de la Rosa's abstract drawings reveal a story beating the demands of the daily grind. With a work schedule that prohibits long artwork sessions, de la Rosa began to use the method seen here to create aesthetically intricate works.Though the drawings appear to be labor-intensive, de la Rosa said his process "is more accidental than automatic in nature. It also borrows heavily from print-making and the monoprint process specifically. Each piece is created in the span of one second by swatting a powdered charcoal brushed piece of canvas on the support." De la Rosa's drawings read like frames from a celestial song or dramatic ballet. Separately, the works of art suggest a mystifying, other-worldly presence. Powerful and subtle, Valadez's works use paint in layers and drips as well as words in Spanish and English to document his experiences with the comingling of cultures in America."The ideas of using classic Americana imagery with Spanish-language text reveal a deeper idea of the blend of cultures in the U.S. today," he said. These "old signage" works offer insight into Valadez's childhood in a bi-cultural (Mexican-American and Anglo) home in central California. The artist said his works also offer "social commentary on topical issues, current policies and garnished with a dash of satirical pun at life in the 21st century." To create these cropped and curious paintings, Valadez uses acrylic paint sometimes on papier mâché, recycled tin, wood, canvas and found materials. Indeed, examining the surface of the signs to examine the materials is part of the banter. Is that sawdust? Or hay? What makes it look so old and rusty? Both artists teach in McAllen at the University of Texas-Pan American.
IF YOU GO
What: “Piece by Piece: Drawings by Jesus de la Rosa and Paintings by Paul Valadez”
When: Through July 6;
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesdays through Saturdays
Where: K Space Contemporary 415 D. Starr St.
Cost: Free Information: 361-887-6834 or www.kspacecontemporary.org
Elizabeth B. Reese, PhD, is an art and museum consultant and former visiting professor and director of university galleries at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Contact her at elizreese@gmail.com
____________________________________________________________________
THE MONITOR
Dark Marks
March 28, 2008, Festiva, pg 27F
by Nancy Moyer PhD
One-hundred and twenty new charcoal drawings by Jesus de la Rosa literally cover the walls of the STC Library Art Gallery downstairs. His new exhibit Systematic Drawings, presents a new drawing technique that De La Rosa feels is right for our time.
The drawings are untitled abstract images. Even so, each drawing seems to suggest a biological structure. There is a temptation to imagine x-rays of unknown creatures being seen through a special device. Or, sometimes, deep-sea creatures that have become transparent from lack of sunlight are captured on the paper surface.
“This collection was in spired as a reaction to our culture’s existent hunger for complex aesthetics and instant gratification,” said De La Rosa. “My goal was to find a method to make a unique drawing that was aesthetically intricate and seemed to be created by long, laborious and tedious hours, but took a fraction of the time to generate and that also defied a factory made appearance.”
Quite a daunting goal, but De La Rosa masterfully combined the processes of monoprinting and action painting. He dry brushes a piece of canvas with powdered charcoal, and then swats the paper surface with it. Each drawing in the exhibit was created this way. Although each drawing is unique, they all carry specific characteristics from the others due to the “system.” As a result, there is a strong visual unity from drawing to drawing. De La Rosa’s swat system produces incredibly beautiful images that belie the speed of their execution. Comprised of complex shapes and sophisticated tonal graduations, the images include integrated passages of great complexity. The drawings appear to be much more than the simple “swats” that he describes.
“When I try to organize the canvas a certain way, it never works,” explained De La Rosa. “The result actually depends on the speed and the amount of charcoal. And that’s what produced the image. And, of course, the placement. If the image is swatted twice or three times, I find that when it’s just once or twice it works really well. If I go beyond that, I cross that point where it’s not good anymore.”
Many of the drawings display a record of the loose strands of canvas as they collided with the surface of the paper. Several images also demonstrate an extended soft edge that moves out from the primary image. This could be described as a halo effect that occurred as the charcoal exploded across the paper from the impact of the canvas swat.”De La Rosa’s process represents an impacting signage that is very dynamic and active and relies a lot on happenstance and chance,” said David Freeman, STC’s Library Art Gallery Curator and Programs Coordinator. “The artist’s touch comes more from the process of the created and found mark-making than the traditional act of drawing one usually finds on a gallery wall. It Synthesizes, in a tomfoolery kind of way, the differences between traditional and progressive conceptual performance drawing.”
De La Rosa’s drawings are amazing because such a successful illusion of detail has occurred with his systematic process. There appears to have been labored traditional drawing taking place. But it was a swat – an abstract record of a violent physical action. Nor does De La Rosa go back and rework the image with erasures and dark accents. The images represent the pure record of his process: a process that is at once delicate and violent, much like our own existence.
Nancy Moyer, PhD, in an art reviewer for the monitor. She is an independent artist living in McAllen and may be reached at nmoyer@rgv.rr.com
____________________________________________________________________
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
'YLA 12: Embracing Chaos'
Mexican American Cultural Center, through Feb. 23
NOVEMBER 9, 2007: ARTS
BY SALVADOR CASTILLO
The new gallery at the Mexican American Cultural Center is very spacious with an open floor plan. The airy space offers plenty of room to roam but also leaves clear views into the other exhibit. Resisting the coherent proclamation from Carlos Rivera Pineda in "Hacia la Vida," his retrospective of portraits, you can find some engaging work by youngsters loitering around. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my artwork was included in the previous "Young Latino Artists" exhibition.)
The works of Jesus de la Rosa, with lots of red areas on his large paintings, do the most to attract you as you enter the gallery. They are at once delicate and violent. They appear to be prints, but the impressions suggest a rag covered in charcoal was swatted onto the surface. Wisps of dust spew from the body of the mark as the creases of the fabric settle into place. After a number of visits, the pronounced red paintings reveal more personalities. Building up and damaging the painting's face make it about surface play. But that play plots a topographic map, buttressed by the titles.
Enrique Martinez creates expansive, scrolling landscapes. They evoke graffiti murals and Mad magazine illustrations as the objects, characters, and details wave back and forth. These flowing compositions come out to seduce you, pull you back into their space, and then spit you out. Thomas Hart Benton's murals are called to mind, but in book format; they tap into Mesoamerican codices. Even in the differently formatted video-game drawings, the viewer is invited then repulsed.
In Anna Pilhoefer's matronly work, you find references to sewing and storybook characters. The encaustic pieces use cute animal characters like those of Little Golden Books. Maybe they're telling a sweet story, but the surface and drawn sutures suggest something more. Shadow boxes, saints, physical surgery, and domestic mandalas make the other work more complex. Their format feels a little bit like a retread of ideas, though.
I opened up to de la Rosa the more I visited, but those same subsequent visits dissipated interest in Chuy Benitez's panoramic photographs. The individual portraits were fish-bowled diptychs of figure and environment being distorted, illustrating front and back views. Both strategies investigate some form of Mexican identity. Faced with a whole wall of similar photographs, a question arises: What are the special effects supporting or highlighting in each of these different characters?
Terms like "outsider art" and "untrained artist" can be used to promote and condemn. But I don't want to confuse anybody. Gerald Lopez uses shallow, vertical compositions, and his oil-pastel figures have a cartoon rendering. The works look like hand-painted shop signs. The prints are more successful and reveal an interest in color, but there is no doubt that all of these works participate awkwardly in the show.
Hidden in a blind spot as you enter are Lucilla Flores' etchings made with slightly different colored inks. The marks look like scratches but are actually different equestrian studies. Skeletal, muscular, and planar examinations create all-over compositions. Thoughts of Kicking Bear's Battle of Little Big Horn and Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies safeguard these prints.
While some of the work in "YLA 12: Embracing Chaos" is enjoyable, the show as a whole isn't impressive. The installation stutters and sputters along. I'm sure Benitez enjoys owning the middle wall, but how does segregating Flores alone by the elevator complement the work? The alternating vertical and horizontal layout also feels arbitrary. Is that where we're embracing the chaos? The works themselves feel orderly. Curator Angel Quesada was charged with presenting these artists but seems to show little concern for their art by cramming into the space as much of it as possible. I've said it before: Curators are like editors, and sometimes they need to omit pieces and trust in the power of the artist's work.
____________________________________________________________________
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Tradition rubs elbows with today's vibe in the two inaugural
exhibits at the new Mexican American Cultural Center.
First exhibitions at the Mexican American Cultural Center
Two exhibits show past and present of Latino arts.
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Thursday, October 04, 2007
On one side of the new 5,000-square-foot second-floor gallery is "Hacia La Vida (Toward Life)," a retrospective exhibit featuring portraits by artist and arts administrator Carlos Rivera Pineda. Occupying the other is "Embracing Chaos: The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists Exhibition," featuring the work of a half dozen emerging Latino artists from across Texas.
"Hacia La Vida" is honorific and personal. "Embracing Chaos" is experimental and frisky. And together, they suggest much about the trajectory of Latino art over the past several decades.
The longtime administrator of the city's Dougherty Arts Center, Pineda was among those Latino arts professionals who years ago championed the idea of a city center specifically devoted to Latino culture. (The opening of the $16 million MACC in September culminated an effort that lasted about 30 years.) And as an arts educator, Pineda created the city's "Totally Cool, Totally Art" program that employs artists to teach schoolchildren. "A true artist is not an elevated, outside member of the community," Pineda proclaims in his artist statement that hangs on the gleaming white wall of the bright, sun-flooded MACC gallery. "A true artist functions as part of the community."
Pineda put that philosophy to action personally by painting vivid portraits. Musicians Ruben Ramos and Roy Montelongo, artist and activist Marsha Gomez and members of Pineda's family are among those he has lovingly rendered as a token of his appreciation and respect for their lives.
The six artists in "Embracing Chaos" clearly have different motivations behind their art. Adapting to the frenzy of our cyber-fast world, understanding the flurry of images that comes our way, negotiating the line between pop culture and high culture — these are the concerns of Chuy Benitez, Lucilla Flores, Gerald Lopez, Enrique Martinez, Anna Pilhoefer and Jesus de la Rosa.
In fact "Embracing Chaos" seems to celebrate an aesthetic of messiness. De la Rosa creates frenzied abstract paintings made three-dimensional with obsessively layered paint that the artist has shaped, scraped away, built up or even bored holes into with a power drill. Pilhoefer riffs on traditional women's handicrafts, mixing embroidered images straight from craft store patterns with splashes of spray paint. And in complex textured prints, Flores layers cartoonish, storybook-like images of horses with rough, linear scribbles. A pop culture cave painting? Perhaps.
As with the other young artists in "Embracing Chaos," Flores wrestles with the world using very different strategies than artists who came before her.
jvanryzin@statesman.com
VIDEOS
Young Latino Artist Video Click Here (be patient it takes a while to upload)
Systematic Drawings Video Part I Click Here
Systematic Drawings Video Part II Click Here
UTOPIA is a solo exhibition of recent paintings by Jesus De La Rosa that explore place through imagined landscapes. The idea of migration through landscape is represented through the black rosette designs, which travel, hide, rest, and are sometimes totally absent throughout the paintings. Jesus’ work demonstrates a personal and unique relationship between abstraction and landscape, culminating through luminous surfaces of acrylic paint and a wide variety of media. He layers and carves back into these rich crusts, revealing a personal history that records the individual journey and repose of the works themselves.
OPENING May 1st during
McAllen Artwalk, 6-10PM
On View through May 22, 2009
ManicHaus, Modern Art Space
1301-B North Main St.
McAllen, TX 78501
956.618.5770 office
956.207.0940 cell
Gallery Hours:Tues-Fri: 1-6PM
Sat: By Appointment/Special Events
___________________________________________________________________
Six Shooter
Six Artists From South Texas
Invitational Group Exhibition
Feb 16 - Mar 20, 2009
Artist Reception: Thursday, Feb 19th, 5-7pm
Gaddis Geeslin Gallery
Sam Houston State University
1028 21st Street
Huntsville, TX 77341-2089
936.294.1315
____________________________________________________________________
The Good, The Bad & The Altered
Invitational Group Exhibition
Jan 17 - Feb 28, 2009
Opening: Saturday, Jan 17, 5-7pm
K Space Contemporary
415 D Starr St., Corpus Christi, TX, 78403
email: info@kspacecontemporary.org
361.887.6834
____________________________________________________________________
Singularity
Group Exhibition
Dec 5-19, 2008
Reception: Friday, Dec 5th, 6-10 pm
Manichaus
1301-B North Main Street
McAllen, Texas 78501
956.207.0940
____________________________________________________________________
Self- Portrait: Inner Voices
Rusteberg Gallery
October 21 - November 15, 2008
Invitational Group Exhibition, Curated by Carlos G. Gomez
Opening reception: October 21, 2008, 6:30- 8:30 pm
UTB/TSC • 80 Fort Brown • Brownsville, TX • 78520
(956) 882-7097 • gallery@utb.edu
The Art Gallery in the Rusteberg Building is proud to present “Self-Portrait: Inner Voices” A collection of art produced by several artists that include: Sam Coronado, Carlos G. Gómez, Toni Hudson, Sandesh Kadur, Bret Lefler, Chris Leonard, Jack Lewis, Daniel López, Cesar Martínez, Noel Palmenez, Jesús de la Rosa, Nancy Sclight, Richard Smith, and Paúl Valdez. Their work consists of mixed media, printmaking, painting, and ceramic sculpture.
Curator's Statement:
An inner voice is an exhibition beyond the making of art and instead becomes a window or portal into the vision or projection by which the artist chooses to convey their truth. In this case, it is a mere self-portrait that echoes who and what they are at that given moment in their life.
- Carlos G. Gomez
____________________________________________________________________
Del Otro Lado
Curated by Angel Quesada
October 1-October 24, 2008
Reception: October 1st, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
JPMorgan Chase Heritage Hall
712 Main St. Houston, TX 77002
artshound
Art League Houston, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, is pleased to announce the opening of Celebrating Diversity Through Art: Del Otro Lado (From The Other Side), which takes place at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase Building in Downtown Houston, and runs from October 1 – October 24, 2008, as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.
Curated by Angel Quesada and featuring the work of:
Anna Pilhoefer (El Paso)
Lucilla Flores (Austin)
Jesus De La Rosa (McAllen)
Joe Peña (Corpus Christi)
Joe Romero (Lubbock)
Fernando Lafuente (Austin)
Del Otro Lado is the first in a series of four visual art exhibitions that focus on cultural heritage month celebrations. Celebrating Diversity Through Art is a unique collaboration between JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston, which highlights emerging artists representative of diverse communities.
Curator Angel Quesada is an Austin-based artist who was raised along the Texas Borderlands/Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, a place rich in history and folklore.
He grew up in a number of border towns, including Larado, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio. Both his parents still live and work along the border for the United States government. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he studied painting, printmaking, and interrelated media.
Quesada has had exhibitions at venues that include Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Galeria Vito Alesio Centro Corporal in Saltillo, Mexico, and the Casa De Sousa in Los Angeles. He has curated shows at Texas A & M University in Corpus Christi, and the Mexican American Cultural Center, Mexci-Arte Museum, and the International Center in Austin. His most recent curated exhibition was Enmascarados: an homage to Lucha Libra for Pump Projects Art Complex in Austin, Texas.
About Art League Houston
Art League Houston is one of Houston's longest operating non-profit visual arts organizations and was the first alternative art space in Texas. Founded in 1948 and incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1953, Art League Houston (ALH) was created to promote the public appreciation of and interest in the visual arts. During the past 60 years, ALH has provided over 760 exhibitions to the Houston community, showcased the work of nearly 22,200 artists, and instructed over 35,000 students through the Art League School and Outreach Program.
Art League Houston
1953 Montrose Blvd
Houston, Texas 77006
(713) 523 - 9530
alh@artleaguehouston.org
____________________________________________________________________
Red Hot Red Dot
Women & Their Work
September 18, 2008
Opening: September 18, 6-9pm
1710 Lavaca St.
Austin, Texas
(512) 477-1064
____________________________________________________________________
It's Not Easy
July 24 - August 29, 2008
Opening: Thursday July 24, 7-10pm
Exit Art
475 Tenth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
(212) 966-7745 ext. 15
It’s Not Easy is an exhibition inspired by the recent tidal wave of efforts to go “green”. Curated entirely through email submissions, this exhibition will contain image and text responses to the question: What does ‘green’ mean to you? The over 200 international works exhibited in It’s Not Easy were chosen from almost 700 submissions.
E-mail submissions will be printed
on 8 ½” x 11” recycled paper and exhibited in Exit Underground. Upon the closing of the exhibition, all printed entries will be kept in Exit Art’s permanent archive where they may be exhibited again at any later date.
Lauren Rosati
Assistant Curator
____________________________________________________________________
Piece by Piece
KSpace Contemporary
May 16 - July 6, 2008
Opening: Friday May 16, 6-8pm
Corpus Christi, Texas
info@kspacecontemporary.org
(361) 887-6834
____________________________________________________________________
“Embracing Chaos” The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists (YLA) Exhibition
May 22-June 20, 2008
Opening Reception May 22nd 5pm-7pm
Weil Gallery,Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Corpus Christi, Texas The Department of Art and University Galleries presents Y.L.A. #12 (Young Latino Artists): Embracing Chaos, on display through Friday, June 20, in the Weil Gallery, Center for the Arts. The exhibit includes photography, paintings, drawings and sculpture created by six young artists from across Texas. The exhibition is free
and open to the public. For more information, call 361.825.2386.
____________________________________________________________________
5x7: Art Splurge and Exhibition
Arthouse Jones Contemporary Center
Invitational Group Exhibition (Traveling to Inman Gallery in Houston)
May 18 - June 1, 2008
____________________________________________________________________
Texas National 2008
April 5 - May 18
The Art Center @ The Old Opera House.
This annual juried competition and exhibition annually attracts entrants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It provides emerging artists an opportunity to have work juried by internationally acclaimed artists and presents new and innovative art to regional audiences.
Stephen F. Austin State University Box 13001, SFA Nacogdoches, Texas 75962-3001 (936) 468-4804
____________________________________________________________________
Systematic Drawings
April 17 - May 9, 2008
Reception: Thursday April 17th • 6-8pm
Mid-Valley Campus, McAllen, Texas
March 11 - April 11, 2008
Reception: Tuesday March 11th • 6-8pm
Pecan Campus, McAllen, Texas
South Texas College Library Art Gallery
libraryart@southtexascollege.edu
(956) 872-3488
____________________________________________________________________
“Embracing Chaos” The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists (YLA) Exhibition
September 14, 2007-February 23, 2008
Mexic-Arte Museum 419 Congress Ave.
Mexican American Cultural Center Gallery (M.A.C.C.) 600 River St., Austin, Texas
Mexic-Arte Museum presents the 12th Annual Young Latino Artists Exhibition at the Mexican American Cultural Center (M.A.C.C.). This year’s YLA #12 titled “Embracing Chaos” will open at the inauguration of the new Mexican American Cultural Center Gallery on Saturday September 15th and will be on view through February 23, 2008. YLA #12 is curated by Angel Quesada, an Austin-based artist who will present art work from six young artists. The artists in the show demonstrate a desire to continue producing art which is restless, dynamic, and relevant to the theme of the show.
Mexic-Arte Museum is dedicated to developing awareness of young Latino art and sharing its importance to our community. “The theme “Embracing Chaos” shows the behavior of chaotic systems which appear to be at random because of an exponential growth of errors in the initial conditions of the work. This early period in an artist’s career is often unrefined but not untrained, unversed but not unskilled. It is during this period where you will find young artists “Embracing Chaos” and searching for their personal style. The artists in the show will demonstrate their style related to the theme of the exhibition.”
“This exhibition attempts to reveal the ember of creativity, “Quesada said. “In my aesthetic for “Embracing Chaos” there exists an invisible line linking the act of making art with the viewer.”
Young Latino Artists whose works can be seen at the Mexican American
Cultural Center :
Gerald Lopez - Corpus Christi, TX
Jesus de la Rosa - McAllen, TX
Chuy Benitez - Houston, TX
Anna Pilhoefer - El Paso, TX
Enrique Martinez - San Antonio, TX
Lucilla Flores - Austin , TX
Curator's Note by Angel Quesada
In curating this exhibit I wanted to select artists whose aesthetic fit seamlessly into my evolving idea of chaos. I also wanted to present a pluralistic view of what it means to be a Young Latino Artist in these times. In fact, the theme evolved parallel to the process; it was the method that determined the outcome. Instead of prescribed or highly ordered system to select art, and therefore a theme, I employed a different style of arriving at the concept.
Chaos informed my curatorial method, and as such informed the content of this exhibit. I once asked a Physics Engineer what he predicted as the future trend of art making? His answer was simple: "it is without a doubt going to embrace chaos." This year's exhibit called "Embracing Chaos" is about accidents and denials. I went looking for accidents, following my wants and searching for these "appropriate
accidents". The only challenge was to deem which accidents were appropriate for the exhibition. Often we associate accidents as adverse, or as a disaster here to mess up some nice plans. I wished to find artists in which I could identify with something inside myself. I realized that this would mean I would have to connect with artists who are traveling in similar ways exposed to a certain quality of chaos.
The content of the show features artists engaged in rule-breaking and defying the established canons of both Latino art and community. In this regard, the show is also about denial. It is a denial of the status quo and validation based on stereotypes. The artwork is set firmly in denial, never needing to play the Latino card to exert accreditation or substance. It is a denial of culture, conformity and inherits the anxiety of individualism. In this sentiment, I present a show that is at once full of conviction but is also a series of perfect accidents. A vehicle of disorder pays no mind to intelligence, strength, integrity, or good intentions
ART REVIEWS
CORPUS CHRISTI CALLER-TIMES
Exhibit at K Space inspires dialogue
Manner in which art is displayed is
part of art itself
May 22, 2008
By Elizabeth Reese PhD
If art exhibitions can be considered visual dialogues, then a terrific conversation is happening downtown at K Space Contemporary." Piece by Piece: Drawings by Jesus de la Rosa and Paintings by Paul Valadez" presents the work of two artists who use images to discuss personal experiences with gratification, time, identity, history and culture. Moreover, the clever presentation calls viewers not only to engage with the exchange on the walls, but also to explore the connective conversations within. Each artist plasters at least one large wall, almost floor to ceiling, side by side, piece by piece, with his works of art. The effect is stunning. Covering the gallery walls on the left are Valadez's text-based, sign-like paintings, while de la Rosa's enigmatic, mysterious drawings cover the right side. This method of presentation is considered a form of installation art where the manner in which the work is displayed is part of the work of art itself. The context in which art is experienced always affects the viewer's interpretation of the work. In "Piece by Piece," viewers can enjoy investigating the whole exhibition, one grouping of art at a time, and each work of art on its own. Delicate and demanding, de la Rosa's abstract drawings reveal a story beating the demands of the daily grind. With a work schedule that prohibits long artwork sessions, de la Rosa began to use the method seen here to create aesthetically intricate works.Though the drawings appear to be labor-intensive, de la Rosa said his process "is more accidental than automatic in nature. It also borrows heavily from print-making and the monoprint process specifically. Each piece is created in the span of one second by swatting a powdered charcoal brushed piece of canvas on the support." De la Rosa's drawings read like frames from a celestial song or dramatic ballet. Separately, the works of art suggest a mystifying, other-worldly presence. Powerful and subtle, Valadez's works use paint in layers and drips as well as words in Spanish and English to document his experiences with the comingling of cultures in America."The ideas of using classic Americana imagery with Spanish-language text reveal a deeper idea of the blend of cultures in the U.S. today," he said. These "old signage" works offer insight into Valadez's childhood in a bi-cultural (Mexican-American and Anglo) home in central California. The artist said his works also offer "social commentary on topical issues, current policies and garnished with a dash of satirical pun at life in the 21st century." To create these cropped and curious paintings, Valadez uses acrylic paint sometimes on papier mâché, recycled tin, wood, canvas and found materials. Indeed, examining the surface of the signs to examine the materials is part of the banter. Is that sawdust? Or hay? What makes it look so old and rusty? Both artists teach in McAllen at the University of Texas-Pan American.
IF YOU GO
What: “Piece by Piece: Drawings by Jesus de la Rosa and Paintings by Paul Valadez”
When: Through July 6;
Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Wednesdays through Saturdays
Where: K Space Contemporary 415 D. Starr St.
Cost: Free Information: 361-887-6834 or www.kspacecontemporary.org
Elizabeth B. Reese, PhD, is an art and museum consultant and former visiting professor and director of university galleries at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Contact her at elizreese@gmail.com
____________________________________________________________________
THE MONITOR
Dark Marks
March 28, 2008, Festiva, pg 27F
by Nancy Moyer PhD
One-hundred and twenty new charcoal drawings by Jesus de la Rosa literally cover the walls of the STC Library Art Gallery downstairs. His new exhibit Systematic Drawings, presents a new drawing technique that De La Rosa feels is right for our time.
The drawings are untitled abstract images. Even so, each drawing seems to suggest a biological structure. There is a temptation to imagine x-rays of unknown creatures being seen through a special device. Or, sometimes, deep-sea creatures that have become transparent from lack of sunlight are captured on the paper surface.
“This collection was in spired as a reaction to our culture’s existent hunger for complex aesthetics and instant gratification,” said De La Rosa. “My goal was to find a method to make a unique drawing that was aesthetically intricate and seemed to be created by long, laborious and tedious hours, but took a fraction of the time to generate and that also defied a factory made appearance.”
Quite a daunting goal, but De La Rosa masterfully combined the processes of monoprinting and action painting. He dry brushes a piece of canvas with powdered charcoal, and then swats the paper surface with it. Each drawing in the exhibit was created this way. Although each drawing is unique, they all carry specific characteristics from the others due to the “system.” As a result, there is a strong visual unity from drawing to drawing. De La Rosa’s swat system produces incredibly beautiful images that belie the speed of their execution. Comprised of complex shapes and sophisticated tonal graduations, the images include integrated passages of great complexity. The drawings appear to be much more than the simple “swats” that he describes.
“When I try to organize the canvas a certain way, it never works,” explained De La Rosa. “The result actually depends on the speed and the amount of charcoal. And that’s what produced the image. And, of course, the placement. If the image is swatted twice or three times, I find that when it’s just once or twice it works really well. If I go beyond that, I cross that point where it’s not good anymore.”
Many of the drawings display a record of the loose strands of canvas as they collided with the surface of the paper. Several images also demonstrate an extended soft edge that moves out from the primary image. This could be described as a halo effect that occurred as the charcoal exploded across the paper from the impact of the canvas swat.”De La Rosa’s process represents an impacting signage that is very dynamic and active and relies a lot on happenstance and chance,” said David Freeman, STC’s Library Art Gallery Curator and Programs Coordinator. “The artist’s touch comes more from the process of the created and found mark-making than the traditional act of drawing one usually finds on a gallery wall. It Synthesizes, in a tomfoolery kind of way, the differences between traditional and progressive conceptual performance drawing.”
De La Rosa’s drawings are amazing because such a successful illusion of detail has occurred with his systematic process. There appears to have been labored traditional drawing taking place. But it was a swat – an abstract record of a violent physical action. Nor does De La Rosa go back and rework the image with erasures and dark accents. The images represent the pure record of his process: a process that is at once delicate and violent, much like our own existence.
Nancy Moyer, PhD, in an art reviewer for the monitor. She is an independent artist living in McAllen and may be reached at nmoyer@rgv.rr.com
____________________________________________________________________
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
'YLA 12: Embracing Chaos'
Mexican American Cultural Center, through Feb. 23
NOVEMBER 9, 2007: ARTS
BY SALVADOR CASTILLO
The new gallery at the Mexican American Cultural Center is very spacious with an open floor plan. The airy space offers plenty of room to roam but also leaves clear views into the other exhibit. Resisting the coherent proclamation from Carlos Rivera Pineda in "Hacia la Vida," his retrospective of portraits, you can find some engaging work by youngsters loitering around. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my artwork was included in the previous "Young Latino Artists" exhibition.)
The works of Jesus de la Rosa, with lots of red areas on his large paintings, do the most to attract you as you enter the gallery. They are at once delicate and violent. They appear to be prints, but the impressions suggest a rag covered in charcoal was swatted onto the surface. Wisps of dust spew from the body of the mark as the creases of the fabric settle into place. After a number of visits, the pronounced red paintings reveal more personalities. Building up and damaging the painting's face make it about surface play. But that play plots a topographic map, buttressed by the titles.
Enrique Martinez creates expansive, scrolling landscapes. They evoke graffiti murals and Mad magazine illustrations as the objects, characters, and details wave back and forth. These flowing compositions come out to seduce you, pull you back into their space, and then spit you out. Thomas Hart Benton's murals are called to mind, but in book format; they tap into Mesoamerican codices. Even in the differently formatted video-game drawings, the viewer is invited then repulsed.
In Anna Pilhoefer's matronly work, you find references to sewing and storybook characters. The encaustic pieces use cute animal characters like those of Little Golden Books. Maybe they're telling a sweet story, but the surface and drawn sutures suggest something more. Shadow boxes, saints, physical surgery, and domestic mandalas make the other work more complex. Their format feels a little bit like a retread of ideas, though.
I opened up to de la Rosa the more I visited, but those same subsequent visits dissipated interest in Chuy Benitez's panoramic photographs. The individual portraits were fish-bowled diptychs of figure and environment being distorted, illustrating front and back views. Both strategies investigate some form of Mexican identity. Faced with a whole wall of similar photographs, a question arises: What are the special effects supporting or highlighting in each of these different characters?
Terms like "outsider art" and "untrained artist" can be used to promote and condemn. But I don't want to confuse anybody. Gerald Lopez uses shallow, vertical compositions, and his oil-pastel figures have a cartoon rendering. The works look like hand-painted shop signs. The prints are more successful and reveal an interest in color, but there is no doubt that all of these works participate awkwardly in the show.
Hidden in a blind spot as you enter are Lucilla Flores' etchings made with slightly different colored inks. The marks look like scratches but are actually different equestrian studies. Skeletal, muscular, and planar examinations create all-over compositions. Thoughts of Kicking Bear's Battle of Little Big Horn and Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies safeguard these prints.
While some of the work in "YLA 12: Embracing Chaos" is enjoyable, the show as a whole isn't impressive. The installation stutters and sputters along. I'm sure Benitez enjoys owning the middle wall, but how does segregating Flores alone by the elevator complement the work? The alternating vertical and horizontal layout also feels arbitrary. Is that where we're embracing the chaos? The works themselves feel orderly. Curator Angel Quesada was charged with presenting these artists but seems to show little concern for their art by cramming into the space as much of it as possible. I've said it before: Curators are like editors, and sometimes they need to omit pieces and trust in the power of the artist's work.
____________________________________________________________________
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Tradition rubs elbows with today's vibe in the two inaugural
exhibits at the new Mexican American Cultural Center.
First exhibitions at the Mexican American Cultural Center
Two exhibits show past and present of Latino arts.
By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Thursday, October 04, 2007
On one side of the new 5,000-square-foot second-floor gallery is "Hacia La Vida (Toward Life)," a retrospective exhibit featuring portraits by artist and arts administrator Carlos Rivera Pineda. Occupying the other is "Embracing Chaos: The 12th Annual Young Latino Artists Exhibition," featuring the work of a half dozen emerging Latino artists from across Texas.
"Hacia La Vida" is honorific and personal. "Embracing Chaos" is experimental and frisky. And together, they suggest much about the trajectory of Latino art over the past several decades.
The longtime administrator of the city's Dougherty Arts Center, Pineda was among those Latino arts professionals who years ago championed the idea of a city center specifically devoted to Latino culture. (The opening of the $16 million MACC in September culminated an effort that lasted about 30 years.) And as an arts educator, Pineda created the city's "Totally Cool, Totally Art" program that employs artists to teach schoolchildren. "A true artist is not an elevated, outside member of the community," Pineda proclaims in his artist statement that hangs on the gleaming white wall of the bright, sun-flooded MACC gallery. "A true artist functions as part of the community."
Pineda put that philosophy to action personally by painting vivid portraits. Musicians Ruben Ramos and Roy Montelongo, artist and activist Marsha Gomez and members of Pineda's family are among those he has lovingly rendered as a token of his appreciation and respect for their lives.
The six artists in "Embracing Chaos" clearly have different motivations behind their art. Adapting to the frenzy of our cyber-fast world, understanding the flurry of images that comes our way, negotiating the line between pop culture and high culture — these are the concerns of Chuy Benitez, Lucilla Flores, Gerald Lopez, Enrique Martinez, Anna Pilhoefer and Jesus de la Rosa.
In fact "Embracing Chaos" seems to celebrate an aesthetic of messiness. De la Rosa creates frenzied abstract paintings made three-dimensional with obsessively layered paint that the artist has shaped, scraped away, built up or even bored holes into with a power drill. Pilhoefer riffs on traditional women's handicrafts, mixing embroidered images straight from craft store patterns with splashes of spray paint. And in complex textured prints, Flores layers cartoonish, storybook-like images of horses with rough, linear scribbles. A pop culture cave painting? Perhaps.
As with the other young artists in "Embracing Chaos," Flores wrestles with the world using very different strategies than artists who came before her.
jvanryzin@statesman.com
VIDEOS
Young Latino Artist Video Click Here (be patient it takes a while to upload)
Systematic Drawings Video Part I Click Here
Systematic Drawings Video Part II Click Here
