Corny Dogs, 2020 by Katie Ritchie.
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s education department has partnered with Clear Channel Outdoor for the third iteration of the Modern’s annual public program, Modern Billings.
Three times a year, Assistant Curators of Education Jesse Morgan Barnett and Tiffany Wolf Smith and their chosen collaborative artists work to place art on Clear Channel billboards in under-served communities around Fort Worth. (To see entries from the last two cycles, please check out Glasstire’s links here, and here.) The timing is especially fitting: the nature of the program, being outdoors on a platform usually reserved for advertisements, is one of the few options we have for seeing new art right now.
The participating artists this year are nearly all students who have had their graduate thesis exhibitions canceled or otherwise upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Modern Billings is working with “Temporary Collectives,” a project which began in 2014 with North Texas artists and art professors (property owner Butch McGregor, UTA’s Stephen Lapthisophon and Darryl Lauster, and UTD’s and John Pomara). Temporary Collectives has organized exhibitions of graduate students’ work (students from different DFW-area universities), and this iteration of Modern Billings hopes to build on that tradition by serving as a platform for the emerging artists.
Karley Adrion (UTA)
The Cost of Plastic, 2020.
Karley Adrionis a designer based in Fort Worth. She earned her BS in Advertising/Public Relations from Abilene Christian University and is currently pursuing an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the University of Texas at Arlington. Her graduate work explores themes of community and communication, specifically examining areas in which engagement and understanding can be improved among various groups of people. Billboard location: 2130 Jacksboro Hwy, Fort Worth, TX 76164
Nathalie Alfonso (SMU)
Banner Anatomy, 2020.
Nathalie Alfonso was born in Bogotá, Colombia, holds a BFA from Florida International University, and is currently pursuing an MFA at Southern Methodist University. Alfonso has exhibited and performed her work in galleries, universities, and public spaces such as Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, Site131, and Liliana Bloch Gallery, Dallas; Marymount University, Washington, DC; Spinello Projects and The Annex, Fordistas, Miami; Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Florida; Miami Beach Urban Studios and Miami Beach Botanical Gardens; The Projects in FATVillage, Fort Lauderdale; and La Factoría, Guayaquil, Ecuador. She has curated and exhibited in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for the past four years. Her work investigates the value of manual labor, the degeneration of the body, and notions of impermanence through drawing, installation, and video. Location: 6602 Lancaster Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76112
Chris Wright Evans (UNT)
Banner Anatomy, 2020.
Chris Wright Evans is an artist interested in the ways people relate to objects and place, and how we generate reality through photography. After graduating from St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, Evans moved to New York City, where he lived and worked until 2017, printing for the photographer Joel Meyerowitz and retouching for Droga5 and Urban Print & Motion. In 2014, Evans was selected as a finalist and alternate for the Fulbright Award, and in 2016 a portfolio of his work received honorable mention from juror Mickalene Thomas at Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York. His photographs have been exhibited across the United States and have been featured in print and online. In 2018 and 2019, he was a finalist for the Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas Project Fund. In the spring of 2020, Evans will receive his MFA from the University of North Texas. Location: 3800 E Lancaster Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76103
Sierra Forrester (TCU)
Mass Condensed, 2020.
Sierra Forester is an artist who grew up in northern California and is now living and working in Texas. In her work, she emphasizes the immediate environment through found materials and installation. Forester works through observing, questioning, and attempting to understand what cannot be understood. Through autonomic gestures, her aim is to grasp and visualize our existence and the constructs we build around us, however lofty that may be. Frequent topics in Forester’s work include the social frameworks we use to navigate our relationship with the world as well as our perception of time. Minimal in form, her work remains open-ended and porous with hopes of allowing a multitude of perceptions to be drawn. Location: 5426 Jacksboro Hwy, Fort Worth, TX 76114
Philip Martin (UTD)
You Are Here, 2020.
Philip Martin, born in Irving, Texas, is an oscillating interdisciplinary artist living and working in North Texas. Martin earned his BFA from the University of North Texas in 2004 and is currently pursuing an MFA in Art, Technology, and Emerging Communication at the University of Texas at Dallas. Location: 6890 Lancaster Ave, Fort Worth, TX 76112
Katie Ritchie (TXA&M-COMMERCE)
Corny Dogs, 2020.
Katie H. Ritchie is a teaching artist living in Commerce, Texas. Her work explores corn and its reach into our lives beyond the supermarket while questioning the targeted demographics of the political plant. Ritchie’s current series employs 3D-printed objects, photography, projections, digital drawings, and sculptural elements. Her most recent exhibitions include Lines of Thought, CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea; Higher Learning, Fort Worth Community Arts Center; and A Contemporary Drawing Exhibition, Indiana University Union Street Gallery, Kokomo. She currently teaches at Commerce High School while seeking her MFA at Texas A&M University-Commerce (candidate for graduation in May 2020) and was chosen for the Graduate Excellence Award in 2019. Location: 5300 Jacksboro Hwy, Fort Worth, TX 76114
For more on Modern Billings, please visit the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth’s website here.
