Write to Me, at Oak Cliff Cultural Center, December 14, 2024 – January 10, 2025
Arturo Donjuan, “Honey Suckle”
Agustin Chavez, “Dummyfresh”
Write to Me at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center (OC3) is a visually striking showcase of typographic-based work by 15 local artists. Organized by University of Texas at Arlington Professor Carlos Donjuan, the exhibition celebrates the artistry of lettering across various media, highlighting the intersections of craft, culture, and personal expression.
Through handmade script and lettering, mediums from airbrushed graphics to intricate embroidery and ballpoint pen are featured prominently. There is a fresh perspective on text-focused art, moving beyond commercial aesthetics to honor the intentionality and skill inherent in sign painting, tattoo design, and other lettering traditions. Each piece demonstrated a mastery of craft, whether through meticulous hand-rendered typography or digital design.
The gallery’s central moveable walls are transformed with bold, enlarged typographic treatments, creating a unifying visual element that ties together the diverse pieces on display. This curatorial choice underscores the shared appreciation for legibility, design, and craft that threads through the show.
Works include Agustin Chavez’s airbrush and embroidery on pelón, Hallee Turner’s poignant oil painting on a cigar box, and Arturo Donjuan’s series of marker-on-paper illustrations. Haze Soto contributes an untitled ballpoint pen piece, further emphasizing the exhibition’s range of techniques. Collectively, the works capture the depth and breadth of typography as an art form, offering a compelling tribute to these often-overlooked disciplines.
Importantly, OC3’s commitment to artist-centered practices shone through. While the center doesn’t manage artwork sales, it empowers participating artists to sell and profit directly. This approach complements the show’s grassroots ethos, rooted in the vibrancy of Dallas’s creative community.
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Aliyah Cydonia: Axiomatic Womb to the Proverbial Tomb at Tureen, December 14, 2024 – February 1, 2025
Aliyah Cydonia, “Eastbound” (left), and “Eastbound(2)” (right)
In her latest exhibition at Tureen, Aliyah Cydonia delivers a series of oil paintings that explore control, experimentation, and discovery within the medium. Cydonia has established herself as a promising figure in contemporary art, employing a sophisticated interplay of technique and material that reveals her ongoing dialogue with the act of painting itself.
Anchored by two large-scale works that are configured into a continuous composition, Eastbound and Eastbound (2), the show examines the balance between intentionality and the unpredictability inherent in art-making. These pieces, each measuring a commanding 72 x 47¼ inches, demonstrate her nuanced approach to surface and texture. By incorporating unconventional techniques — such as layering, stripping away paint, and even using Gamsol to create streaking effects — Cydonia transforms her panels into dynamic terrains of color and form. Her process is a blend of control and spontaneity.
The artist’s journey with oil paint is central to the exhibition, reflecting a meditative inquiry into the material’s capacity for tonal and textural variation. Cydonia’s comments about her early experimentation with figures during her undergraduate studies at the University of North Texas highlight her evolution. While those works initially sought to assert a voice within the figurative tradition, she has since moved toward abstraction, focusing on mark-making and layering as a means of self-discovery. This progression illustrates her belief that mastery is not simply about technical skill but about building confidence in one’s practice and embracing the medium’s inherent possibilities.
Still in her early career, Cydonia has worked closely with established painters like Riley Holloway and Anna Membrino, experiences that have clearly shaped her craft. Her compositions often introduce subtle elements like graphite or red iron oxide, adding richness to her surfaces and connecting her works to a broader material lineage. Each piece in the exhibition carries its own distinct visual language, demonstrating her willingness to push boundaries while maintaining a cohesive voice.
This exhibition is a testament to Cydonia’s burgeoning maturity as an artist. At Tureen, her works do more than occupy space; they invite the viewer into a layered process of creation, discovery, and transformation. For those invested in the future of Texas art, Cydonia’s show offers a compelling glimpse into the trajectory of a remarkable emerging talent.
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Watery, Domestic, at Basket Books & Art, December 14, 2024 – February 2, 2025
larí garcía, “while you were out,” 2024
Abinadi Meza, Parangolé 01, 2023
Houston’s upstairs gallery at Basket Books & Art hosts Watery, Domestic, a group exhibition exploring fluidity and environmental tension. Artists bring diverse approaches to themes of water and disruption, offering a dialogue grounded in both material experimentation and conceptual depth.
larí garcía anchors the show with an installation of air evaporator coils encased in clear plastic bags. Condensation accumulates inside, forming a striking visual metaphor for containment and pollution. Jamie Sterling Pitt’s accompanying wooden stools, crafted with fallen crepe myrtle trees damaged by the Beryl storm in mid-2024 underscore themes of reclamation.
Nearby, Isela Aguirre’s Light Waves employs mixed media to evoke rippling, luminous patterns, while William Warden’s not a thing continues his practice of pairing pigment and sizing on muslin. Warden’s restrained palette and translucent marks suggest fragility but maintain a resolute presence.
Abinadi Meza’s Parangolé series, inspired by Brazilian tropes of movement and improvisation, offers dynamic surfaces of ink and paint on wood, channeling energy and structure. Meanwhile, Seneca García’s while you were out introduces sculptural elements that feel both familiar and otherworldly, bridging the domestic and the speculative.
Together, these works highlight the interplay between human intervention and natural processes, bringing attention to pressing ecological concerns with sensitivity and nuance. This is a show that rewards close looking and leaves lingering impressions long after.
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William Sarradet is the Assistant Editor for Glasstire.
