The Pleasure of Unintended Consequences

March 14 through Summer 2020

Featuring Anderson Wrangle, Martin Amorous, and Pablo Gimenez Zapiola

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm

End date TBA - we are keeping an eye on when it would be safe for a Reception, if possible.

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All artists have experienced the unpredictability of the creative process. After endless trial and error, suddenly there is an enlightened mistake and that opens up a totally novel vista.

Part of Anderson Wrangle’s recent work is a contemplation of the natural beauty of the Outer Banks, South Carolina. They are just slivers of land, continually shifting and reforming, but for millennia they have held their own against the violent sea. The light is soft, brilliant and otherworldly – illuminating the union of land and sea. Then the idyllic setting is shattered: another image, this one of a cluster of vacation high rises in lemonade colors, only partially occupied, are fighting for survival against a rising sea, lapping at their foundation. The focus has shifted to the looming catastrophe on the horizon.

Martin Amorous paints without brushes. A happy accident, perhaps, showed him the way to pour and ”print” paint and create landscapes that have an uncanny resemblance to photographic images. Yet they go far beyond photography, as the artist’s goal is to investigate and create archetypes of natural space. The compositional elements of horizontals, verticals, orthogonals and gradations of light are a dialogue between the natural and the cultural in the juxtaposition of geometric forms versus organic patterns.

Pablo Gimenez Zapiola is well known for his projections of text, pattern or videos onto the sides of buildings, silos or trees. His artistic practice, not as well known, includes a substantial body of work of still photography, usually in the format of a series. Two of them “Inner Atmospheres” and “Night Trees” are shown here. On his frequent night walks, he is observing nature in her nocturnal presentation, revealing secrets that remain hidden from the day time observer. As Pablo tells it, on one of these excursions, he happens to shine a flashlight into some trees and was astonished at what he saw. By isolating and focusing on a defined segment of nature and spotlighting it, a new perspective opened up: the “Night Tree” series.

Variance: The Art of Eric Forstmann

February 1st through February 22nd, 2020

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Saturday, February 1, 2020

Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm

Saturday, February 8, 2020

Gallery Tour, 3 – 5 pm

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Closing Reception + Artist Talk, 3 – 5 pm

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Eric Forstmann has been called an “Intuitive Realist“. He has invigorated the realist genre with his detail rich and elaborately nuanced paintings of still lifes, landscapes and various other subjects. Working almost exclusively from life, he always has been interested in the basic illusion of strong realist art. His work can be found in important museums and private collections. Variance is a show in collaboration between Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery and Eckert Fine Art - based in Kent, CT - highlighting Forstmann’s recent work.

Forstmann was born in Warren, CT and studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He has had five one man shows at the following institutions: The Butler Institute of American Art, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Mattatuck Museum, Evansville Museum of Art and Brenau Galleries at Brenau University. His work has also been featured at the Norman Rockwell Museum and Artis-Naples, The Baker Museum.

His work has been featured in Architectural Digest, American Art Collector and in 2017 Litchfield Magazine named him one of the “25 Most Influential People” in Litchfield County, Connecticut.

Eric Forstmann’s art is in the collections of Mattatuck Museum, Kemper Museum, Taubman Centers, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, Meryl Streep and Don Gummer, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Dr. and Mrs. Sam Weber, Karyn Clinch and Suzanne McFayden Smith.

White Wide Space

Saturday, November 9^th – December 14^th, 2019

Featuring: Antarctica Black, Paul Carola, Michael Sean Kirby and Margaret Smithers-Crump

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Opening Reception: Saturday, November 9, 2019 // 6 – 8 pm

Closing Reception + Artist Talk: Saturday, December 14, 2019 // 3 – 5 pm

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White Wide Space features four of Houston’s sculptors, all with the unique ability to use some form of cutting in their processes. Antarctica Black, Paul Carola, Michael Kirby, and Margaret Smithers-Crump have taken their materials and transformed them using the subtractive sculptural technique. This Sculpture Month Houston exhibition will run from November 9 – December 14, 2019.

Antarctica Black continues to dive into the ever-weaving science between her own brain’s electric pulses; navigating through her past to discover what makes her existence unique. In an almost map-like way, she processes the chaos and filters it into her cut-outs. Black uses paper because of its simple structure and the ease she has in manipulating it. Paper is such a pure substance; a clean slate to engage and develop thoughts and energy. More recently, Black was diagnosed with epilepsy after being surrounded by machines with the ability to translate the patterns and irregularities of the brain. While running a wide range of tests, Black’s desire to recount her past resurfaced. “How did I get here? What makes me, me?”

The curved lines and shapes within Paul Carola’s work are mostly inspired by the interplay between the female figure and various forms of worn attire. It is from the combination of these two elements, where a unique structural framework is visualized and a new object is located and extracted. While the newly found form may hint at its source, the outcome is quite often ambiguous and open for interpretation.

Michael Sean Kirby’s work for White Wide Space is different from his earlier work as a sculptor, and he is excited to be moving in this new direction. The newest elements with this work are color and space. For Kirby, making this work has been like gazing at clouds moving over time. “I am enjoying the playful experience this work provides, and hopefully others will too,” he states.

Margaret Smithers-Crump investigates a holistic approach to the health of our planet and the human impact, both negative and positive, on the vulnerability and interconnectedness of diverse life forms and ecosystems. She uses recycled plexiglas, paint and found materials to create these artworks. The use of the clear acrylic material offers diverse applications for her practice and compelling conceptual strengths that underscore her core concerns regarding delicate ecosystems. The glass-like appearance of this material implies fragility and underscores the precarious existence of all life.

Margaret Smithers-Crump: Breaking Point

Saturday, September 14 – October 26, 2019

Opening Reception, Saturday, September 14, 2019 6 – 8 pm

Artist Talk + Demonstration, Saturday, October 5, 2019 3 – 5 pm

Closing Reception, Friday, October 25, 2019 5 – 7 pm

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In Breaking Point, Margaret Smithers-Crump investigates a holistic approach to the health of our planet and the human impact, both negative and positive, on the vulnerability and interconnectedness of diverse life forms and ecosystems. Throughout the exhibition the artworks display a tension between the freedom of natural processes and their subordination by physical or chemical means. Some of the sculptures are literally caught in monofilament netting or bound by cord while others suggest changes caused by subjugation to chemical imbalances such as carbon in the air or water.  Particular emphasis is placed on biological systems that are vast, complex, and fragile. Kinship Network, a wall sculpture that is 9 feet tall evokes notions of biological relationships such as plant roots systems working with fungus. Referencing coral reefs and coral bleaching, Speechless suspends from the ceiling and branches out into the gallery. Breaking Point showcases hanging plant-like forms harnessed by red thread to basalt rocks while other of these structures appear to have broken away and float freely, revolving with the slightest air currents.

Smithers-Crump uses recycled plexiglas, paint and found materials to create these artworks. The use of the clear acrylic material offers diverse applications for her practice and compelling conceptual strengths that underscore her core concerns regarding delicate ecosystems. The glass-like appearance of this material implies fragility and underscores the precarious existence of all life.

Margaret Smithers-Crump is a Canadian artist based in Houston, Texas with a BFA in Painting from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.  Smithers-Crump has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the United States including her recent one person exhibitions at the Grace Museum, Abilene, TX; Pearl Fincher MFA, Houston, TX; Beeville Art Museum, TX, Galveston Art Center, TX; Imperial Center for the Arts, Rocky Mount, NC; Penn College of Technology - Penn State, PA and Lawndale Art Center, Houston,TX. In the fall of 2019, she will be a part of the curated group exhibition for Sculpture Month Houston and will be exhibiting at the Silos. In the spring of 2021, she has an upcoming solo exhibition at the Art Museum of South East Texas.

Jill Bedgood: Cantos of Light + Michael Henderson: Passage

Saturday, July 13 – August 3, 2019

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Event Info for Both Shows:

Saturday, July 13, 2019 - Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm

Saturday, August 3, 2019 - Closing Reception + Artist Talk, 3 – 5 pm

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Jill Bedgood: Cantos of Light

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition in the South and Middle Gallery spaces with Jill Bedgood’s artistic works. This exhibition titled, “Cantos of Light”, will feature hydrocal castings focusing on preserving the past - as memories you can physically hold. Bedgood explores what a memory could be; a book holds stories or mementos of history. Bedgood’s books could be experienced as solid representations of specific times in one’s life.

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Michael Henderson: Passage

Michael Henderson’s solo exhibition at Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery will be set inside the North and Back Gallery spaces. “Passage” includes work from different eras in Henderson’s life: video, drawings and paintings. Exploring time and loops in time, Henderson approaches his work with a bit of humor while showcasing his “Tunnel” series. These tunnel paintings were inspired by a King Kong movie and have, over time, developed into cartoon-like representations. Tunnels have been used as potent icons of passage ways from one world into the next or to symbolize access to our own dark subconscious. Henderson uses these concentric circle-type shapes to explore space and color. Henderson’s videos also include loops in time, similar to a never-ending tunnel.

May 18 - June 22, 2019

Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 18, 2019 from 6-8pm

Closing Reception + Artist Talk:
Saturday, June 22, 2019 from 3 – 5 pm
 
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Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery is proud to present a solo exhibition spanning 25 years of Mary Howe Hawkins’ artistic works on May 18th, 2019. This exhibition titled, “Mary Howe Hawkins: Twenty Five Years”, will include hand-colored, hand-cut photographs of flowers alongside wire sculptures mounted on found objects. Landscapes featured in oil paint and photography ranging from different time periods in Hawkins’ life will also span the walls. Hawkins has the ability to see the beauty in the mundane and the simplicity in the intricate.
 
Hawkins develops her own negatives in a wet darkroom and even juxtaposes inverses of prints next to each other in a kaleidoscope-type arrangement that summons the symmetry in nature; nature being the primary inspiration for her work. She is an avid gardener, growing various plants and flora from seed or bulb, and photographing them at peak bloom. Her process of hand coloring the prints pre-dates color film and digital photography, a nod to a simpler time.

March 30 - April 27, 2019

Opening Reception: Saturday, March 30, 2019 6 – 8 pm

Closing Reception: Saturday, April 27, 2019 3 – 5 pm

Artists:

Santa Barraza, Liliana Wilson, Ernesto Marenco, Tina Hernandez, Patrick McGrath Muñiz, and Miguel Ángel Ávila  

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For their third installment of exhibitions in collaboration with the Latino Art Now! Conference in Houston, Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery showcases six more Latino and Latina artists. Santa Barraza, Ernesto Marenco, Tina Hernandez, Patrick McGrath Muñiz, Miguel Ángel Ávila, and Liliana Wilson bring their experiences and their culture into view with clear delineation between what they all separately bring to the table.

Santa Barraza cultivates a traditional Chicana style as she navigates the art world between her Native American heritage and her Mexican roots, balancing in a realm she deems “Nepantla”. While Miguel Ángel Ávila also delights in the balance between the Mexican and Texas borderlands, his interpretation is surrealist.

Hailing from Puerto Rico, Patrick McGrath Muñiz looks through multiple lenses inspired by Baroque, Renaissance, and Latin American colonial paintings as he creates his work responds to our capitalist society.  Tina Hernandez takes a magnifying glass to traditional gender and cultural Latino iconography and portrays her perspective through her photography.

Chilean Liliana Wilson works alongside her subconscious as she creates moments in human experience touched by the spiritual universe. While being inspired by the original objects themselves, Ernesto Marenco takes a bit of humor and a bit of poetry as he crafts his sculptures allowing them to become new objects.

February 23 - March 23, 2019

Featuring Celia Alvarez Muñoz, Casey Arguelles Gregory, Rabéa Ballin, Jesus Gonzalez, Cristy Jadick, and Gabriel Martinez


The Latino Art Now! conference (April 4-6) gave Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery a chance to present the second of three exhibitions focusing on the work of Latinx artists. The six artists presented in Artimañas/Revealed run the gamut in terms of identity expression in their work, remaining true to the multifaceted Latinx experience itself. Rabéa Ballin, Casey Arguelles Gregory, Jesus Gonzales, Cristy Jadick, Gabriel Martinez, and Celia Alvarez Muñoz work in a variety of mediums, from painting to photography to installation. What draws these artists together is their collective experience as Latinx Texans who have witnessed and participated in a massive demographic shift in the state over the course of their lifetimes. These tidal shifts have resulted in rich cultural and lingual blending (as well as language loss for those of second generation) and have also produced a virulent backlash in the form of anti-immigrant sentiment and racism. The six artists of Artimañas / Revealed show as many methods for approaching these complex issues, with the belief that art can describe and refine the uniqueness of our experiences within the shared bonds of culture.

[ Here and There: Janet Chaffee + Benito Huerta was the first of the three exhibitions dedicated to LAN 2019 (Latino Art Now Houston!) at Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery. LAN 2019 has brought a series of citywide shows focusing on Latino Art in connection with the LAN 2019 Symposium at the University Houston (April 4 -6, 2019). Duelo de Espejos: Reflecting Back from March 30 to April 27 will be the third exhibition at our gallery in partnership with LAN 2019. ]

January 12 - February 16, 2019

This exhibit is part of our new LAN* season.

Saturday, January 12, 2019: Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm

Saturday, February 16, 2019: Closing Reception, 3 – 5 pm

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Here and There: Janet Chaffee + Benito Huerta is the first of three exhibitions dedicated to LAN 2019 (*Latino Art Now), a series of citywide shows focusing on Latino Art in connection with the LAN 2019 Symposium at the University Houston (April 4 -6, 2019).

Benito Huerta, besides his studio practice, has been involved in and has influenced Latino Art in Texas in a major way as an educator, curator, gallery director and art magazine founder, to name a few of his accomplishments. In his paintings, drawings and prints he explores the intersection of cultures and eloquently fuses language, abstraction and representation, high art and the mundane. He examines shifting boundaries, conflicting information or cultural stereotypes in order to create modern archetypes, which can be funny, ambiguous or downright unsettling.

Janet Chaffee, the other half of the art couple, in her work provides a certain counterpoint to Benito’s action packed canvasses. She is more interested in textures and structures that are subtle and deliberate. She often uses naturally occurring elements such as beeswax, minerals or mica rather than commercial products and most of her recent work has been executed using dry pigment, oil, and encaustic. Although referencing patterns in the natural world, her work feels like an authentic part of nature.

The next exhibitions in connection with LAN 2019 are Artimanas / Revealed from February 23 to March 23 and Duelo de Espejos : Reflecting Back from March 30 to April 27.

November 3 - December 15, 2018

Opening Reception: November 3rd, 6-8pm

Gallery Walk-Through with Volker Eisele & Artist Talk with Patrick Turk: November 17th, starting at 12pm

Closing Reception: December 15th, 3-5pm

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This exhibition is a part of the citywide festival Sculpture Month Houston.

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Outta Space II is one of six exhibitions sponsored by Sculpture Month Houston during its 2018 Biennial. It is also part of a larger dialogue that is currently winding its way through the national and international art world. The subject of these discussions is the breathtaking re-definition of sculpture and space, its expansion into virtual space, social space, kinetic space and an entire cast of newly minted definitions.

It is the journey from the classical, singular sculpture like Rodin’s Thinker or Giacometti’s slender figures into the realm of multi-sensorial installation work as one can see at the current SITE Gallery Houston show at the “Silos” titled Peak Shift. The title “Outta Space” for this exhibition is taken from another space exploration - this time the virtual antics of a space crew hurling into outer space in a Van Halen song from 2012. They are sporting a bumper sticker on their rocket saying: ”The Earth is Full”. Outta Space.

The artists in this exhibition have their own ideas about the malleability of space and their visions couldn’t be more different. Alicia Eggert, who teaches Sculpture at the University of North Texas in Denton, uses kinetic neon signs, often in a synthesis with selected environments as site-specific installations. Her lenticular prints, too, convey the kinetic fluidity of her larger installations. Liss LaFleur teaches New Media at UNT Denton and her immersive installations often combine visual prompts with performance and video. She is interested in exploring identity as it relates to pop, queerness, and Future Feminism.

We are privileged to have John Salvest exhibiting at our gallery again as he has done many times in the past, while we watched his work grow into a nationally acclaimed presence. His installations are always surprising and unanticipated, as is this one, albeit with a slight dystopian tilt. His installation at last year’s Sculpture Month event was very popular and provided, literally, a “knock-out punch”. Patrick Turk’s installation Uncle Roscoe is in many ways reminiscent of a claustrophobic - and often grotesque - Ed Kienholz tableau. Yet this artist’s meticulously crafted figure, which is set in a funky, psychedelic urban home environment, provides a light-hearted approach to the serious business of re-defining spatial concepts.

September 15 - October 20, 2018

Opening Reception: Sept. 15, 2018 — 6-8pm

Closing Reception: Oct. 20, 2018 — 3-5pm

Press Release: Leticia Bajuyo explores the social ideas behind that great expanse called Suburbia, where the American Dream intersects with reality. Once hailed as a sure fire way to a happy and safe existence, its cookie cutter houses, manicured lawns and sedate life style became stand-in stereotypes for banality and conformity. Many suburban areas have grown bigger than their neighboring cities and recently, ecological concern has been voiced since the suburban carbon imprint has been found to be often four times as much as that of urban dwellers.

The massive scale of the totality of Suburbia has been referred to as “hyperobject”, a term first coined by Rice University professor Timothy Morton. In his book by the same name he describes objects or developments beyond the scope of ordinary metrics influencing other entities in unpredictable, often negative ways. Leticia Bajuyo explores these issues and in the process re-evaluates changing social standards in terms of land use, consumerism or ecological impact.

The tension between nature and societal innovation is at the core of this artist’s narrative, offering an irony inflected dystopian vision of the suburban fantasy. Most importantly, she transforms suburban stereotypes into symbols and visual markers that delight and at the same time spur the visitor to engage his own critical stance.

Leticia Bajuyo’s “Exurban” installation at the Rudolph Blume Gallery extends throughout all four rooms of the gallery and encompasses many diverse aspects of suburban objects and icons including turf rolls, building kits, prefab houses or tree shaped air freshener forests. The “Exurban” exhibit has been an ongoing, multi year project that has been shown at different locations throughout the Midwest and South, every time re-configured, added on and infused with new material. Leticia Bajuyo is Assistant Professor of Sculpture and teaches at A&M University at Corpus Christi.

June 23 - July 28, 2018

Opening Reception: June 23, 6-8pm

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery announces a summer exhibition featuring new works from artist Daniel Heimbinder.

Composed of stacked absurd figurative contradictions, this body of work harkens back to Heimbinder’s totemic watercolor style of the early 2000s. He calls on his mental archive of literature, follies, and fables, and then mashes them up to undermine and frustrate each other. This exhibition titled Magic Island is the artist’s interpretation of a society that exists solely within their own narratives depicting a place with few shared stories whose citizens’ minds are enmeshed with streaming input, and yet can completely ignore unpleasant narratives and the contradictions that come with it. Heimbinder paints these stories in an absurd and decorative way, a form that calls to mind the style of aristocratic grotesques. Although his ideas are broad, relevant, and wide-reaching in terms of our world today, what makes this exhibition unique is its specificity to Houston, a city the artist admires and calls home. The paintings embody the sprawl and disconnectedness of Houston; its vastness, its magic islands, and perhaps also speak to the artist’s own feeling of disconnectedness.

“In the aftermath of Harvey and the highs and lows Houston has experienced over the past year, these drawings bring some iconic cult-followed Houston institutions, ideas, and figures forward offering a bit of absurdity and hopefully some levity,” says Gallery Director Volker Eisele.

While this is one of Heimbinder’s first Houston-centric shows, it’s not a topic he’s shied away from in the past. Heimbinder’s love of Houston runs deep. In a recent Wired article, New York Times journalist Jon Mooallem recalls Heimbinder’s work from the 90’s and captures the essence of what patrons might expect to see at the show, “It showed Spider-Man slinging webs over a tangle of freeways and skyscrapers. Its title was The Ubermensch vs. Houston. In a civilization that's shrugged off God, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, an Ubermensch (literally: superman) operates within his own morality, striving for greatness no matter how it might be misunderstood or reviled by the masses. Heimbinder recently explained to me that he'd always seen Houston, his home city, as a kind of civic Ubermensch: a municipality without zoning ordinances, expanding only in accordance with its own whims. He remembers wanting to see these two rogues-the web-slinging super­hero and the sprawl-slinging city-pitted against each other.”

May 12 – June 9, 2018

Suzanne Manns

Architecture, Geometry and Eco Systems

Selected works from the seventies to the present

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 12, 2018, 6 – 8 pm

Artist Talk, May 26th at 4pm, reception from 3-5pm

Closing Reception: Saturday, June 9, 2018, 3 – 5 pm

Suzanne Manns came to Houston in 1973 and in 1975 she was asked to teach printmaking at what is now the Glassell School of Art, where she played a crucial role in acquainting many artists with the art of printmaking. She established a substantial printmaking department, upgrading both its facilities and teaching concepts. She soon became the Head of the Printmaking Department and eventually taught all levels of drawing as well in the Department of Drawing and Design.

Sometimes affectionately called “the godmother of printmaking in Houston”, she taught the classical printmaking genres like etching and lithography, while introducing innovative and experimental printing techniques such as viscosity printing, collagraphs, photopolymer or digitally generated images derived from photographs. Above all she was a consummate printmaker and passionate about prints and printmaking. She invigorated the appreciation of the print medium among generations of students, teaching the almost endless formal and technical possibilities in creating them.

She continues to teach as a member of the Glassell faculty, teaching students the finer points of drawing.

Suzanne Manns enjoyed a marquee education in intaglio and lithography, first at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburg, then at the Rhode Island School of Design. She continued her formalist training in France, at the Atelier Garrigues and Atelier 17 in Paris where she met again with the printmaking guru Stanley Hayter, who had visited her and critiqued her work when he was a quest lecturer at Atelier Garrigues.

Traveling extensively throughout Europe her imagery captured the classical monuments and landscape patterns of countries like France, Switzerland or Italy. Three cities, in particular Berlin, Madrid and Venice were the subject of an urban series that wove together their often-dark history with the grandiosity of its architecture and the serenity of its parks and public gardens.

Eventually her cultivated garden in the Heights became an inspiration for much of her later work. She introduced flowers, plants or trees into her complex and technically challenging prints. These compositions with their natural cycles of growth, death and transformation referenced her own experience of loss and redemption. The degradation of nature, the continuous loss of natural habitat and especially trees due to catastrophic climatic events are a constant theme that permeates her work. Trees and natural landscapes have become iconic images in Suzanne Manns recent work that investigates nature as an eco system, fragile, yet enduring.

University of Houston PDM 18: Interwoven Spaces

Event Info:

•   April 14 (6-9pm) – Opening Reception

•   April 18 (5:30-8pm) – Artist Talks with Natalia Barrientos, Aisha Lahkani, Matt Flora, and Dawn Ohmer

•   April 19 (6-8pm) – Artist Talks with Arely Peña, Wesley Burns, and Jessica González

•   April 20 (6-8pm) – Artist Talks with Kristen Coleman, Daniel Nolan, and Gabriel Guerrero

•   April 28 (11am-2pm) – Closing reception

The University of Houston’s Photography and Digital Media Area is pleased to present a group exhibition of new works from the ten BFA candidates of the Senior class of 2018. Interwoven Spaces will run at Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery from April 14th - April 28th with an opening reception on April 14th from 6pm to 9pm and closing reception on April 28th from 11am to 2pm.

Interwoven Spaces is curated by Jason Dibley, Collections Manager of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and brings together the diverse work of the BFA 2018 Candidates. Artists include: Natalia Barrientos, Wesley Burns, Kristen Coleman, Matt Flora, Jessica González, Gabriel Guerrero, Aisha Lakhani, Daniel Nolan, Dawn Ohmer, and Arely Peña.

Dedicated to exploring ideas surrounding identity, community, memory, and social and political constructs, these artists work in a wide breadth of approaches and mediums to provoke and suggest meanings beyond immediate association. By delving into a variety of artistic practices including photography, video, alternative processes, installation, painting, and sculpture, the artists engage in conversation with each other, interweaving pieces from each diverse background to draw audiences into a space of their own.

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery is proud to introduce the UHPDM Class of 2018 for their BFA exhibition as part of FotoFest 2018.

February 24 - March 31, 2018

Opening Reception: Feb. 24th, 6 - 8pm

Artist Talk: Mar. 3rd, 3 - 5pm

Essay by Casey Arguelles Gregory

Jane Eifler finds expression in the quirky and offbeat places in a painting or collage.  Her work is specific and her color precise, but there is an intriguing looseness as well, a casual confidence that lends her work an almost accidental feeling.  Underpinning all of Eifler’s toppling or wonky forms or unexpected color relationships is a keen and individual eye.  The looseness isn’t incidental, because it’s there in each piece, pulling our eyes through Eifler’s exuberant visions, collisions of color and shape that are both improbable and delightful. They are the sharps and flats of the visual spectrum, rendered in joyful tones. 

Eifler came of age in the abstract expressionist period, a “straight art major” at a moment when women were only nominally tolerated in the field.  A comparison can be drawn between Eifler’s work and the infectious geometry of fellow Abex painter Mary Heilmann, but Eifler eschewed the art scene that Heilmann tried to embrace.  Fellow male painters “liked [Heilmann] but they never gave her a chance.”  So Eifler took a divergent and circuitous path. “I had a short career in fashion in New York.  I worked for Vogue magazine.”  The jubilance of that kind of self-expression was mired in the “meanness” of the fashion industry.  “They were coming from a background of ‘that’s how you did it,” a rigid mentality that Eifler found stifling. 

She continued to work, often tailoring her process around practicalities.  “We would take car trips with the kids and nobody would bother me,” Eifler says of her initial collages. Her second educational experience, after raising her children and moving on from a twenty-year teaching career at St John’s in Houston, was far more positive.  Following a short stint at the Glassell School, Eifler was accepted to the University of Houston’s graduate painting program. “I was at that point that I really needed to catch up with what had been going on in the art world.” A particular stroke of luck had it that the entire incoming class of MFA painting candidates was made up of women.  “We had a good group of all women. Everyone was very supportive.” Eifler’s work flourished under these conditions, a theme throughout her creative life.  Now Eifler’s loose abstractions are reflected in her environment, where everything feels like it has recently been moved, or is about to be.

Expanding the medium through collage, digital prints, and even a large installation at Lawndale Art Center in 2012, Eifler continues to “work on finding different shapes.” These days she still spends a lot of time on the road, traveling across Texas.  One imagines that it’s these western vistas that populate the spaces in her paintings- a strip of blue sky or the narrowing V of an endless road.  “My husband is a mineral collector,” she says.  “Tucson has the largest mineral show in the world, so we drive.” During these treks, she scavenges the pages of Houston’s Paper City magazine, repurposing the chronicles of Houston’s mover-and-shaker types and their lurid advertisements to her own ends.  “I like the colors they use,”  Eifler says of the magazine.  Like any good abstract artist, she is open to possibility, looking at the world afresh constantly.  “I used to be a devout oil painter.  I still miss the rich colors.”  Today, what begins in collage could have a final iteration in paint, digital print, or a mashup of all three.  Jane Eifler presents us with echoes of the familiar, warm round contours and “funky” color, allowing them to exist in exciting moments of near-peril.  In that way, Eifler’s works are like a good road trip-we travel in safety through the wild and vibrant unknown.  

February 24 - March 31, 2018

Closing Reception: Saturday, March 31, 2018, 3-5pm

Artist Talk: Saturday, March 31st, 4pm

Kevin Jones’ work challenges the blind faith in all things scientific as the predominant, contemporary credo. He is baffled by the seeming inability of scientific inquiry to explain the innermost workings of nature. Richard Feynman famously said  “If you thought that science was certain – well, that is just an error on your part”, so Kevin Jones is ready to help out by suggesting alternative systems.

This exhibition is the second solo show for Jones at our gallery; the first one titled “Chemtrail” took place in 2012. He teaches art at Tulane University, has exhibited internationally, most recently at the Berlin Science Week and spends time in summer at Akiba Art Lab in Tokyo. His mostly digital based work is done in a variety of media including painting, sculpture, time-based media, or digital prints.

Jones scrutinizes the underlying hypothesis of much scientific theorizing.  A hypothesis by definition is just a temporary proposition that is supposed to give way to a better system, one that can more elegantly explain a greater number of phenomena.

One of Jones’ favorite subjects is the periodic table of the elements. They were discovered and described in 1869 by Mendeleev, but still to this day they are tinkered with amid a cloud of uncertainty. Who is to say that Jones’ proposed variations of these elements (based on formal or aesthetic principles) are less viable than the recent spate of newly discovered, but absurdly unstable elements cooked up in a wayward accelerator?

This artist wants the observer to contemplate the thin ice we are all walking on while pursuing the path of scientific logic and its inherent fuzziness. Hopefully, Kevin Jones’ images will undermine scientific authority by proposing certain variables that are totally plausible within their own endogenous structure.

Lets celebrate the realignment of the art/science interface!

Let Feynman have the last word: “I would rather have questions that can’t be answered, then answers that can’t be questioned.”

Saturday, January 13 – February 17, 2018

New Works from Matthew Bourbon

Saturday, January 13, 2018 Opening Reception, 6 – 8 pm

Rudolph Blume Fine Art/ArtScan Gallery is pleased to announce our second solo exhibition for Matthew Bourbon titled “Tribalism Begins at Home” from January 13
through February 17, 2018. In 2010, Bourbon had his first solo show at our gallery with the title “Our Splendid Defeat”.  Since that time, the artist has exhibited widely throughout Texas and also nationally and internationally.

Despite the invasion of the digital environment, Matthew Bourbon stays fully committed to the art of painting - a seemingly vanishing skill. Painting, to the artist, represents the activation of visions of worlds, ideas and patterns. Yet as they remain completely immobile, they are often engaged in an internal dispute about what art is or what art should be. In his most recent work Bourbon has included sculptural elements in order to explore ideas of reconciliation in a fractured cultural and political environment as he explains in the following statement.

“This exhibition emerged from my thoughts about what we deem reasonable and sensible in both our political environment and also in how we understand visual art. The central painting in the show, entitled “How to Cure a Fanatic” arose from my reading of Amos Oz’s essay of the same title. Writing about the Israeli and Palestinian deadlock, Oz suggests both sides have to be willing to live in the same house, with an unhappy divorce—despite legitimate grievances and competing claims. Oz’s discussion, which was written many years ago, felt directly related to the tribalism of our daily political and social discourse here in the United States. All of these threads were relevant as I worked in the studio to bring disparate materials together. Many of the paintings are for the first time paired with component parts—wood frames, stretched fabric etc. These combinations are meant to embody a kind of argument (or sometimes accord) between competing forms. At the same time, I began writing phrases on sheets of paper, which emerged as a kind of chorus of disembodied voices encircling the other paintings.

"Essentially, all of my work starts from my curiosity about the different ways one can establish the language of painting. I’m perpetually fascinated with how paintings are meant to “speak” via choices of technique and genre. Because my interests for this body of work were not merely formal or only political, I encouraged contradiction and uncertainty—such territory seems suitable to the caprices of art, as well as the constant chicanery and partisan spin of our current political climate.”--Matthew Bourbon

Seeing our entire four-room gallery filled with these splendid works of art is a rare luxury we are proud to present to our friends in the art community.

November 18 - December 16, 2017

Closing Reception: December 16th, 3 - 5pm

**Note: The gallery will be closed the week of Thanksgiving.

About Ludwig Schwarz:

Ludwig Schwarz lives and works in Dallas where he continues to exhibit locally as well as nationally and internationally. His resume includes many one-person exhibits, a Retrospective (1990-2014) and several international exhibitions. Although primarily known for his innovative abstract paintings, his oeuvre spans various media featuring sculptures, videos, installations, and provocative art staging. According to Dallas art critic Rick Brettel  “…he is quite possibly the most important painter who has lived in our city in the last generation”. His abstract work has been variously described as complex, pleasantly puzzling, or absurdist and insanely clever. Seemingly questioning the nature of paintings and sometimes art in general, Ludwig Schwarz prods the viewer to engage with his uncanny and untraditional vision.

About Howard Sherman:

Rudolph Blume Fine Arts Gallery is happy to welcome back artist Howard Sherman with Ludwig Schwarz/Howard Sherman.

This exhibition exemplifies Sherman’s continual experimentation with collage and sculptural elements within his paintings. His use of irregular-shaped canvas pieces, cut or torn from older work or raw canvas, add a three-dimensional aesthetic to these draped, free-flowing canvases. An assertive color palette adds complexity to the new work. The result is a measure of raw power and heft. The otherwise aggressive appearance of these human-scale canvases is offset by elements of cartooning, specific art history references and a sense of playfulness. With Ludwig Schwarz/Howard Sherman, his artistic progression is on full display. A suite of small works on paper is also on view, offering a distilled examination of his process.

Sherman has had a longstanding friendship with Rudolph Blume Fine Arts Gallery for many years. The Houston/New York City based artist has previously exhibited at the gallery, in addition to, curating a group exhibit.

Sherman was chosen for the cover of the recently published art history book Texas Abstract: Modern/Contemporary by Michael Paglia and Jim Edwards (Fresco Books.) His work is in several museum collections and is on permanent display at Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas. The artist has been profiled numerous times in New American Paintings, and appears in the 2010 book Texas Artists Today. Rice University is now collecting his personal artifacts for its research center.

Howard Sherman and Ludwig Schwarz are sharing our gallery space for their show.

October 14 - November 11, 2017

John Atkins, Bill Davenport, Trey Duvall, Tim Glover, Justin Korver, Alex Larsen, Patrick Renner, and Ed Wilson

SNARE could be considered the opening act of Tensile Strength, which opens one week later at SITE Gallery Houston at the Silos. Both exhibitions are sponsored by Sculpture Month Houston and are the intervening projects of this otherwise biennial citywide event, the next one taking place in 2018.

SNARE is the somewhat light hearted opposite of the more serious Tensile Strength. It strives in a brightly lit room with white washed walls; the dialogue between our 8 sculptors’ work is lively and reactionary. SNARE simply wants the viewer to enjoy the works of art and its antics, possibly wondering about a talking fish or an alien flower garden, or about “Squeaky” the dog and the monster under the stairs.

Above all, both SNARE and Tensile Strength showcase and celebrate the creative explosion of the sculptural medium in all its diversity.

September 9 - October 7, 2017

Tudor Mitroi
Nowhere and Now
(in the main gallery space)

Opening Reception: September 9th, 2017, 6 - 8pm

Tudor Mitroi's work distills and condenses the fluid meanings of time and place. Based on historical images and maps, rulers, dates and times, and small items of personal significance, his painted cartographies embody the intimate relationship between the elusive concept of time and the reality of form. The artist makes his own paint every day from archival pigments and raw materials. With its multiple layers, Mitroi's painting process brings together scattered marks, text, and intricate line drawings to create aerial charts of intangible territories that invite the viewer to contemplate the universe of the mind.

September 9 - October 7, 2017

Loli Fernández-Andrade
Soliloquy, Recent Works
(in the project room)

Opening Reception: September 9th, 2017, 6 - 8pm

“As time goes on, Loli Fernandez’s cultural roots deepen their hold on her imaginary. In this recent set of drawings, she evokes the ultra baroque altars in Seville’s churches and the profusely ornamented accessories in religious processions that glisten with infinite liminal folds: folds that capture both the outer and inner worlds of faithful believers. Loli Fernandez draws on those phantasmagoric worlds, suggesting the profound human density hidden in fragments of a grander narrative: a narrative that quietly surfaces like subtle whispers in a soliloquy….all this, while she draws as in a trance. In a formal sense, Fernandez’s work recalls the intricate refinement of Wols’s drawings, as well as the alluring power of Max Ernst’s frottages. Yet, her original technique is entirely her own, using matrixes made of aluminum foil, which in themselves, literally constitute a “foil” to her paper drawings, being a more audible expression of her inner musings.”

- Surpik Angelini, Founder and Director of Transart Foundation for Contemporary Art and Anthropology.

August 2017

June 24 - July 22, 2017

Opening Reception, June 24th, 6-8pm

Featuring work by Jim Malone, Hank Schyma, John Steck Jr., and Lillian Warren

Press Release

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery proudly presents (Land)Scapes which explores the introduction of dynamic elements into a traditionally static concept. Adding the contingency of time to their works, the artists in this exhibition reconfigure the landscape concept as icons of activity, both real and transformational.

In his series "Lament", John Speck Jr. draws attention to the materiality of photographs and the memories it captures by allowing the images to slowly disappear. The fading images are reminiscent of the impermanence of materials, objects or mental processes.

Jim Malone draws Big Bend vistas with almost photographic precision. Including the local fauna as inserts like in old natural science folios; his landscapes resemble dynamic ecosystems hinting at the complexity of otherwise barren scenery.

Hank Schyma, also known as Pecos Hank, is a professional photographer and an extreme storm chaser. He will investigate any tornado roaring across the countryside and will bring back striking images of the unhinged fury of nature.

Lillian Warren's "Waitscapes" depict a dystopian future where solitary people move, wait or communicate in artificial environments devoid of any nature.

May 13 - June 10, 2017

Opening Reception, May 18th, 6-8pm

Featuring work by Pat Barry, Krista Birnbaum, Megan Harrison, Hillerbrand+Magsamen, Brendan O'Connell, Gissette Padilla, Brandon Ray, and Richard T Scott.

Essay by Alexandra Irrera

What is a more American than the brand? While mid 20th century pop art gave new, complex meaning to marketing and the manmade (both unmasking and upholding them), our national fascination with the object and tactility dates back to beginning of art in the United States. Carving a path through the clutter, a living, breathing brand captures and rearranges our “things” in a powerful attempt to offer perspective from within today’s world of ubiquitous products and promotion.

Several artists in a living, breathing brand approach the subject of consumerism through quantity. Brendan O’Connell portrays products in their wild habitat—the store. O’Connell’s shoes, cans of diet Coke, or pictures of Jesus appear in mesmerizing and pleasurable repetition—filling store shelves like heavy fruit ripe for harvest. In O’Connell’s work the store becomes the Amazon—lush and bountiful, but also deep and potentially treacherous. Brandon Ray displays our purchases in action. Situating his characters in a vast room of play stations, ball pits, trampolines, giraffes, and elephants, Ray reimagines Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights as an extravagant birthday party. Although carrying out activities of play, the characters’ blank faces and thin bodies (which almost disappear into the background), question the superficiality of their consumable pleasure. One step removed from this initial enjoyment, artist duo Hillerbrand+Magsamen investigate alternative uses of excess. In their clever hands, piles of Barbie dolls are transformed into meditative mandalas, and outdoor toys—fitted together with the precision of megalithic Peruvian masonry—become door-blocking walls.

Other artists in the show focus on materialism in a more intimate, subconscious style. Gissette Padilla spans the barrier between physical and psychological space with her simulacrum bag of flour or meal. Familiar, squashed, and lonely, the unmarked sack elicits pangs of empathy that reveal the essential role of packaged items in contemporary life. Objects in Krista Birnbaum’s CGI works are similarly anthropomorphic and uncanny. Here, Birnbaum provides us with the perspective of the floor-bound items themselves. Also skewing our sense of reality, Megan Harrison integrates the material and natural worlds. Painting an object-filled room in a feathery, romantic style, she creates an impression of reverence for the space that echoes a transcendentalist admiration of nature. Man has become both the subject of and carrier for branding in Richard T Scott’s endgame painting. Through this hybridization, Scott suggests a symbolic and literal loss of self amidst a painted aura of dreamy morbidity.

Though our current culture portrays the accumulation of things as thrilling, the artists in a living, breathing brand intimate that what we consume may actually consume us—our money, our bodies, and our time. Whether the pervasiveness of brand is viewed as empowering or disabling, an individual awareness of it can help each of us to define a relationship between material wealth and personal fulfillment.

March 25 - April 29, 2017

A group exhibition featuring Les Christensen, Jo Ann Fleischhauer, Joe Mancuso, Mari Omori, John Runnels, and John Salvest. This show is sponsored by Sculpture Month Houston and is part of an ongoing effort to spotlight the sculptural medium in Houston.

Essay by Volker Eisele

The title “Fetish” was chosen in order to explore the transition from an ordinary, everyday object to a complex work of art through the obsessive and - at times - repetitive manipulations of the artist. The word fetish derives from the Latin facere (to make) and is primarily used in an erotic context. Yet fetishes in animistic or tribal societies were manmade objects or images that were attributed inherent value or magical powers.

A newly emerging consumer society in the 20th century focused its energies and desires on the acquisition of material goods. “Consumer fetishism” became the slogan of the day to describe the cult like phenomenon. Artists in the past responded to the new culture by exploring the aesthetic possibilities of functional objects and mass-produced commodities. They embraced the idea that Art and Life are inseparable and “heightened meaning” could be found everywhere. Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes then set in motion the successful run of Pop Art, the first art movement to cater to the stylish tastes of the art consumer.

Since the object took center place as an independent medium, it spawned an explosion of creative experimentation and novel images: from the early Fluxus-kits to Chris Burden’s “Reason for the Plutonium Bomb”, an installation with 50,000 nickels and matches, from Jason Rhoades densely packed interior spaces to Jo Ann Fleischhauer’s “Library of Babbel” with 39 table lamps and curling scrolls. This new art shifted its “identification from the landscape of nature to the new American landscape –the object” declared Aaron Kuriloff, an early pioneer of the new minimalism.

All the artists in this exhibition have enthusiastically embraced the exploration of everyday objects. They have created their own private fetishes and they are happy to share them with the searching viewer. They also elevate their humble objects to works of art of great emotional power.

January 28 - March 11, 2017

A 30-year Retrospective of Peter Brown's Photography of the High Plains

Essay by Volker Eisele

“Peter Brown - High Plains Song” is a survey of over 30 years of Brown’s explorations on the relatively unknown and underappreciated landscape and habitat: the prairies and high desert of the American Great Plains. The High Plains are the western portion of these ecosystems, a land that historically has been arid and difficult to cultivate.

Walt Whitman wrote that the prairie was North America’s “characteristic landscape,” and while less stunning at first sight than places like Yellowstone or Yosemite, it slowly fills the aesthetic sense and geologically precedes the rest.

The epic grandiosity of this landscape has fascinated Peter Brown: the panoramic endlessness of the sky, the rhythmic expanses of fields and grasslands, the quality of light which verges from near blinding to the softest hues -- colors that are nuanced but may encompass an entire spectrum.

There are iconic images that haunt the visitor: roads and furrows, converging on the horizon with precise geometry, bisecting the world into heaven and earth. The heavens present an ever changing spectacle of moods, from clear blue skies with feathery clouds to black colored thunder storms to flaming red sunsets.

Water is very precious in this arid area, where most of the water for irrigation is coming from the Ogallala aquifer, which is slowly being depleted. The people who settled here about 150 years ago have waged a valiant battle to convert this land into fertile soil, but with no lasting success. There now is a conservation effort taking hold to let part of the land revert to its pre-existing natural state.

Peter Brown’s photographs capture the hardscrabble existence of the people, their tenacity and simplicity of life, their cultural heritage that encompasses Indian roots, pioneer spirit, religious affiliations, high school sports or the joy of small town life.

Peter Brown’s images are more than archival documentations, they reflect an emotional involvement, a deep admiration and love for his subject.

Peter Brown’s camera fuses reportage with poetry.

December 10, 2016 - January 21, 2017

A group show, sponsored by Sculpture Month Houston, featuring Susan Budge, Larry Graeber, Abby Sherrill, Anthony Suber, Ben Woitena and Jo Zider.

Essay by Volker Eisele

This exhibition is a continuation of the celebration of sculpture throughout the Sculpture Month Houston (SMH) project that ended November 19, 2016. Showcasing the diversity of sculpture in Houston was an important goal of the many exhibits in connection with SMH.

As part of the event program for SMH, an experimental performance called “Music and Sculpture” was presented at the MATCH. The renowned Romantic era song cycle “Winterreise” by Franz Schubert was juxtaposed with sculptures by five sculptors representing a favorite Romantic theme: the forest as a magical natural landscape. The current exhibition “Space Garden” is echoing this theme and highlights sculptors who are engaged in various forms of space exploration.

The DADA inflected sculptures of Larry Graeber are juxtaposed with the more volumetric works by Jo Zider and reflect the idea of a “Space Garden” that lets one ambulate around and contemplate the natural world as a transcendent artifice.

Susan Budge’s polished ceramic pieces were part of the “Music and Sculpture” setting and reflect on its fairy tale aspect, including one eyed trolls, murderous giants and Rapunzel.

Ben Woitena’s small-scale sculptures are great examples of this master sculptor’s modernist approach to sculptures, one that helped pioneer contemporary sculptures in Houston.

Abby Sherrill’s installation is the second interpretation of this specific installation of hers at our gallery. Her work straddles the line between drawing and sculpture. Her “Spoon collection” consists of vaguely familiar household objects, but the artist weaves a tapestry following her own intuition and her own intricate pattern selection.

Anthony Suber depicts scenes from the contemporary African American experience and creates powerful visual icons of this experience. Drawn on recycled particleboard these images tell their story via subtle and fine line drawings accentuated by precise geometric patterns. The artist also indulges in the depiction of mechanical devices such as conduits, cogwheels or drive shafts reminiscent of Picabia’s Surrealist mechanics.

October 22 - November 19, 2016

A group show featuring Emily Fleisher, Emily Link, Michael Kirby, Anthony Suber, Abby Sherrill, Antarctica Black, Kenneth James Beasley and Geison Alvizures. This exhibition is a part of Sculpture Month Houston, which is a citywide event including over 40 participating venues throughout Houston.

Press Release by Sculpture Month Houston

Houston is home to artists of all performance and visual disciplines. Frequently represented and felt through their work yet rarely acknowledged as a whole are the sculptors behind Houston’s memorable, monumental and spatial works.

In response to this occurrence, Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery director Volker Eisele, director Sean Rudolph and manager Antarctica Black—alongside Tommy Gregory, artist and Public Art Program Curator at the Houston Airport System—announce Sculpture Month Houston, a citywide celebration and survey of the Houston sculpture scene.

Houston last celebrated sculpture 16 years ago with Sculpture 2000. In presenting Sculpture Month Houston across a variety of spaces throughout the city—from Saturday, October 15 through Saturday, November 19, 2016—its organizers look to showcase the sculptural medium, its notable masters and the shear talent of local sculptors.

“This project will showcase the emergence of a talented generation of young sculptors alongside our established ones in a wide variety of styles, reflecting the diversity of the city of Houston,” says campaign director Volker Eisele. “It will also illustrate the journey of the sculptural medium in Houston, as it has also happened in other art locales - from singular, volumetric object to the dissolution of the object and the exploration of space that directly engages the viewer and resonates at multiple sensory levels.”

The month consists of more than 35 participating venues including commercial galleries, nonprofit spaces, educational facilities and museums. While participating venues will coordinate their own programming of three-dimensional art, organizers plan to present four curated exhibitions featuring a cross-section of Houston and Texas-based sculptors. Participation in the month and its curated exhibitions is by invitation.

Central to the celebration is SITE Gallery Houston at The Silos at Sawyer Yards, an industrial space consisting of 34 igloo-like rooms representing the end terminals of the original rice silo towers. In advance activation of this flagship exhibition site, a preview of the month will coincide with Houston Art Fair. Following the fair, a Sculpture Month Houston VIP preview party, public kick-off and subsequent programming will be presented onsite. Additional exhibitions, opening receptions and events are scheduled for Capitol Street Gallery, Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery and Decorative Center Houston.

Sculpture Month Houston looks to further Houston’s reputation as an art mecca and joins a succession of existing art festivities, namely FotoFest, PrintMatters Houston and Houston Art Car Parade. Besides showcasing the work of local talent, the celebration aims to provide participating venues and featured artists a needed, income-generating opportunity. For Houston residents and visitors alike, the month offers an opportunity to explore, experience and celebrate a scale of sculpture rarely seen in the Greater Houston region.

June 18 - July 23, 2016

A group show, curated by Howard Sherman, featuring Matthew Bourbon, Beau Comeaux, Rachel Fisher, Bradley Kerl and Abby Sherrill.

Essay by Howard Sherman

Bulbous. Weird. Funky. Unsettling. Raw. Progressive. Effortless. Bravado. Chops. These are words I love. Saying them is fun. Seeing them is the best–especially in art.

People like to label things for all kinds of reasons. For me this classification within the arts is an impetus in creating an open dialogue about transcending labels. Is there an opportunity to avoid clichéd and shortsighted terminology–often associated with my art– and reflect on individual things that interest and inspire me? This is a question I have been yearning to answer for quite some time now. I want to analyze the different elements that I use in my own work and admire in others. I also wish to comment on items that impress me in art, even if they don’t take on a major role in my own artistic creations. After much thought, I felt curating a show of such work would be the best way to do this.

Matthew Bourbon’s paintings keep getting better and better. They’re weird and unpredictable. Bourbon makes a conscious choice to not choke the viewer with obvious narrative. Instead, he uses a combination of unexpected vignettes sprinkled with strange iconography. This creates surprising stories within the artist’s work, allowing one to come to his or her own conclusion. The omnipresent grid “character,” regularly shown in his work, is used in such a peculiar way that I find refreshing.

Rachel Fischer’s sculptures are bulbous wall mounted objects with fetish finishes. You’ll want to laugh and lick them. Their unorthodox use of seemingly disparate materials leads to a completely unexpected originality. I initially respond to the humor, but I stay for the surprises. Fischer always leaves you excited by sexing up the incongruent.

Bradley Kerl has a cool casual feeling in his paintings. While his touch is deft, it never feels forced. Kerl’s play on formal perspective and Modernist art history is intriguing. His execution is distinctive, even on the most familiar subject matter, which is the mark of strong work.

Beau Comeaux’s moody nighttime images present architecture in a novel way that explores grids and other geometric patterns. The viewer becomes an eyewitness to destruction and construction. These places are in dark transitional phases and cause one to pause. Additionally, geometric abstraction in contemporary art has been a long-standing interest of mine, as well as finding ways to subvert the grid’s rigidness in my own work. Comeaux’s images capture this clearly, while taking on other issues such as gentrification and displacement.

Abby Sherrill’s use of raw materials is something I’ve been exploring in my own recent paintings.  However, Sherrill has a more conceptual take on it. Repositioning items in unexpected ways, she takes culturally loaded subject matter and propositions it for a fresh analysis. Her installation also has an unusual reference to drawing and grids.

The work in this exhibition is meant to bob and weave like a prizefighter.  Threads reoccur in this show while each work stands its ground. If you end up punching the air or shouting out loud, you won’t be penalized.

April 30 - June 4, 2016

A solo exhibition of Jane Eifler's paintings, drawings and collages from the past 5 years.

Essay by Chelby King

Vitality and dynamism shown through color are the most striking aspects of Jane Eifler’s show of new works featuring drawings and paintings using mixed media and collage elements. The works involve an elaborate vocabulary of nonrepresentational worlds in floating expanses of color. This collection is not about a specific narrative or even a familiar composition, but each is meant to be a visual experience about surface, shapes, texture and layers of material. The larger works are busy, but controlled and directly engage the viewer if for no other reason than for their size and gutsy-but-sophisticated color combinations. One can credit the paintings’ undeniable appeal to these same qualities. Eifler’s works on paper and on canvas, no matter the scale, offer a spectacular aesthetic environment with no conceptual or moral designs on the spectator. Her colors and patterns reference pop culture and fashion, perhaps not surprising considering that in her first career she worked as Assistant Editor for Accessories at Vogue in New York. In many of the works, however, finger smears, drips and brush marks signify their status as fine art. The especially accomplished works are oil paintings where very capable, large, nonfigurative expression in paint refutes the view that painting has nothing to offer. The experience of painting sets it apart from all other media.

Eifler and others continue to paint, even though national magazines and art institutions are interested in newer arenas: digital, interactive, performance, and installation. For Houston, however, interest in painting has never gone away, due in no small part to the talented faculty at University of Houston where Eifler received her graduate academic training under the stewardship of Rachel Hecker (Associate Professor of painting at the School of Art who enjoys critical success as a painter and, more recently, a sculptor). Eifler is not unaware of institutional and critical trends that seem to raise doubts about the viability of painting to contemporary artistic practice. Her recent site-specific installation of photography collages on a commercial scale at Lawndale Art Center highlights that point.

Eifler is finding her identity as an artist who, although still early in her (third) career, has mastered the use of color and is making art at an advanced level of maturity. Evidenced by the artist catalogs in her studio, she is in a formal dialogue with Marilyn Minter and is a successor to Tom Wesselman. While trying to offer the viewer something you haven’t seen before, which can be hard to do in painting, she is committed to her practice. Eifler consistently creates work that is pleasing to look at and holds your interest. She is doing it with authenticity, flair and integrity of purpose.

Jane Eifler finished her graduate degree in painting at UofH in 2008 and has a Bachelor’s degree in studio art from University of Texas at Austin. Her solo show in the Gracie Cavner Gallery at Lawndale was in 2012 and since graduating, she has exhibited at Spring Street Studios, McMurtrey Gallery, McClain Gallery (a 2012 group show curated by Aaron Parazette), Art League Houston, and nationally at the Hillyer Art Space in Washington, D.C. (a 2015 juried group show) and at the University of Arizona Museum of Art.

April 9 - April 23, 2016

University of Houston, Photography and Digital Media, Senior Thesis Exhibition featuring: Amer Alnasrawi, Jacqueline Andrade, André Brooks, Velma Cariaga, Taylor Cox, Teresa Dunham, Orlando Flores, Tere Garcia, Victoria Paige Gonzales, Ángel Lartigue, Scott Martin, Shannon McDonnell, Ashley Merritt, Sidney Mori, Lizette Belen Soto, Andi Valentine, and Stephanie Williams.

Essay by Allison Pappas

In today's world, identity is understood as a multiplicity of social roles that morph and are discarded, encompassing physical, psychological, sociological, and philosophical selves. We acknowledge different facets of identity - internal and external constructions, both cultural and individual - and believe that the true, full self develops somewhere in the balance of these opposites, shaped by every encounter and experience we have from birth to death. From its earliest days, photography has been taken as a matrix for the exploration of composite or performative identity, mapping out the tension between surface presentation and underlying self in the relationship between artist and subject. In the nineteenth century, photography was often called the democratic medium for enabling people of all classes the power of self-presentation that the high cost of painting has make prohibitive. Today the medium is granted a greater degree of agency in the exploration or formation of identity. The photograph not only allows the presentation of self, it aids in the discovery of self.

The artists in this exhibition explore the nature of identity through the varied lens of photography. Some allude to the complexity of assuming identity can be understood at a visible, surface level, by giving viewers just enough characteristics of the subject's life to infer their own narratives, acknowledging that each will come away with different conceptions of the subject. Others incorporate themselves into this dynamic, inviting viewers into their own lives and environments. Some of the artists employ photography to explore their personal relationships with social constructions such as race and gender, testing isolated imagery against normative cultural expectations. Others focus on the more introspective side of identity construction, communicating emotional or ideological perspectives to illuminate their subjective experiences of the world. Each uses photography to uncover the manifold relationships between artist, subject, and viewer, forming a dialogue between individuality and social constructions.

February 27 - March 26, 2016

A group show, curated by Tudor Mitroi, featuring works by Ed Blackburn, Vincent Falsetta, Annette Lawrence and Tudor Mitroi.

Essay by Volker Eisele

This exhibition is about the elusiveness of time and our frantic efforts to pin it down. “Time is an illusion” is an often-heard trope and the modern sciences are on the verge of confirming it.

Although the orderly passage of time may be a bedrock assumption of our very existence - this may be true only in Newton’s clockwork universe - neatly divided into past, present and future. After Newton came space-time where time fluctuated relative to the speed of space travel. In the quantum world time exists in the present only. If anyone can imagine this new time reality, it would be akin to a field or realm that is spread out across the universe and interconnects with everything.

Against this backdrop of time as wobbly and soft as one of Dali’s watches, human activity in general and the artists in this exhibition in particular have tried to impose order and define time in line with our intuitive expectations.

We can look to the Mayans of the classical period as one of the great chroniclers of time. They carved magnificent stelae (stone slabs) out of limestone and erected them as monuments to celebrate the beginning and the end of a new time cycle, usually the 20-year “katun” cycle.  One side depicted the king in his elaborate vestments and the other side bore hieroglyphic inscriptions chronicling the rituals and exploits associated with the king’s rule.

A number of contemporary artists have dedicated their life’s work to record time and to create an awareness of time – the trajectory of time towards infinity. Two artists stand out: On Kawara and Roman Opalka.

On Kawara is known for his date paintings and postcard series, but his most famous work is the “Million Years Series”. Performed at the Documenta 11 in 2002 (where I was lucky enough to be in attendance) it consists of reading aloud each year of the million years preceding the date of this artwork’s conception and each year of the million years following it into the future. The repetitive recitations of year after year of this immense time scale felt like incantations akin to Gregorian chants or Buddhist prayer mantras, clearly veering into the spiritual realm.

In 1965 Roman Opalka started painting consecutive numbers from 1 to infinity on a daily basis. He painted these numbers in white on a black canvas always of the same size then, over time, he gradually added more white to the background until he was painting white on white. He continued this patterned ritual through 233 canvases over more than forty years. When in his studio he used the canvas, when travelling he drew his numbers with ink on paper. When he died in 2011 his final number was 5,607,249.

Annette Lawrence has deep roots in Houston ever since she was a core fellow at the Glassell School of Art in 1994. Lawrence has always been interested in periodic information relating to cycles, rhythms or phases, but she explores them not following a rigid methodology, yet according to her own intuition and creative agency. She recently finished a “magnum opus” where she created 12 cyclical graphite drawings based on digitized and coded journal notes about her personal life and activities representing the last 25 years.

In his own way of recording, Vince Falsetta created an expansive work that consists of index cards full of notes regarding the composition of his abstract painting such as sketches, formulas or color trials and also intimate musings relating to his life as an artist. His cards are no ordinary index cards as they are crafted from archival paper to assure permanence (learning from the Mayans?). He started in the 1980s and each painting creates from 2 to 10 cards ordering his ideas and concepts like a visual mantra.

In his new work Ed Blackburn, the great visual storyteller, mines mostly political events as seen through media spin for mythic presences. And contemporary politics provide some fascinating reenactments of the ancient tales of power, greed and betrayal. These events are Blackburn’s marker of times, however fleeting and soon to be forgotten.

Tudor Mitroi's most recent drawings start out with no particular formal concept in mind, but as Paul Klee would say he lets his "line go on a walk". An adventurous walk - and soon we see textures and structures emerge, some resembling landscapes or aerial maps. He is very connected to time in the way he marks each container of paint that he mixes and each thin layer of tempera that he applies to the canvas: all are dated.

Great art has always been thought of as transcending ordinary time and to be “eternal and immutable” as Baudelaire wrote. And now the cutting edge sciences postulate time to be a continuous present. Is the confluence of art and science near?

January 9 - February 6, 2016

An exhibition of selected artworks in various media made by Michael Golden over the past 20 years.

Essay by Volker Eisele

First proposed by Pythagoras, the “music of the spheres” is a philosophical and mathematical concept that regards mathematical proportions in the movements of Sun, Moon and the planets as a form of music. Just as musical notes are connected by an identifiable pattern of proportions, so are the movements of the celestial bodies. They are all thought to emit their own unique hum or orbital resonance based on their orbital revolutions and to express qualities or “tones” of energy which manifest in numbers, shapes and sounds.

The existence of fundamental “harmonic structures” was thought to be the key to understand the known universe and to experience music and by extension all art forms as pleasing sensations. Michael Golden’s work is steeped in this 2500+ years old tradition and he elegantly weaves his experiences of nature into a mathematical matrix, sometimes referred to as “sacred geometry”.

“Sacred geometry” has its roots in the recognition of patterns found in nature and its mathematical principles at work. Prime examples are the logarithmic spiral of the chambered Nautilus and the hexagonal storage cells of the honeybee. One of the most common shapes in nature is the circle and all other geometric shapes can be derived from it. These geometric ratios and figures were often employed in the design of architectural structures such as the pyramids, Greek temples, medieval cathedrals or fortifications based on mandalas.

Besides these cultural and metaphysical influences on Golden’s work, there is a fascinating personal medical history that shapes his perception of reality. Diagnosed with a blind right eye from birth, he has no depth perception and sees the world flat and two-dimensional. Also, diagnosed with AIDS early on in his life he faced an uncertain future accentuated by the death of many of his friends. He went through open heart surgery some time ago and this past May he had relatively minor sinus surgery. There he suffered cardiac arrest twice on the operating room table for no discernible reasons, but he fortunately was successfully resuscitated.

Shaped by these deeply emotional events and by his love and entanglement with nature, Golden explores the primordial question: “what constitutes life?” or  “what makes a life?” as he puts it. This is the one theme that is always there in his work. It is embedded in every piece, be it physical, spiritual, emotional or intellectual.

This artist/naturalist is fond of observations that relate to the life cycles of nature: a tortoise in India was said to have lived 250 + years, longer than any other known animal on earth. Once he saw a luna moth on his window screen and he found out that they only lived 3 days and they spent those 3 days having sex to procreate.

Golden has developed an entire canon of images that codify and articulate his emotions and visions. Some of the more important and recurring ones are funnels, which channel chaos into order and keys as symbols of hope and memories. The amaryllis is a phallic shape in its early development and when in full bloom representing femininity; snakes shedding their skin representing a renewal of life and life cycles. The use of Braille with its raised texture and ephemeral pigments is more complex and can be seen as a symbol of fragility, which may be related to the precariousness of his monocular state.

And then there are the birds. Growing up the artist had a homemade easel nailed to a branch high up in a backyard tree and he sat up there for hours drawing birds. Most every bird is a self-portrait. In most cultures birds are the messengers between earth and the heavens.

Michael Golden’s images are metaphors of the reality he experiences. Even in his right blind eye he “sees” movements, energy and vibrations (by a neuro-physiological phenomenon called “blindsight”). His work powerfully blends nature, science and geometric design. This geometric design concept based on “sacred geometry” provides a fundamental ordering principle, a sort of “world matrix “ where his birds and other species of the natural world can live and exist in a two dimensional world.

Having collapsed three-dimensionality into a two-dimensional topology, this artist re-creates an alternate vision of his own convictions and observations. (It also resembles a naturalist’s view of nature as an archival preservation project.) The idea of a “flatland universe” whereby the cosmos is only a two-dimensional entity (plus time) is currently the subject of serious scientific inquiry in order to explain gravity. 

Having tapped into issues of “Physics at the Limit” (the subject of the current issue of the Scientific American), maybe Michael Golden’s creative intuition can truly transcend ordinary reality and he can hear the “music of the spheres” as Pythagoras once did.

December 5, 2015 - January 2, 2016

A group show featuring the works of Fariba Abedin, Adela Andea, Soledad Arias and Lorraine Tady

Essay by Volker Eisele

The title “The Weight of Light” has been borrowed from a painting by the Italian painter Francesco Clemente and refers to the celebration of light as the giver of life in prehistoric cults. Similarly, the idea of light as the source of biological existence is part of most creation myths and many philosophical systems.

The visible light spectrum is quite dramatic and holds all the colors that humans can see; a beam of white light is made up of all the colors. Visible light is composed of photons, which are the most abundant particles in the universe.  These weight-less particles have the ability to form a stream or wave-like pattern that makes up the wavelengths of the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Contrast of hue, in painting, enables the painter to establish the interplay of luminous forces. Black and white are the artist’s strongest tools to express darkness and light, but with the advancement in harnessing different light particles, neon and LED lights are new and exciting instruments.

This exhibition explores and juxtaposes the visual parameters of light as a physical presence and as a symbolic conjecture.

Soledad Arias’ work has been exhibited extensively in museums throughout the US and South America. Her wall based neon sculptures engage the viewer with mostly trivial, yet emotionally charged words like “white lies” or “like you i forgot”. The impact of the brilliant luminescence and the halo effect of the neon writing potentially transforms the immanence and perception of these phrases.

Adela Andea has dazzled many visitors of her numerous exhibitions throughout Texas with her kinetic sculptures. Made from consumer electronics, fiber optics, neon, LED or mirrors she creates luminous environments that pulsate and radiate beyond their sculptural space giving the viewer a full sensory experience.

Fariba Abedin’s paintings dissect light into its prismatic components. She then re-configures these component colors into sometimes large-scale compositions. Reminiscent of early Bauhaus concepts, especially ideas by Johannes Itten in his book “The Art of Color”, Abedin goes beyond the original Bauhaus premises and articulates novel geometric color fields of her own provenance.

“The language of line propels the work,” states Lorraine Tady describing her latest works consisting of immense drawings. Tady lets her adventurous line roam the picture plane, drawing diagrams, bundles of rays or geometric structures filled in with cobalt blue; drawings that use such precision through formal examination of structure. These mechanical-like systems then float on a sea of blinding white light.

October 17 - November 21, 2015

A 20-year retrospective featuring a cross-section of Ed Blackburn's work, including pieces he will create along the duration of the show.

Write up:

Rudolph Blume Fine Art / ArtScan Gallery announces the opening of "Ed BLackburn: All The New That's Fit to Draw." The exhibition will present a cross-section of Blackburn's work from the past twenty years in a variety of media. Besides his established oeuvre, a series of pictorial commentary on current events will be deliverd to the gallery on a regular basis during the run of the show. This "on time delivery" mode of pictorial comments on world news will actualize the news and will give a subjective spin on "objective" news.

Ed Blackburn received a B.F.A. from University of Texas, Austin, in 1962 and an M.A. from the University of California in Berkeley in 1965. Born in Amarillo, Texas, in 1940, Blackburn is primarily considered a painter, but has worked as a printmaker, writer, poet, musician, and filmmaker. His work can be linked to art historical movements such as Photorealism and Pop Art, but overall defies categorization.

The exhibition is a general overview of Blackburn's work from 1995-present and includes both major paintings and works on paper as well as the time-based immediate works. The exhibition includes political commentary, work that asks the viewer to consider current contemporary art forms intertwined with art-historical subject matter, such as work from the Eddie Leon series. Blackburn has had numerous solo exhibitions throughout his career and his work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Dallas Museum of Art, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, the Old Jail Art Center in Albany, Texas; San Antonio Museum of Art and many others. He often did cooperative projects with Vernon Fisher and Jim Malone. He was the recipient of two separate National Endowments for the Arts Grants for painting in 1977-1978 and in 1989-1990, and in 2010 he was awarded the Distinguished Texas Artist Award. He currently teaches at University of North Texas in Denton.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated brochure with an essay by esteemed contemporary art critic Jeff Kelley.

Each link will take you to the specific exhibition's page on our old website:

Jane Honovich - September 19 - October 10, 2015

Paintings and Sculptures - June 20 - July 25, 2015

Texas Abstract - April 18 - May 16, 2015

Irony and Ambiguity - March 7 - April 11, 2015

Eating Paint - January 24 - February 28, 2015

Ultra Black - November 15, 2014 - January 3, 2015

Chemtrail

Botany of Desire

On Walden Pond

The Realist Impulse

German Printmakers - part of Print Houston 2013

Myths

Prime

Entangled