Servers, Microbes and Subatomic Dust: Some Winter 2021 Exhibitions in Dallas

Becca Booker: Microscopic at Cris Worley Fine Arts, January 9–February 13, 2021

Ink, watercolor and oils pool into gyres and vague microbial forms in Becca Booker’s paper and panel pieces at Cris Worley Fine Arts. The gallery presents these aqueous pool paintings along with the artist’s signature “arrow” works, which swarm into patterns and constituencies. They could be diagrams for market forces or political shifts, color coded into harrowing hues.

József Csató: Diary of Open Secrets at Galleri Urbane, January 9–February 13, 2021

I maintain that Galleri Urbane is possibly the most colorful gallery in Dallas. The space includes a narrow hallway viewing room, separate from the living-room style viewing area behind the main galleries, and in this hallway the gallery effortlessly showcases the array of artists that Urbane brings to Dallas. Budapest-based József Csató’s first in-person show follows his successful online offering from the gallery last year, when online shows were flooding inboxes everywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

Eve Fowler: Just Seated Besides the Meaning, and Kevin Ford: Same Same at 12.26, January 9–February 13, 2021

Fowler is coating aluminum with words, pulling from Gertrude Stein, to make low-contrast statements for the wall. Walk to the rear gallery and you’ll find something more familiar to 12.26 — soft paintings in a very modern style featuring quiet gradients and bright chromatic color. Ford’s artist statement references the fact that most of the universe is subatomic dust, which he refers to as “imperceptible’.” Canvases, dotted with paint. Walls, dotted with paintings. Galleries, dotted with attendees.

 

 

 

Ciara Elle Bryant: Server 3.0 and Brandon Thompson: Hard Work, No Play at Ro2 Gallery (Ervay Street location), December 12, 2020–January 30, 2021

Bryant’s walls of data are beautifully arranged, surrounding original photographic prints and assemblage media installations in the rear cube gallery of Ro2. In a time when galleries are opening sparse shows, and reconfiguring for limited in-person engagement with their artists and patrons, Bryant’s visual archive of culture is invigorating. Thompson’s painting show in the front gallery features domestic scenes with momentary storybook deviations. A pair of images on adjacent walls seem to imitate a sunset and a beach, respectively. The color narrative across the suite of pieces is varied, playful, and trying, which in my mind is one mark of a successful body of work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bret Slater: Regen at Liliana Bloch Gallery, January 12–February 6, 2021

The hallmark for this show is definitely “The Tenant”, an asemic slab that resembles a commandment tablet from an advanced future civilization. It’s the largest piece in the show, which builds slowly from modules of round-ish linen paintings, coated in semi-clear acrylic. They could appear factory made at first glance, but the custom shapes and surface textures make it clear that, on any closer inspection, they’re very much hand-wrought.

 

Vincent Falsetta: New Paintings 2020 at Conduit Gallery, January 12–February 6, 2021

Falsetta’s signature fan-brush rainbows dominate his newest show, but this time there’s a special treat. Four square calendars hang next to the desk in the front gallery, recounting his time spent in recent days. Before you get self-conscious about your weeks spent lounging at home, sneaking Netflix and snacks in between your brutal Zoom-call schedule, these calendars contain such relatable mundanities as “Facebook” and “20 Minutes.”

 

Paul Winker at And Now Gallery, January 9–February 20, 2021

Winker’s new show, four untitled pieces in an otherwise bare room, feel like pieces of another wall. Stolen, re-appropriated, or possibly fostered, taken from an unloved home and proffered here to be taken into a loving one.