Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.
For last week’s picks, please go here.
“This Side Up,” installation view. Photo by Katy Anderson
1. THIS SIDE UP
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
January 26 – May 4, 2024
From Houston Center for Contemporary Craft:
“Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) is pleased to present THIS SIDE UP, a group exhibition that frames art handling and collections-care practices within the field of craft. Featuring the work of mount makers, crate builders, and exhibition fabricators, as well as artwork informed by these practices, the show brings unprecedented attention to the specialized knowledge, skill, apprenticeship, problem-solving, and deep understanding of materials required to build and support art infrastructure.
THIS SIDE UP is the first curatorial project of its kind to frame the materials-based knowledge and making practices radiating from the museum industrial complex within the discipline of craft. HCCC Curator and Exhibitions Director Sarah Darro notes, ‘THIS SIDE UP is an exhibition about the making of an exhibition. Its design and layout reflect the art object’s journey from artist studio to art-shipping transit facility to clandestine preparation room, and finally, to public presentation in the museum gallery.’”
Karen Gunderson, “Sea Coming and Going,” 2022, oil on linen, 52 x 61 inches.
2. Everything the Light Touches: Sixty Years of Karen Gunderson
Erin Cluley Gallery (Dallas)
March 30 – May 4, 2024
From Erin Cluley Gallery:
“Erin Cluley Gallery is pleased to announce Everything the Light Touches: Sixty Years of Karen Gunderson, a retrospective of work by New York-based painter Karen Gunderson. Bringing together six decades of paintings, Everything the Light Touches tracks Gunderson’s oeuvre from earlier work with skyscapes towards her now signature black monochromatic palette. Celebrating her 80th birthday, this exhibition touts Gunderson’s enigmatic aesthetic and conceptual innovations, confirming her unmistakable place in the trajectory of contemporary painting and post-minimalism.”
Sarah Sudhoff, “Not a Drill,” at GrayDUCK Gallery
3. Sarah Sudhoff: Not a Drill
GrayDuck Gallery (Austin)
March 23 – May 4, 2024
From GrayDuck Gallery:
“Not a Drill explores our increased exposure to gun violence and the alarming lack of measurable gun reform in the United States. As of August 2023, according to The Gun Violence Archive, there have been 4,046 children and teens killed by gunfire in just 221 days compared to 2,821 victims total in 2014 when the archive was established. It is obvious that the agencies and systems meant to protect us are failing. As an artist and mother of two school-aged children, I feel compelled to respond to these atrocities and lack of action because gun violence devastates all people at personal, community, state, and national levels.”
4. Randy Guthmiller: Several Paintings and Some Books
Mercury Project (San Antonio)
April 13 – May 10, 2024
From the organizers:
“Randy Guthmiller presents Several Paintings and Some Books at Mercury Projects. The exhibition continues Guthmiller’s decade-long exploration of what the artist calls, ‘specifically ambiguous shapes’ through watercolor paintings and books. Meant to be as open as possible the images present a multiplicity of meanings, some known and some unknown. Randy Guthmiller is an artist and educator interested in connection, meaning-making, and storytelling. ”
Patricia Bellan-Gillen, “The Pulpit: Listening to Jackalopes,” 2023, diptych, colored pencil, acrylic on birch, 71 x 92 inches.
5. Patricia Bellan-Gillen: Listening to Jackalopes
Nicole Longnecker Gallery (Houston)
March 14 – May 11, 2024
From Nicole Longnecker Gallery:
“Gallery owner Nicole Longnecker says, ‘I am so excited to show this work to our Houston collectors. Patricia combines historical and recent events, fairytale, and comic imagery to create densely visual, yet humorous, drawings. Her work is amazing and must be experienced in person!’
ARTIST STATEMENT: Somewhere in my brain, personal narrative mixes with fairytales. Historical events intertwine with the imagined and a veil of nostalgia blurs the border between fact and fiction. Sacred imagery moves about in the temporal lobe with iconic characters from children’s stories and recent news flashes picked from the Internet join the sagas of black and white television. My mixed media drawings and collages use these bits and pieces of visual history…the stones and bones of memory…to suggest a narrative and to engage the viewer’s associative responses.”
2 comments
Pat Bellan-Gillens drawing/paintings are extraordinary. If god could draw….she’d draw like Pat.
Patricia Bellan Gilles has always been an outstanding artist. I’ve known her my entire life and she is also a wonderful human being.