Top Five: April 3, 2025

by Glasstire April 3, 2025

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.

For last week’s picks, please go here.

An installation image of a solo by José Villalobos featuring photographs of silk, a sculptural installation, and a performance presented on a tv screen.

Installation view of “José Villalobos: The Same Air We Breathe”

1. José Villalobos: The Same Air We Breathe
El Paso Museum of Art
March 14 – August 10, 2025

From the El Paso Museum of Art:

“In this new body of work, José Villalobos addresses the ongoing threat to the protections and visibility of the LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities through photo portraits on silk, documented performance-based art, and sculpture.”

An artwork by Ranran Fan featuring floating orbs set against a dark background.

A work by Ranran Fan

2. Ranran Fan: Inhale the Interruption 动弹
Women & Their Work (Austin)
March 22 – May 8, 2025

From Women & Their Work:

Inhale the Interruption 动弹 invites an interruption within the immediacy of living. In Chinese culture the burning of incense was used to measure time as well as recall endearing experiences. For Ranran Fan, this scent interrupts cycles of conditioned adverse thoughts, opening pathways to the mind’s vast possibilities. Through these visceral connections, psychological traumas can be addressed with serenity, patience, and strength.”

A photograph of a work by Kent Dorn featuring a figure standing in a dark room and looking out a window, through curtains.

Kent Dorn, “The Small Hours,” 2014, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 16 inches

3. Kent Dorn: Garage Days
Seven Sisters (Houston)
March 15 – April 19, 2025

From Seven Sisters:

“With Garage Days, Houston-based Kent Dorn (b. 1977, South Carolina) unveils a trove of drawings from 2014. The exhibition shares its title with a Metallica EP released in 1987 that features covers of B-sides; its use here acknowledges the formative impact of metal music, counterculture, and its imagery on Dorn’s work.

Growing up in a deindustrialized South Carolina, the show’s tone relates to a period of the artist’s youth characterized by impermanence. Employing cardboard for these drawings conjures numerous associations, ranging from commonplace, rough, and trashy to ephemeral, punk rock, and high-low culture. Dorn also nods to the use of cardboard by Munch, van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec, and questions the value of left behind or overlooked objects.”

An artwork by Christopher Cascio featuring a staircase leading out of a cave to a bright yellow sky.

A work from “Christopher Cascio: Ketamine Cave Dreams”

4. Christopher Cascio: Ketamine Cave Dreams
Ro2 Art (Dallas)
March 1 – April 5, 2025

From Ro2 Art:

Ketamine Cave Dreams is a solo exhibition by Houston-based artist Christopher Cascio. Known for his bold explorations of obsession, ritual, and altered states of consciousness, Cascio’s latest body of work delves into the psychedelic and psychological landscapes revealed through his ongoing ketamine-assisted therapy. His vibrant, hard-edged paintings and textile-based works depict portals– staircases, doorways, and cavernous spaces, offering visual pathways to transformation. These pieces, deeply influenced by traditional quilting patterns, color theory, and AI-generated imagery, pulsate with an energy that shifts between structure and dissolution, inviting viewers to step into a world that is both immersive and meditative.”

Side-by-side images of artworks by Kristy Battani, Sharon Kyle, and Hank Lumen.

Works from “Are We There Yet?”

5. Are We There Yet?
MixHaus Gallery (Comfort)
March 7 – April 27, 2025

From MixHaus Gallery:

Are We There Yet? invites viewers into the experience of making art—an ongoing journey of discovery, refinement, and reinvention. For each artist, this process is filled with moments of inspiration, frustration, joy, and exhaustion. Shapes shift, colors evolve, and ideas transform along the way. There is no final destination — only the next step, the next question, the next possibility.

Much like a captivating book, the true delight isn’t in reaching the last page, but in the unfolding, twisting, and sometimes confounding narrative itself. In this exhibit, three distinct artistic voices explore this ever-unfolding creative process, evoking echoes of the past, moments of recognition, and glimpses of stories yet to be told.”

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