Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.
For last week’s picks, please go here.
Photograph from the Miss Black Austin Pageant Collection, undated. Courtesy of the Black Diaspora Archive
1. Blackland Prairies
UT Visual Arts Center (Austin)
January 24 – March 8, 2025
“Artists: Adrian Aguilera, Adraint Bereal, Nathaniel Donnett, Cindy Elizabeth, Riley Holloway, Aryel René Jackson, Ann Johnson, Daniel Llanes, Betelhem Makonnen, Tammie Rubin, and Victor Torres.
Blackland Prairies borrows its title from the name given to the fertile ecoregion that stretches from the northeastern edge of Texas to the center of the state, encompassing historically Black and Brown regions of Austin. The ecological qualities of this area — its access to fresh water from the Colorado River and rich clay soil — served as a site for generations of Black Texans to build homes, establish churches and schools, and maintain communities. Since the formation of Austin’s freedom communities in the late 1860s, the efforts of segregationist city planners, urban developers, and profit-motivated investors have made this landscape unrecognizable to the Black communities who called this area home for over 150 years.”
Evita Tezeno, “Summertime and the Livin is Easy,” 2024, 6 x 8 feet
2. Evita Tezeno: Piece of My Heart
Dishman Art Museum at Lamar University (Beaumont)
January 18 – March 8, 2025
From Dishman Art Museum:
“Evita Tezeno is a native of Port Arthur who graduated from Lamar University in 1984 with a BS degree in Graphic Design. She uses hand-painted papers and found objects to create folk art style collages inspired by her South Texas roots, family, and personal experiences.
This exhibition includes several important works that evoke Tezeno’s memories of her hometown. One example is Summertime and the Livin’ is Easy, a collage painting that celebrates a day at McFaddin Beach, a hidden gem on the Gulf Coast just east of Port Arthur and, as Tezeno notes, ‘a place of peace and freedom, away from the hustle and bustle of city life.’”
Molly Margaret Sydnor’s “Cognitive Vibrations”
3. Peter Broz, Molly Margaret Sydnor, and Michael Guerra Foerster
Box 13 Artspace (Houston)
January 10 – February 8, 2025
From Box 13 Artspace:
“Peter Broz: Out of Touch in the Wild is a collection of two-dimensional works that explores the fine line between fear and excitement and how those feelings coincide with our experiences in nature. This mix of enchantment and terror is what peaks my interest the most. I’m sure we are all familiar with the idyllic version of nature depicted in postcards, screensavers and thrift store paintings. As picturesque as these scenes can be, these depictions don’t accurately show the whole truth. I find that the realness of nature is what makes it interesting. Ultimately, this realness is what I seek to explore in my own art, whether that be interpreted as beautiful, ugly, fascinating or horrid. It all holds importance.
Originally crafted in 2021 under the title Cognitive Vibrations, the work in Molly Margaret Sydnor: After the Rain Part I was inspired by CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). In CBT, a color board was used as an exercise for anxiety. The installation Cognitive Vibrations is a direct response to incomplete therapy, utilizing the creation of intricate weavings. “This body of work has since evolved into dynamic site-based installations. Each installation is a reflection of my ever-changing perspective and state of being, adapting to the unique essence of each location.”
Michael Guerra Foerster: Fries features vibrantly colorful ceramic manifestations that employ fantastical, absurd, and bizarre imagery and interactive elements to explore these relationships and big feelings, and within that space the artist both condemns and celebrates, experiments and learns. Through this work, Foerster strives not only to better understand himself, but to provoke and engage the audience, building connections and community with and among them through the sharing of experiences.
4. What Remains Beneath?
The Pool (Fort Worth)
January 17 – February 8, 2025
From TCU:
“The Art Galleries at TCU presents What Remains Beneath?, the 2025 MFA Candidacy Exhibition, featuring the work of TCU’s second year Master of Fine Arts candidates, Alfredo Ortega, Marcy Davis, Katayoun Hosseinrad, and Christopher Nájera. This dynamic exhibition showcases four distinct bodies of work that engage with themes of transformation, grief, the body, and the unseen, offering visitors an opportunity to delve into the layers of meaning beneath the surface of artistic expression.
Spanning painting, sculpture, and drawing, the TCU MFA Class of ’26 invites audiences to experience their diverse approaches to exploring contemporary issues and personal narratives, such as understanding trauma, the relationships we have with our bodies, and expressions of consciousness through identity. Works included in this exhibition combine experimentation and introspection, demonstrating the depth and breadth of their creative practices as they reach this pivotal moment in their academic and artistic careers.”
A work by Blake Sanders
5. Blake Sanders: Roundabout
The Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (Lubbock)
January 3 – March 1, 2025
From LHUCA:
“Roundabout celebrates the traffic strategy as a metaphor for a more free, reciprocal society where the good of the collective takes precedence over the hurried priorities of the few. Blake Sanders uses the social mediums of printmaking and fibers to muse on home and neighborhood as sites of tolerance, empathy, and resilience.”
