Flicker + FadeRandy BoltonJohn M. O’Quinn Gallery

As an innovative print artist and teacher, Randy Bolton has always been interested in making and working with representational images that are paired or grouped together to form abbreviated visual allegories or narratives. He employs a kind of visual metaphoric language that is familiar, direct, and accessible on the surface, but one that is layered to have a more subversive subtext that is rich in double-meanings and ambiguities. His work reflects an abiding interest in literary works (especially fiction), narrative construction devices, and storytelling conventions. In recent years, Bolton’s prints have literally come off the wall to become freestanding or sculptural versions of his earlier wall-based screenprints and digital banners. In his most recent series of sculptural prints, the objects have been cast from rubber molds of real objects using UltraCal, a plaster/concrete-like material. The cast objects have been hand-painted and airbrushed to fool the eye in a distressed, faux-folksy style. At first glance, these objects appear “real” in terms of their surface appearance, but a closer look reveals that they are actually artful simulacra. Rather than borrowing from old children’s book illustrations (as in his earlier work), Bolton’s recent images are based exclusively on photographic or documentary evidence – from photos taken on his iPhone of rather ordinary or quotidian subject matter – the

ChecklistWorks listed counter-clockwise from the Cavnar Gallery entrance:

Help Is on the Way, 2012Screenprint22” x 30”

Up + Over, 2014Screenprint22” x 30”

Thick + Thin, 2012Screenprint30” x 22”

Forever + Ever, 2012Screenprint30” x 22”

Democracy Will Prevail, 2013Two-panel screenprint30” x 22” each

Beginning of the End, 2011Three-panel screenprint22” x 30” each

Leave Things Better, 2013Screenprint22” x 30”

Broken Rainbow, 2013Digital prints on canvas and vinyl, cast sculptural objects (UltraCal and foam resin), wood, paint and sandApprox. 9’ x 14’ x 6’

kind of forlorn-looking things that are seen and observed in the “real” world, which are then reworked and re-assembled into fictional, hyper-real, stage-like settings. Bolton’s most recent sculptural prints introduce a different kind of open-ended, associative narrative structure – one that more fully merges fiction with reality – and one that is reconstructed from a collection of metonymic fragments in which the many seemingly unconnected, unrelated images and objects represent parts of a larger, and not yet defined whole.

No Work + No Play, 2010Two-panel screenprint22” x 30” each

Half Full, 20132013Screenprint22” x 30”

We Sell + You Buy, 2013Two-panel screenprint30” x 22” each

Past + Present, 2013Two-panel screenprint22” x 30” each

Orange Spots, 2013Two-panel screenprint22” x 30” each

Works in center of gallery:

Flicker + Fade, 2015Screenprints on mylar, cast sculptural objects (UltraCal and resin), acrylic paint, airbrush inks, wood and steelApprox. 12’ x 14’ x 6’

Laments (Could’ve, Would’ve, Should’ve), 2015Screenprints on mylar, cast sculptural objects (UltraCal), acrylic paint, airbrush inks, wood and steelApprox. 12’ x 14’ x 16’

BioBorn in Dallas, TX in 1956, Randy Bolton received a BFA from the University of North Texas in 1978 and a MFA from the Ohio State University in 1982. Bolton has taught in many visiting artist positions across the country, including four years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1989-2002, Bolton was Professor of Art and Printmaking Area Coordinator at the University of Delaware. In 2002, Bolton was appointed Head of the Print Media Department and Artist in Residence at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Bolton’s work has been widely exhibited in hundreds of one-person and group shows since 1982 throughout the USA, and in Europe and Asia. Bolton’s prints are in many museum and corporate collections including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the New York Public Library, Fidelity Investments in Detroit, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and Children’s Hospital of Michigan. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and Art Matters (NYC) and has completed artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Camargo Foundation (Cassis, France), and the Frans Masereel Center (Kasterlee, Belgium).

AcknowledgementsLawndale Art Center, Houston, TXLittlejohn Contemporary, New York, NYSchmidt Dean Gallery, Philadelphia, PAStewart + Stewart, Bloomfield Hills, MIWasserman Projects, Detroit, MI

Almendra Castillo, Cinthia Gomez and Yma Luis attempt to recreate a single body of work based upon a series of letters describing each artists sculpture that is then passed on to the next artist for recreation all the while without ever seeing the other pieces. The act is reminiscent of playing a game of “Telephone,” where the original message must be interpreted through a series of broken descriptions carried on by the last interpreter. The written pages carry the descriptions over distances; we are in a way functioning as blind satellites relying on our perceived sense of understanding (of one another) and ability to interpret.

SatelliteAlmendra Castillo, Cinthia Gomez & Yma LuisCecily E. Horton Gallery

Checklist

Sequence 1Yma LuisKnow Your Name (Original)2015Cotton, plastic and foam 12’’ x 10 ½’’ x 13 ½”

Cinthia GomezFluff (Copy 1), 2015Q-tips, cotton, fabric, plastic and galvanized steel11’’ x 12’’ x 26’’

Almendra CastilloPanzón (Copy 2), 2015Polyester fibers, cotton fabric and Poly-fil13’’ x 13’’ x 8’’

Sequence 2Cinthia GomezUntitled (Originial), 2015Fur, pantyhose, makeup sponges, beads and Poly-fil15’’ x 45’’ x 9’’

Almendra CastilloSergio Valente (Copy 1)2015Rabbit fur, makeup sponges, wood beads, pearls, foam and pantyhose23’’ x 41’’ x 5’’

Yma LuisWhite (Copy 2), 2015Rabbit fur, nylon, synthetic fibers, cotton and wood17’’ x 26’’ x 3’’

Sequence 3Almendra CastilloAlexandra (Original), 2015Wood, plaster, gauze, synthetic fabric and found objects23’’ x 7’’ x 12’’

Yma LuisSeer (Copy 1), 2015Cotton, hair and wood13’’ x 9’’ x 16’’

Cinthia GomezAlyssa (Copy 2), 2016Fabric, synthetic fibers, bone and plastic40’’ x 7’’ x 5’’

AcknowledgementsWe would like to thank one another for spending the last 7 months collaborating on bringing this project to life; Lawndale for the opportunity, as well as Dennis Nance, Emily Link, Daniel Cardoza and Jillian Conrad for their guidance.

Almendra Castillo would like to thank Patrick Desmond for the constant support, the CRITT project and everyone at R Gallery in San Antonio.

Yma Luis would like to thank Arthur Buchanan for putting up with her madness and bringing her trinkets to work with; Ashley Clemmer Hoffman, Michelle Ashton, Maddie Williams and Faraz Saleem for everything.

Almendra Castillo received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art from the University of Houston. Castillo lives and works in San Antonio, where she oversees the CRITT Project (Conversations Representing Individual Thoughts Together), whose goal is to create a dialogue amongst Texas based artists allowing for collaborations, group exhibitions and critiques. Her works are slightly imaginative, but more rooted in reality. Mostly working with found objects Castillo builds narratives with her materials that act as storytelling devices.

almendracastillo.com

Cinthia Gomez was born in Morelia, Michoacán and raised in Houston, Texas since the age of three. In 2013, Gomez received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Studio Art with a concentration in Sculpture from the University of Houston. Her interest lies in mindless tasks, deconstructing materials for no significant purpose other than the process of doing it, and drawing silly things. She is currently the Exhibitions Assistant at Lawndale Art Center and a resident artist at BOX 13 ArtSpace.

cinthiagomez.com

Yma Luis was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1988 and grew up in the better part of the Deep South. She began in theater set productions and ended up in Sculpture at the University of Houston. Luis is mainly focused on textile based objects that evoke a dialogue about identity and narrative; creating objects and scenarios that reflect those questions.

ymaluis.com

Bios

“endurance is not a minimalist practice”-Jose Munoz

Alkanzíyya is an installation that explores the reality of movement of differently-treated bodies around the planet. I want to enact a movement that is divorced from geography and resolves to reconcile emotional desire with thereness: How do we localize emotion? The thereness of feelings. The work considers our relationship to the built landscapes and explores assimilation into landscape as a characteristic of existence. As with viewing a vanishing point, there is an inherent longing that is never quite fulfilled. The work explores desire for belonging and for community acceptance as well as considers the cost of of admittance. An emotional fantasy that usually ends in failure. The gallery space becomes a site for enactments of emotional strategies for intervention and infiltration. The work thinks about the connections between citizenship and sexuality, specifically how personal desire might be linked to self-preservation and survival. Each object in the installation plays out a different dynamic of existence and together they facilitate their own unpacking.

AlkanzíyyaJorge Galván FloresGrace R. Cavnar Gallery

Alkanzíyya, 2015Mixed media installationDimensions variable

Checklist

Bio

Acknowledgements

Jorge Galván Flores works at the intersection of art and commodity culture, contemplating notions of origin, desire and labor using both innovative and traditional media and craft. His work thinks about displacement, processes of assimilation and the shifting nature of identity. Thoughtfully labored, his work is characterized by a high-spirited playfulness, an exuberant use of color and an exploration of vernacular materials. Galván Flores received his Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from the University of Houston. He is a 2015 recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the Houston Arts Alliance. His work has been featured in RoadSignUSA Project, Fresh Arts and Blaffer Art Museum.

jorgegalvanflores.com

Many thanks for all the support and encouragement to everyone at Lawndale Art Center, Amy Powell, Crystal Benavides, Laura Wellen, Rich at Accents in Iron, Pam and Dan at Kuhl- Linscomb, Selina Pishori, Nick Stinson, Marshall Clinkscales, Anna Salinas, Lester Robles O’Connor, Stephanie St. Sanchez, Reventadero Ver, Eva Cristerna and John Pluecker.

This exhibition is funded in part by a grant from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Grisaille refers to French decorative wallpaper, popularized in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, on which panoramic scenes and motifs were hand painted or printed in tones of a single color—most notably gray—in order to produce three-dimensional effects. These decorative artworks require painstaking attention to detail, large amounts of time and dedication to create.

For this exhibition, I digitally alter photos of grisaille wallpaper and re-draw the new pixilated versions by hand with mechanical pencils on handmade paper. This process mimics that of an inkjet printer, starting in the upper left hand corner working my way to the right and so on, until I reach the bottom of the image. In conjunction, I create digital inkjet prints of the same size, that depict altered monochromatic images ranging from reproductions of wallpaper panels to patterns found in images of landscapes, textiles, and digital display screens.

GrisailleGeorgia CarterProject Space

Checklist

Static, 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Networks, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

Reflection, 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Touchscreen, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

Panel 7, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

Panel 1 (stretched), 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Panel 5, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

My drawings and prints are displayed panoramically to hark back to the encompassing effects of grisaille wallpaper, while simultaneously fracturing the visual experience through digital and manual applications.

As an artist, I employ both drawing and digital image making methods to reveal compelling contradictions between how images are made and seen today. This work reflects my interest in the artist’s hand, attention spans in the digital age, and the question of quality and value as being inherent to labor, materials and reproducibility.

Panel 5 (zoomed), 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Panel 4, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

Warp, 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Reverb, 2015Pencil on paper60” x 40”

Weft, 2015Archival inkjet print60” x 40”

Works are listed counter-clockwise from the gallery entrance on the left.

BioBorn in Houston, TX, Georgia Carter received her MFA in studio art at the University of Texas in Austin, TX. She received her BFA in painting and drawing from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA. She has shown at David Shelton Gallery in Houston, TX, Maniac Gallery in Los Angeles, CA amongst various galleries in Oakland, CA and in the Houston area. Her work consists mainly of large scale drawings, painting and prints.

georgiacarter.org

I would like to thank the Lawndale staff and a special thanks to Dennis Nance, Nicole Laurent Romano, Katia Zavistovski and Cali Alvarado Pettigrew for all the support and advice given while producing this exhibit.

Acknowledgements

BioCityThe Expanded EnvironmentNed Dodington, Christoph Ibele, Jon LaRocca & Haldre Rogers

Mary E. Bawden Sculpture GardenOn view through June 11, 2016

Our world is filled by many creatures. It is time that we began to live among them.

BioCity is a cross-disciplinary, six-month-long bio-habitable performance-art-sculpture. The project will involve the creation of numerous small-scale structures each one timed, designed and tuned to attract, interface, or illustrate indigenous and migratory life on the site. The project seeks not only to create a beautiful, quasi-natural urban landscape but to address the decline of biodiversity in urban areas.

The first phase in the winter of 2016 will set the stage in Lawndale’s Sculpture Garden. Soil and water elements will be established and emphasized in key locations. Floral elements, grasses and other plants, will also be framed or planted. After 6 weeks of periodic observation a series of insect habitats will be placed according to site conditions and the success of the first stage. After another period of inspection and based on the presence of certain insect populations, a secondary species will be invited to participate.

Our intention is that this bio-inclusive eco-performance-artwork will transgress, distort and alter anthropocentric worldviews by delivering a message of eco-awareness, biodiversity and cross-species collaboration.