Art League Houston announces the selection 39 artworks by 30 artists for the 2nd annual Gambol, its juried exhibition of work by Texas artists. Mary McCleary, 2011 Texas Artist of the Year, curated the main gallery exhibition of paintings, sculptures, drawings and mixed media from the more than 400 submitted artworks. On Friday, December 2nd at 7 PM at the Art League, one artwork will be named by McCleary as the 2011 Gambol for Visual Art.

In a change from 2010, the Art League will display one artwork by each of the 187 Art League members who submitted to the Gambol. The works will be presented in tightly packed, salon-style on the walls of the project gallery, hallways and studios. The curated exhibition of finalists and the salon-style display will be open, free to the public, between December 2 - 30, 2011.

Presenting works by hundreds of artist members and curating a selective exhibition by renowned artist and educator Mary McCleary matches our goal of broad participation while identifying artistic excellence. Through the Gambol and all our programs, the Art League advocates for the expansion of the number of people who have decided to be visual artists as a profession or a passion. As the new Executive Director Glenn Weiss has said: "There is no such thing as too many artists.

Artworks by the following artists are finalists for the 2011 Gambol for Visual Art with its $1,000 cash prize and are exhibited in the main Art League gallery.

Kelly Alison, Darwin Arevalo, Trudy Askew, Daniel Brents, Vachu Chilakamarri, Ruben Coy, Karon Davis, Sue Donaldson, Fran Fondren, Raul Gonzalez, Caroline Graham, John Grisaffi, Claude Habayeb, Maria Hughes, Ken Mazzu, Nicola Mosley, Anita Nelson, Preetika Rajgariah, Fernando Ramirez, Carrie Reeder, John Robertson, Diana Rodriguez, Magid Salmi, Kay Sarver, Emily Sloan, Damon Thomas, Sherry Tseng Hill, Patrick Turk, Nina Wickman, Robertson Wiley

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Art League Houston is pleased to announce an open call for Gambol, its second annual 2011 Juried Member Exhibition.

Gambol is a non-thematic, juried exhibition, which seeks innovative and contemporary artwork from artists who are Art League Houston members. The work will be juried by acclaimed Texas artist Mary McCleary, who was the recipient of Art League Houston's 2011 Texas Artist of the Year award. Selected works will be featured in an exhibition in both gallery spaces at Art league. Three cash prizes will be awarded and announced on opening night.

PRIZES

FIRST place: $1000 :: SECOND place: $ 500 :: THIRD place: $ 250

EXHIBITION DATES

Opening Reception: Friday, December 2, 6 8 p.m. Juror talk at 7 p.m.
Exhibition on view: December 2 December 31, 2011

VIP Preview Party - Thursday, October 20, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Art League Houston is honored to be a cultural partner with the TX Contemporary Art Fair and excited to present an innovative installation by Houston-based artist Patrick Turk, which explores the phenomenon of time travel through a series of six interactive light sculptures that combine three-dimensional collage with electronic mechanisms, LED technology, and futuristic design.

The TX Contemporary Art Fair features presentations from sixty galleries showcasing contemporary work from the most innovative, progressive and driven artists from around the world, and opens Thursday, October 20 to Sunday, October 23 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Patrick Turk's light sculptures relate to a significant time in history; ranging from the evolution of the dinosaurs to the adventures of the Wild Wild West, and alternative realities of the near and far future. The collages incorporate multiple layers of pop culture imagery, which have been meticulously hand carved from various picture books such as children's comics, science-fiction novels, encyclopedias, history books and scientific diagrams, to create a multi-dimensional surface across which time appears to be smeared.

Turk's pain-staking process, combined with a variety of circular viewing portals containing diverse magnification strengths, allows the viewer to defy the rules of modern-day physics and experience the extraordinary sensation of traveling through time.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Patrick Turk is a self-trained, Houston-based artist from Galveston, Texas. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Houston in non-profit arts organizations and commercial galleries including Art League Houston (2011), Lawndale Art Center (2011), Rudolph/Projects/Art Scan (2009), Art Storm (2008), as well as galleries in Galveston, Texas, Los Angeles and California. Patrick's works are in numerous private and corporate collections and have been featured in the Houston Chronicle, 29-95, and on The Front Row radio series, and CultureMap. His high profile commissions include the 2009 Houston Art Car Parade Poster, as well as the Philokalia album cover for the band Golden Cities. 

Art League Houston is proud to announce the 2011 Texas Artist of the Year exhibition, Mary McCleary: A Survey 1996 - 2011, which brings together, for the first time, an incredible selection of some twenty-seven collage works that span over a fifteen year period of the artist's prolific and exceptional career. The exhibition will be displayed throughout both gallery spaces at Art League Houston. The opening reception is Friday, September 9 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

"Art League Houston's tradition of honoring outstanding Texas artists is a commitment of which I am most proud," says ALH Executive Director Vanessa Wodehouse. "The 2011 Texas Artist of the Year, Mary McCleary, is long-deserving of this title. Her work is brilliantly complex and executed in an extraordinary manner."

A printmaker throughout school, Mary McCleary began making collages in 1978. Over time her work evolved from abstract collages onto which she began gluing three dimensional items, to the multi-layered, extremely complex and detailed figurative work that we now recognize as a style that is Mary's and Mary's alone. Using all matters of things (leather, lint, small plastic toys, glass, pencils, nails, sticks and mirrors), chosen not only for their texture and color, but also for their symbolic import, Mary attaches these items on heavy paper, as she says, "much in the way a painter builds layer upon layer of paint on canvas... My aim is that the obsessive images that result... convey an intensity which the viewer finds compelling... Drawing my subject matter from history and literature, I like the irony of using materials that are often trivial, foolish, and temporal to express ideas of what is significant, timeless, and transcendent."

Wayne Roosa, a professor of art at Bethel University in St. Paul, says this about Mary's work:

There is a fullness of vision in Mary McCleary's art. It is a particular and peculiar kind of fullness, one that is engorged with the fecundity of earth and the senses, and yet simultaneously inhabited by a silent and spiritual presence hovering, - both immanent and transcendent - amidst all that is sensuous and of the earth. Indeed, the viewer's experience of her work is one of being struck and mesmerized by so many ingredients that the sumptuous fabric of these collages dazzles and then seduces. (Image: A Journal of Art and Religion, Issue 23)

ABOUT MARY McCLEARY

Mary McCleary was born in Houston in 1951, and now lives in Nacogdoches, Texas. She is Regent's Professor of Art Emeritus at Stephen F. Austin State University, where she taught from 1975 to 2005.

She received her B.F.A., cum laude in printmaking/drawing at Texas Christian University and her M.F.A. in graphics from the University of Oklahoma. Since 1970 she has participated in over 250 solo and group exhibits in museums and galleries in 24 states, as well as Mexico and Russia. These venues include the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., MOBIA (Museum of Biblical Art) in New York City, the Grey Gallery at NYU, the Parrish Museum in New York, the Boston Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, the Blaffer Gallery at U. of Houston, the Galveston Arts Center, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. She is also a recipient of a Mid-American Arts Alliance/National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship.

Her work has been regularly reviewed or featured in the Houston Post, Houston Chronicle, Austin American Statesman, Dallas Morning News, and other Texas newspapers, as well as national publications that include Art in America, Art News, Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, Art Papers, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Art Week, Artspace, Texas Homes, New American Paintings, and Contemporanea International Arts Magazine.

McCleary's work is in many public collections, including those of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas; the El Paso Museum of Art; the San Antonio Museum of Art; and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont. She is represented by Moody Gallery in Houston. McCleary's work will be featured in "An Act of Faith: The Art of Mary McCleary" at the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas, January 20 - April 16, 2011.

ABOUT TEXAS ARTIST OF THE YEAR

In 1983, Art League Houston created the Texas Artist of the Year award as a dynamic annual project documenting Texas art history. ALH was the first organization in the state to develop the award. To date, twenty-eight artists have been honored. Past recipients include Joseph Havel, Dick Wray, Richard Stout, Dixie Friend Gay, Al Souza, Luis Jimenez, Lucas Johnson, Sharon Kopriva, Bert L. Long, Jr., Jess Moroles, Dr. John Biggers, and Dorothy Hood, among others. 

Art League Houston is delighted to announce an exhibition of new works on paper by Houston-based artist Catherine Colangelo. The opening reception is Friday, July 15 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 7:00 p.m. Catherine Colangelo is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award funded by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Prepare to set your sails for an exciting seafaring adventure. Fleet for Abby presents an enchanting installation of sixteen beautifully crafted gouache paintings of sail boats on Japanese Okawara paper, inspired by the remarkable story of sixteen-year-old Abby Sunderlands attempt to become the youngest person ever to sail solo around the world. The works in this exhibition explore the intrinsic connections between themes of friendship, youthful adventure and childhood imagination.

Captivated by Abbys adventurous spirit but also concerned for the young sailors safety, Colangelo began to develop a fantastical fleet of sixteen sail boats that would accompany Abby and her boat Wild Eyes on their long and dangerous journey, providing them with the companionship and protection needed to live out their dream. Fleet for Abby transforms the gallery into an imaginary ocean, where a fairytale-like fleet of brightly colored, intricately patterned and delicately hand-painted sail boat paintings, playfully escorts a painting of Abbys boat Wild Eyes across the gallery walls. Each sail-boat is totally unique, and named after an individual friend from Colangelos childhood, which references the rich historical tradition of naming ships after women, as well as honors the important friendships that accompany us on our own personal adventures.

About Catherine Colangelo

Catherine Colangelo is a Houston-based artist, who received a BFA in Painting from The Cooper Union in New York. Colangelos work was included in the Texas Biennial in both 2009 and 2011 and is included The Drawing Centers Viewing Program in New York. She has received Houston Art Alliance Individual Artist Grant Awards in both 2007 and 2011. Colangelo is inspired by outsider art; in particular the obsessive patterning and fantastical creatures that commonly appear in the art of the insane, folk art and various types of illuminated manuscripts.

Art League Houston is delighted to present Indigenous Genius, a selection of artistic and scientific artifacts from the private collection of pioneering Ohio-based collector R.W. Northcutt, which chronicles the obscure yet poetic life of three particular wood-working animals the beaver, the woodpecker and the termite and explores the deep-rooted connections between animal and human methodologies. These works from ancient and contemporary periods, ranging from the late 19 century to near present times, retrace the fascinating yet often overlooked history of Animaliana [latin animalia, animal + latin ana, sayings, writings, anecdotes, facts, or objects of]. The opening reception is Friday, July 15 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Indigenous Genius celebrates the remarkable diversity and extraordinary accomplishments of animal builders, as well as the continuity of their rich cultural traditions. The objects in this collection explore themes of building and manufacture, and highlight the incredible similarities found between animal and human wood-working construction techniques.

The R.W. Northcutt Collection features a quirky selection of objects, which include delicately crafted sculptures, dioramas, drawings and audio that portray remarkable accounts of animal artistry and ingenuity. Artifacts include a pair of Dutch Style shoes created by the combined efforts of woodpeckers and termites, beaver-inspired paraphernalia from the Fraternal Organization of Original Woodworkers, and a diorama illustrating a 19 century American Luddite movement amongst the beaver population of St. Louis, MO.

Sourced from a variety of museums, antique dealers, auctions, and flea markets, Northcutts collection is driven by a life-long interest in the social analogs between animals and the natural world, in particular the making connections between man and animal. Furthermore, the collection is inspired by Northcutts passion for carpentry, and features a selection of artifacts that pay homage to the rich historical tradition of tradesmen who honor wood-working animals by incorporating animal-borne techniques, names, and images into their tools, icons, and decorations.

Transforming the gallery into a small scale version of a natural history museum, Indigenous Genius provides the viewer with an eclectic range of rare and significant artifacts that not only references the intertwining zoological and ethnological themes within social history, philosophy, labor movements, construction and social revolution, but also preserves and celebrates the exceptionally brilliant and resilient engineering skills of the natural world.

About R.W. Northcutt

Born in Victoria, Texas, R.W. Northcutt developed an interest in both animal behavior and construction science at an early age. He spent his youth building stables, mending fences, and trying to green-break horses. He went on to develop his aesthetic side by earning a Bachelors of Fine Art in Painting and a Masters of Fine art in Sculpture. He began accumulating Animaliana as a graduate student in Chicago and began to organize and exhibit his vast collection in 2003. He is currently a professor of Sculpture at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where he teaches woodworking, welding, carving, and anthropo-natural methods of sculpture.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce Voodoo Pop, an exciting collaborative exhibition by self taught Houston artist Mary Hayslip and Texas born New York based artist Trey Speegle, which chronicles and celebrates the artists thirty years of friendship and art through an innovative installation of sculpture, photography, printmaking, painting, collage, textile and found art. The opening reception is Friday, May 13, from 6:00 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 7:00 p.m.

Mary Hayslip and Trey Speegle have been friends for over thirty years, initially meeting on the dance floor of what is now the Menils Dan Flavin Installation in Richmond Hall. Although Trey moved to New York in 1980, their admiration for each others creativity only grew and they continued to visit one another frequently; trading ideas, collecting each others work and encouraging each new phase of their ever-expanding interests and obsessions.

Voodoo Pop is a retrospective-style exhibition revealing three decades of Hayslips and Speegles dynamic friendship and features a selection of museum style display cases containing mini collections of each others artwork, personal correspondences, photos and individual artworks, as well as a series of wall dependant limited edition prints and one of kind sculptures. These works function as rich historical artifacts that not only describe the prolific history of Hayslip and Speegles friendship, but also highlight the intrinsic connections between friendship and art.

About Mary Hayslip

About Trey Speegle

A unique mix of commercial and fine art has characterized Trey Speegle's diverse career. Using one of the world's largest collections of vintage paint-by-number paintings as source material, Speegle draws inspiration from them as a "visual vocabulary."

Speegle explores themes of hope, love, longing, and loss by using affirmations, double entrendre, and word play that resonate with a broad Pop appeal.

"Voodoo Pop" is also the thirtieth anniversary of his first solo show in Houston entitled "RePop," which was an early Warholian take on Houston society and culture. Speegles 2011 solo exhibition in New York at Benrimon Contemporary, It's Not About You," featured "The RePop Shop" with items he originally created for a collaboration with Anthropologie Home, as well as limited edition items created for the show. A selection of these items will be exhibited and available at Art League Houston.

In 2009, Speegle was commissioned by Stella McCartney to create a backdrop for her runway show in Paris and a large -scale reproduction of the painting were shown in McCartneys store windows in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Beijing in the spring of 2010.

Trey lives and works in New York's Meatpacking District and in a converted barn in the Catskill Mountains upstate.

PHOTO: Portrait of Trey Speegle and Mary Hayslip (East Village, New York City circa 1983) by Kevin Hatt

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Art League Houston is delighted to announce Darkfire, an exciting collaborative exhibition by Canadian artist Sean Caulfield and Canadian writer Jonathan Hart (typography and design by Sue Colberg), which features a series of intaglio prints and poems inspired by passages of text from Dantes epic poem The Divine Comedy describing bodies and environments in transformation. The opening reception is Friday, May 13 from 6:00 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Darkfire presents a series of twenty wall dependant intaglio with ten corresponding poems, which explore themes of technological change, biological decay, mutation and metamorphosis. The works depict a disintegrating world of darkness, populated with anthropomorphic-looking machines that appear man-made in one light and organic in another, reflecting the constantly changing biological and technological environments in our everyday lives.

Seductive yet menacing, and familiar yet strange, Caulfields imagery fluctuates between themes of hope and fear. Mysterious forms are plunged into rich landscapes of black and grey while others emerge from silent pools of water, wounded and leaking, spewing tentacles of fire into unseen landscapes.

By tapping into society's fear of an apocalyptic future, Caulfield and Hart develop a provocative aesthetic, which encourages the viewer to reflect upon changes in the environment. Darkfire not only celebrates the powerful relationship between imagery and language, but also embraces the transcendental qualities that continue to exist within Dantes compelling literature.

About Sean Caulfield

Sean Caulfield is a Professor in the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, and has exhibited his prints, drawings and book works extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan. Recent exhibitions include: Perceptions of Promise, Glenbow Museum, Return to the Surface, Davidson Gallery, Seattle, WA, USA, Imagining Science, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta; among others.

Caulfield has received numerous grants and awards for his work including: Triennial Prize at the 2nd Bangkok Triennial International Print and Drawing Exhibition, Bangkok, Thailand; SSHRC Fine Arts Creation Grant; Canada Council Travel Grant; and a Visual Arts Fellowship, Illinois Arts Council, Illinois, USA. Caulfields work is in various public and private collections including: Houghton Library, Harvard University, USA, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA, among others.

About Jonathan Hart

Jonathan Hart teaches at the University of Alberta and has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Toronto, Cambridge, Princeton, the Sorbonne Nouvelle and elsewhere.   His scholarly books include Empires and Colonies (2008); Shakespeare: Poetry, History, and Culture (2009); Shakespeare and His Contemporaries (2011) and Literature, Theory, History (forthcoming). His most recent books of poetry are Dreamwork (2010) and Musing (2011).

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Art League Houston is excited to invite the public to our 2011 Spring Sale + Benefit: Marty, a Montrose art party, Friday, April 29, from 6:00 - 9:00 PM. This event features an exciting selection of artwork for sale by ALH Healing Art students as well as ALH Studio School students in the main and project galleries.



Boogie along with the DJ's disco tunes while delighting in savory treats by Butter & Co., delicious desserts courtesy of Whole Foods, and tasty beverages from Saint Arnold Brewing Company. Entry to the benefit is free and open to the public.

The exhibition will be on view from April 29 to May 6. A portion of artwork and concession proceeds will help support Art League Houston's Healing Art program, which provides free art instruction and supplies to adults living with serious illness and physical disabilities. Please join us in supporting this unique and valuable program, while enjoying the opportunity to purchase amazing artwork by amazing artists at affordable prices!

About Art League Houston's Healing Art Program: In 1990, Art League Houston (ALH) founded its free Healing Art program for adults living with HIV+/AIDS. In 1995, ALH provided additional Healing Art classes to serve adults living with other severe illnesses including cancer, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and physical disabilities. The ALH Healing Art program is the only one of its kind for adults in Houston, outside of hospital or clinical settings. ALH Healing Art classes are offered free of charge. ALH teaching artists Kermit Eisenhut and Emily Sloan instruct Healing Art students in painting, collage, drawing, and mixed media.  In addition, ALH provides Healing Art students with opportunities to exhibit and sell their art each year.



About the Art League School: Through the Art League School, ALH offers a wide array of affordable classes and workshops for adults taught by many of Houston's outstanding visual artists. The Art League School offers courses in oil, acrylic, and watercolor painting, classical portrait, figure, abstract, and landscape painting, drawing fundamentals, figure drawing, jewelry making, printmaking, assemblage, and principles of design.

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Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Chicom-Xochtlis Children, which is curated by Beth Secor and features the work of Humberto Saenz, Daniel Anguilu, Arielle Masson and Roberto Castillo. The opening reception is March 11, 2011 from 6:00 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 7:00 p.m.

Chicome-Xochtlis Children presents a group exhibition of artists whose innovative works in painting, photography and printmaking explore themes of identity, tradition and social justice through aspects of their own Hispanic heritage. Chicome-Xochtli refers to the Gulf Coast Nahuas name for Xochipilli, the Aztec god of agriculture and the arts. (The Nahua were an indigenous people of Mexico, thought to have originated in what is now the Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico, later migrating to the Gulf Coast and Central Mexico). Secor chose the title of the exhibition, as it seemed fitting in that all four artists in this exhibition have cultural connections to Mexico and now live in the Gulf Coasts largest city, Houston, Texas.

Humberto Saenz is a printmaker, whose work "aims to empower the viewer with knowledge about immigration issues, which have affected and segregated Mexican immigrant communities. Through his symbolic use of the piata, which he uses as a signifier of Mexican immigrants and culture, Saenz depicts "the objectification of minorities, [and] the loss of culture, identity, and division of disenfranchised immigrant communities.

Daniel Anguilus aerosol and acrylic paintings rise far above the typical graffiti style in that they are highly influenced by his study of the pre-colonial art and cultures of Asia, Africa, and Central America and his own Mexican Heritage. Anguilu "strongly believes in freedom of expression and the inherent need to use this freedom in the decoration of public spaces.

Arielle Massons gouache paintings reflect her fascination of the cultural memories left on the walls of cities, what she refers to as "a sort of architectural and cultural palimpsest, where inscriptions on the walls fade away, and are covered with a new layer of fresh colors, [and where] one thing remains the same: the long lasting human impulse to use color. And finally, Roberto Castillos photographs "explore the duality in human beings, and the dichotomy that "has manifested itself through [his] experience as a soldier and an Indian.

About the Curator

Beth Secor is an artist and writer who was born in Houston, grew up in Wharton, and returned to Houston where she has pretty much lived for over thirty years, barring a short lived and ill advised move to Baltimore in the early 21^st century. Her connection to Mexico is through her grandfather, who although Scotch, Irish and Welsh by ancestry spent his first four years in Chihuahua, Mexico with his alleged father who helped build the Copper Canyon Railroad that runs from Chihuahua in the North to Topolobampo on Mexico's west coast.

Art League Houston is excited to announce The Time Travel Research Institute Presents:, an installation of light sculpture and collage by Houston based and self-taught artist Patrick Turk.  The opening reception is Friday, March 11, 2011 from 6:00 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Prepare to enter the surreal and extraordinary research laboratory of artist and quasi-scientist Patrick Turk, whose recent studies in quantum mechanics and atomic sciences have generated an interactive light installation that playfully explores the phenomenon of time travel through a series of sculptural works that combine three-dimensional collage with electronic mechanisms, LED technology and futuristic design.  

The exhibition includes a series of six wall dependant sculptures that are installed around a mysterious hexagonal structure in the center of the gallery and include circular viewing portals of different sizes and magnification strengths, which distort the time-space manifold and create microcosmic wormhole matrices that allow the viewer to literally travel through time. 

Each light sculpture contains a complex three dimensional collage that relates to a significant time in history, ranging from the evolution of the dinosaurs to the adventures of the Wild Wild West and alternative realities of the near and far future. The collages incorporate multiple layers of pop culture imagery which have been meticulously hand carved from various picture books such as children's comics, science-fiction novels, encyclopedias, history books and scientific diagrams and produce a multidimensional surface, across which, time has literally been smeared. 

The Time Travel Research Institute Presents: explores the paradoxical relationship between the dynamic nature of science and the enigmatic qualities of art, creating an interactive environment that is both academically believable as well as aesthetically engaging.

About the Artist

Patrick Turk is a self-trained Houston-based artist from Galveston, Texas.  His works have been exhibited throughout Houston in galleries including Art Storm, Lawndale Art Center and Rudolph/Projects/Art Scan as well as galleries in Galveston, Texas and Los Angeles, California.  His works have been published several times in Mung Being Magazine and include high profile commissions for the 2009 Houston Art Car Parade Poster as well as the Philokalia album cover by Golden Cities.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Mock One, a major installation by New York-based artist Benjamin Entner, May 14 through June 25, 2010 in the Main Gallery of Art League Houston.  Known for works that explore play and youthful imagination, Entner has built a life size model airplane skeleton, filling the Main Gallery in its entirety. 

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of NAP (Napping Affects Performance), by Emily Sloan, May 14 through June 25, 2010 in the Front Gallery of Art League Houston.  Throughout the run of the exhibition, individuals may reserve or drop in for naptimes, and participate in a series of group/community events including "cuddle puddles, bedtime stories, and lullaby performances.

The opening reception for NAP (Napping Affects Performance) is Friday May 14, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:45.  As part of the event, mezzo-soprano Kisa Parker from the University of Houston's Moore School of Music will perform Johannes Brahms Lullaby.

NAP Performance Schedule

Friday, May 14---*Opening reception*, Kisa Parker, UH Moores School of Music, "Brahms' Lullaby" (6-9 P.M.)

Sunday, May 23---El Rincon Social, comfort and film, 2 P.M.

Saturday, June 5---Beth Secor, story time, 1:30 P.M.

Saturday, June 19---Ruby Woodward, "Lips", whistling lullabies, 1:30 P.M.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of  Wishing Well for Houston, a collaborative project by Heath Hayner, Aram Nagle, and Brian Piana, January 15 through February 26, 2010  in the Main Gallery of Art League Houston.  Originally conceived by the artists while enrolled in a Collaboration in the Arts class at the University of Houston, this much expanded and realized version of Wishing Well for Houston depicts the disparities in average median per-capita income among Houston’s super neighborhoods through a major interactive sculptural installation.

The opening reception for Wishing Well for Houston is Friday January 15, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:45.

The City of Houston is known for its diversity.  An underplayed aspect of this diversity is in the uneven distribution of wealth, which in its disparity, can be seen as one drives around the city.  At times, these geographical shifts in income are subtle and hard to perceive; while in other instances the differences are severe, as in the case when low income neighborhoods abut million dollars high rises.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Natural Recyclers, which features an earth media installation by Divya Murthy and Nicola Parente, created for the Art League patio, and its accompanying installation, Wasted Resolve, which takes place in the ALH project gallery, November 13 through December 31, 2009. Natural Recyclers, is a long-term project, and the first installation to take place in the Art League Patio since it opened to the public in 2008. The opening reception for Natural Recyclers and Wasted Resolve is Friday, November 13, 2009, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:45 p.m.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Obsession of the Essential, featuring the work of Brent Kollock, November 13 through December 31, 2009 in the Main Gallery of Art League Houston. This is Kollock’s first solo show at the Art League. His mixed media work combines the raw aesthetic of Jean Dubuffet with the obsessive spirit of Hieronymus Bosch. The opening reception for Obsession of the Essential is Friday, November 13, 2009, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Art League Houston, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, is pleased to announce the opening of The Image Altered, which takes place at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase Building in Downtown Houston, and runs from September 23 through November 19, 2009 as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. This exhibition is curated by Beth Secor, and features the work of Chuy Benitez, Jesus Galvan, Cheyenne Ramos, Y.E. Torres, and Rebecca Villarreal.

The opening reception for the exhibition is Wednesday, September 23, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase building located at 712 Main Street in downtown Houston.

The Image Altered is the first in a series of four visual art exhibitions that focus on cultural heritage month celebrations. Celebrating Diversity Through Art is a unique collaboration of JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston, which highlights established and emerging artists representative of diverse communities.

This program is supported in full by JPMorgan Chase Foundation.

There will be an artist talk with Isabelle Scurry Chapman and poetry reading by Jim Blackburn on Monday, September 21, with wine at 6:30 and reading beginning at 7:00 p.m. This event is co-hosted by Houston Audubon Society's Night Owls, a young professionals for conservation group.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Birds: A Collection of Verse and Vision with paintings by Isabelle Scurry Chapman and poems by Jim Blackburn, September 18 through October 30, 2009 in the Project Gallery of Art League Houston.  The images and poems in the exhibition are a selection of works from their forthcoming book of the same name.
 
The opening reception for Birds: A Collection of Verse and Vision is Friday, September 18, 2009, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m., with an artist talk at 6:45 p.m.
  
Additionally, there will be a poetry reading by Jim Blackburn on Monday, September 21, with wine at 6:30 and reading at 7:00 p.m.  This event is co-hosted by Houston Audubon Society's Night Owls, a young professionals for conservation group. 

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Unseen and Rediscovered, an exhibition of photographs by 2009 Texas Artist of the Year, Keith Carter, September 18 through October 30, 2009 in Art League Houston's Main Gallery.  This exhibition features previously unknown and never exhibited photographs by the artist, spanning a period of four decades (1970-2009).  
 
The opening reception for Unseen and Rediscovered is on Friday, September 18, 2009 from 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:15 p.m.  A catalogue, with essay by Clint Willour, accompanies the exhibition. 

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Visual Harassment, an exhibition of paintings by El Franco Lee II. Although small in size, the paintings of El Franco Lee II are an epic document of social and urban history that although exaggerated in the telling, never flinch in the face of truth.

The opening reception for Visual Harassment is on Friday, July 17, 2009 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Detritus, an installation of works by Angela Beloian and Jessica Moon Bernstein. Finding inspiration in a plethora of mundane discarded materials, Beloian and Bernstein re-evaluate society's notion of trash, using mass produced materials to create organic art forms.

The opening reception for Detritus is on Friday, July 17, 2009 from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. with an artist talk at 6:15 p.m.

Houston, TX (May 18, 2009) - Art League Houston is pleased to announce its annual Healing Art Summer Sale and Benefit taking place on Friday, June 26, 2009 from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. The event includes an art exhibition and sale, with proceeds benefiting the Healing Art program and its participating artists.

Now in its 18th year, Art League Houston's Healing Art program provides free art instruction, creative expression and a supportive community to adults living with serious disease and disability, including HIV/AIDS, cancer related illnesses, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and physical disabilities. The paintings created by these artists are amazing and affordable too! The annual Healing Art Summer Sale and Benefit is an exceptionally festive evening which includes an art exhibition and sale, light summer fare, drinks, music, and a raffle!

Don't miss this outstanding event and opportunity to support a program that has helped improve the lives of many individuals in our community. Be prepared to fall in love with the artists and their work and don't forget to bring your pocketbooks!!!!

Art League Houston is pleased to announce ConcealDisclose, an exhibition of paintings by Hagit Barkai and photographs by Tala Vahabzadeh, which will be on view in the ALH project space May 8 through June 19, 2009.

Both women come from the Middle East, and their works are filtered through the vantage point of personal experience. Although they work with different media, subjects, and approaches, both Vahabzadeh and Barkai deal with issues of concealment and disclosure, hence the title of the exhibition.

Houston, TX (March 23, 2009) Art League Houston is pleased to announce Vulnerable Ecologies, a site specific installation by acclaimed British sculptor Susan Stockwell. Made entirely from massive quantities of recycled computer components manipulated and transformed, Vulnerable Ecologies is Stockwell's first installation in Houston.

All of the recycled computer components used in the installation are generously provided by the Houston electronic recycling company TechnoCycle.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce its very first graffiti exhibition, The Boardroom, which features collaborative, large-scale murals by artists, WEAH, ACK!, and Raiko Nin, as well as animations by filmmaker Alex PR!MO Luster. The murals for this installation were created specifically for this exhibit, on site at Art League Houston and will be on view March 6 - April 17, 2009.

The opening reception for The Boardroom is on March 6, 2009, 8:00 - 10:00 p.m. Entertainment will be provided by the YA Crew break-dancers, and a DJ to be announced. The opening event is cosponsored by Youth Advocates, Inc.

This project is funded in part by the generosity of AndrisinAbbey, Charter Custom Homes, Rob Greenstein, Elizabeth and Stuart Lewis, The Mandy and Kyle Palmer Foundation for the Arts, Stonewall Constructors, and Susie and Steve Streller.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Repository, an exhibition of photographs and videos by Sarah Sudhoff, March 6 - April 17, 2009. Following surgery for cervical cancer in 2004, photographer Sarah Sudhoff began investigating the effects of the illness on herself and others, resulting in a series of photographs and videos that presents an unflinching account of the artist and her illness.

Alongside this exhibition, a panel discussion will be held on Saturday, March 21 from 2:30 - 4:30 pm. entitled Artists and Illness. Panelists for this discussion include: Rachel Ainsworth (School of Public Health), Dr. Patricia Eifel M.D. (professor of radiation oncology, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center), Michael Galbreth (artist and Art Guy), Lynn Ganschnietz (artist and ALH Healing Art participant), Sarah Sudhoff (artist and educator), and Sandra York (artist). This event is free and open to the public.

Art League Houston, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, is pleased to announce the opening of Gift of the Spirit, which takes place at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase Building in Downtown Houston, and runs from January 29 - February 27, 2009 as a celebration of Black History Month. This exhibition is curated by Beth Secor, and features the work of Mequitta Ahuja, Ann "Sole Sister" Johnson, El Franco Lee II, Kaneem Smith, and Dr. Clarence Talley Sr. The opening reception for the exhibition is Thursday January 29, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase building located at 712 Main Street in downtown Houston. Gift of the Spirit is the second in a series of four visual art exhibitions that focus on cultural heritage month celebrations. Art League Houston is pleased to be invited to participate in Celebrating Diversity Through Art, a unique collaboration of JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston, which highlights established and emerging artists representative of diverse communities. This program is fully supported by JPMorgan Chase.

Art League Houston is proud to host an exhibition of the Gold Key winners in the art category of the Scholastic Art & Writing Competition. The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the largest, longest-running and most prestigious recognition program of their kind in the United States. The Awards were established in 1923 by M. R. Robinson to encourage, foster and reward creativity in our nation’s classrooms. During its 83 year history, some of nation’s most celebrated writers and artists, including Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, Robert Indiana, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Maynard, Joyce Carol Oates, Phillip Pearlstein, Sylvia Plath, Robert Redford and Andy Warhol, have been recognized in this competition.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of Harris County seeks to recognize and encourage young artists and writers in public, private and home schools.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Museum of Unnatural History, a dioramic installation of new works by Elaine Bradford, on view from January 9 - February 20, 2009. Museum of Unnatural History consists of dioramic displays similar to those found in natural history museums, and which serve as "natural habitats" for the artist's fantastical crotchet covered taxidermy creatures.

Co-sponsored by Brazos Bookstore in Houston and The Feminist Press at the City University of New York

Art League Houston and Voices Breaking Boundaries are very pleased to present We the People: Writers' Voices from Iran, Palestine, and Pakistan featuring authors: Fady Joudah, Farnoosh Moshiri, Sehba Sarwar and Bapsi Sidhwa. Co-sponsors of the event are Brazos Bookstore and The Feminist Press at CUNY. This event is in conjunction with Art League Houston's exhibition We the People..., featuring artists Delilah Montoya, Orlando Lara, and Soody Sharifi, November 7 - December 27, 2008. The reading also highlights the recent Feminist Press publication, And the World Changed: Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women, edited by Muneeza Shamsie that includes works by Ms. Sidhwa and Ms. Sarwar. Copies of And the World Changed and others by these writers will be available for purchase at the event.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Tête-à-tête, an exhibition of works by artists Anila Quayyum Agha and Lisa Qualls. Both Agha and Qualls are known for work that is both multilayered in context and materials.

For the exhibition, Houstonian Lisa Qualls has created a series of drawings, mixed media works and sculptures, in which she overlays and combines text, pattern, imagery and form drawn from historical, cultural and text sources. Her work speaks of the transience of peoples and how the shifting and intermingling of populations have alte red the collective cultural identities of societies.

A native of Pakistan, Anila Quayyum Agha recently moved from Houston to Indianapolis, Indiana to teach at the Herron School of Art and Design. In her work, Agha uses textile processes, such as dyes, wax resist, and embroidery to create drawings that explore how social and gender-based issues result from the concepts constructed by history, traditions, and contemporary society

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of We the People, a multimedia photography and video installation by Delilah Montoya, Soody Sharifi, and Orlando Lara, October 31- December 27, 2008. This timely exhibition was created in order to explore the relationship of two ethnic minorities, Moslem and Hispanic Americans, to the current US political landscape, and to give voice to these Americans who are often negatively misrepresented in the media.

Art League Houston and Nameless Sound are pleased to announce a concert featuring Paul Winstanley and The Nameless Sound Ensemble, which will be presented at the Art League on Sunday, October 12, 2008 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. General admission is $10, $8 for students, and young people 18 years and younger free. Seating is limited and is on a first come, first serve basis.

Paul Winstanley, a.k.a. Paul Guilford, will perform on electric bass and electronics, and will be accompanied by the Nameless Sound Ensemble which features Chris Cogburn (percussion), David Dove (trombone), Ryan Edwards (guitar, voice), Sandy Ewen (guitar), Sonia Flores (bass, voice), Lucas Gorham (guitar, lap steel, electronics) and Jason Jackson (saxophones).

HOUSTON (September 15, 2008) - Art League Houston, in partnership with JPMorgan Chase, is pleased to announce the opening of Del Otro Lado (From The Other Side), which takes place at Heritage Hall in the JPMorgan Chase Building in Downtown Houston, and runs from October 1 - October 24, 2008, as a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Del Otro Lado is the first in a series of four visual art exhibitions that focus on cultural heritage month celebrations. Celebrating Diversity Through Art is a unique collaboration between JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston, which highlights emerging artists representative of diverse communities.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of "Melissa Miller, Texas Artist of the Year 2008" September 5 - October 10, 2008. Melissa is well known for her poetic and enigmatic narrative paintings of animals set in environs where one may find the wolf with the lamb or the llama with a herd of cows. This exhibition will feature paintings and prints from the 1980's and '90's, as well as more recent work.

Michelle White says of Miller and her work,

Miller [arranges] her animals in a remarkable variety of unlikely and sometimes outlandish combinations, a hare is perched on the back of a primate, who screams in the moonlight. A jack rabbit and a team of Rhesus monkeys teeter on stilts for prancing frogs, a cheetah, a sheep, and a fox line up and gaze at the viewer in peaceful, but unexpected accord. In a contemporary context, animal painting is indeed anachronistic, but therein resides the power of Miller's seemingly unassuming subject. Representations of animals have long been carriers of metaphor, allegories of the equally enigmatic social and psychological behavior of human beings. Miller's work continues in this tradition and like many renderings of animals in the visual landscape, her paintings have the uncanny ability to tell us about ourselves.

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten´s creative and highly original bass playing has been highly regarded all over the world and he has done several performances with major international artists such as Evan Parker (UK), Paul Lytton (UK), Joe McPhee (US), Joe Lovano (US), Yusef Lateef (US), Tony Oxley (UK), Iain Ballamy (UK), Dave Liebman (US), Chris Potter (US), Zim Ngqvana (SA), Benoit Delbeq (FRA), Dr.L.Subramaniam (IND), Billy Cobham (US), Jean Luc Pounty (FRA). He has frequently appeared at important international jazz festivals in Den Haag, Liége, Montraux, Athens/Georgia, Cape Town, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Paris, Istanbul, Saalfelden, Nice, Groningen, San Francisco, San Sebastian, Lüc, Nancy, London, Perpignan, Molde, Perth, Kongsberg, Berlin, Houston and legendary clubs such as New Morning in Paris, Quasimodo in Berlin, Ronny Scotts and Pizza Express in London, Knitting Factory and Tonic in New York, Empty Bottle in Chicago, Blue Note in Yokohama and Hemlock Tawern in San Francisco. His musical expression is based on the language of jazz and improvised music, acoustic and electronic, but his interest in rock and ethnic music also shows through his collaborations with the Norwegian rock bands Motorpsycho and Cato Salsa Experience as well as his work through Rikskonsertene. In July 2003 he released his solo-CD "Double bass" on the norwegian label SOFA. He has at the tender age of 33 already managed to establish himself as one of the most important exponents of the younger generation of musicians on the european scene today. In July 2004 Ingebrigt Håker Flaten was awarded Kongsberg Jazzfestival official "Vitalprisen" - the highest award for jazz musicians in Norway.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Thunder Within The Earth, a drawing exhibition curated by Beth Secor, and featuring the works of Jack Livingston, Philip Maysles, Matthew Sontheimer, Marco Villegas and Liz Ward The exhibition is on view in the ALH main gallery July 11 - August 22, 2008. The opening reception for Thunder Within The Earth is July 11, 2008 from 6-8 p.m., with a curator and artist talk at 6:15.p.m.

This theme of similarity and yet great difference underlies Secor's selection process for all the artists featured in Thunder Within The Earth, a title once again chosen from the I Ching. Thunder Within The Earth specifically refers to the hexagram "Fu" (Return or the Turning Point) and conjures up an image of a quiet but powerful force. "I took the image from "Fu/Return" because each of the artists, at one time or another has lived in Houston, and I imaged this exhibition as symbolizing a return to the city. When I initially selected them, I hadn't come up with a profound theme or a thread that would hold the show together, but had simply thought of people whose work I strongly admire, and who draw in one fashion or another- whether it be in gouache or silverpoint or floor wax and ink, It wasn't until I began to receive images for the show that I realized all the works have a certain powerful quietness to them, a most fortuitous coincidence. None of the works shouts or screams, but all of them possess some quality that resonates strongly upon the psyche," says Secor.

Art League Houston's annual Summer Exhibition and Benefit Art Sale takes place on Friday, June 20, in the Art League Houston galleries, 1953 Montrose. The evening will include music, hors d'oeuvres provided by Whole Foods Market, door prizes, cash bar, and a sale of art created by students enrolled in the Art League's Studio School and the Healing Art Groups. Festivities from 5:30 until 9:00 pm. The exhibition will be juried by Kerry Inman of Inman Gallery.

Proceeds from the sale will provide free art classes and art supplies to members of Art League Houston's Healing Art Programs serving those with HIV/AIDS and cancer related illnesses, Multiple Sclerosis, Fibromyalgia, and other physical challenges.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Of Winter to Spring by Suzanne Manns, May 3 - June 13, 2008 in Art League Houston's School Gallery. This exhibition of work emphasizes her individualized and extremely personalized relationship with nature. The opening reception for Of Winter to Spring is May 3, 2008 6-8 PM, with a talk by the artist at 6:30 and music by DJ DelSur.

For a number of years, Suzanne Manns' work has been directly influenced by her garden and the landscape directly surrounding her home. Her Houston Heights bungalow is surrounded by a densely layered and compact urban English garden. Within her prints, Manns balances images from her garden, focusing on shifts of scale, and meditating on the fragile, yet enduring nature of life. Recording bits and fragments from this environ of which she is so intimately familiar, Manns creates highly individualized imagery, filtered through her own physical and psychological perceptions. Rather than being simple portraits of nature, the resulting works become a diary of intimate experience.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of Observer's Event Horizon, an exhibition of new glass works by Stacey Neff, May 3 - June 13, 2008 in Art League Houston's Main Gallery. Observer's Event Horizon is an exhibition of sculptural souvenirs from a fancifully imagined territory of malleable time and space. This is Ms. Neff's first opening in Houston. The opening reception for Observer's Event Horizon is May 3, 2008 6-8 PM, with an artist talk by Stacey Neff at 6:15.

Neff's unusual glass works pair supplies found in automotive/nautical factories with the ancient material of glass, combining multiple units hand blown in a traditional glass style into singular, large forms. Taking the well formed ideas of science on artistic adventures, Observer's Event Horizon explores a frontier of equalized relativity between the macrocosmic and microcosmic worlds. The works included in this exhibition are sculptural snapshots encompassing a panoramic view from the Hubble telescope to the micron microscope, converging between the known and the imagined. For example, The Great Rhombi Cub octahedron and Icosahedrons geometric bases of her Star Seed pieces exist as visually manifested echoes between a star nursery in a far away galaxy and a bacteria on a human heart. Her Europa loop, which references one of Jupiter's moons, describes a world and an orbit, a particle and a wave. Breathing Stone VI, without the anchor of relativity, explores something as large as the landscape of an asteroid, or as tiny as the crevices of magnified pollen, or the spaces between seeds in a pomegranate. Stacey Neff says about her work, "My inspiration ignites at Conscilience, the fusion of art and science. In the words of J.E. Hoke, 'Science may create a vehicle to take you anywhere you want to go, but only myth will give you a reason for going.'"

Art League Houston is pleased to partner with FOTOFEST 2008 and its Twelfth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-Related Art in presenting three separate exhibitions of works by Chinese-based artists, Sun Guojuan, Chen Lingyang and Liu Lijie, March 8 - April 19, 2008. The opening reception for Sun Guojuan: Sweetness Forever, Chen Lingyang: Twelve Flower Months and Liu Lijie: Another Episode will be at Art League Houston on Saturday, March 8, 2008, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

These conceptual, mixed-media works are presented as part of Current Perspectives 1999-2008, a series of 11 one-person presentations by leading contemporary Chinese artists. Current Perspective exhibitions feature predominantly color, large-scale, staged, constructed, and digitally produced works by Chinese mainland-based artists, which address issues of religion, ethnicity, gender, urban transformation, identity, globalization, and the inter-relationship of contemporary art to classical Chinese art and history.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce "Pysanky...", an exhibition of paintings and decorated eggs by Nestor Topchy on view at Art League Houston, February 11 through February 23, 2008. An artist talk with Mr. Topchy will take place on Tuesday, February 19 at 6 p.m. Nestor will also teach a Pysanky Ukrainian Egg Decorating Class at the Art League School, Thursdays 1 - 4 p.m., April 3- May 8, 2008. Nestor Topchy's paintings, which are his own unique take on classical works by artists such as Botticelli and Giotto, combine two ancient traditions -- the Novgorod Russian or Byzantine tradition of icon writing, and Pysanky, also known as Ukrainian decorated eggs.

Art League Houston is pleased to announce the opening of "Black Box", an installation by Phi Phi Oanh, January 25-February 22, 2008. This is Phi Phi's first exhibition in her native Houston. The opening reception for "Black Box", Friday, January 25, 6-8 p.m., begins with a talk by the artist at 6 p.m. and features music by DJ DelSur. A catalogue, with an essay by Nora Taylor, accompanies the exhibition.

Starting with the raw materials and basic utilitarian art forms traditionally found in Asia, such as lacquer coffers, coffins and chests, Oanh has created a series of 16 oversized boxes whose proportions echo those of a burial casket. Rich paintings adorn the lids, combining sensual abstraction with precise figuration. Organic materials including the lacquer resin, stone pigments and precious metals form the palette in which Ms. Oanh has created her work

Art League Houston is proud to host an exhibition of the Gold Key winners in the art category of the Scholastic Art & Writing Competition. The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are the largest, longest-running and most prestigious recognition program of their kind in the United States. The Awards were established in 1923 by M. R. Robinson to encourage, foster and reward creativity in our nation’s classrooms. During its 83 year history, some of nation’s most celebrated writers and artists, including Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, Robert Indiana, Bernard Malamud, Joyce Maynard, Joyce Carol Oates, Phillip Pearlstein, Sylvia Plath, Robert Redford and Andy Warhol, have been recognized in this competition.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards of Harris County seeks to recognize and encourage young artists and writers in public, private and home schools.

Penny Cerling detail from The StarvingThe Starving Artist and the Art of Nursing , a new book from artist and author Penny Cerling.

Eric Michael Jones' digital photographs are inspired by stories - both fairytales and contemporary fiction, such as the work of the Brothers Grimm and Raymond Carter, among others. Some influences in his work are clearly recognizable, while others are not, with the stories used simply as launching points for image making. As in fairy tales, a reoccurring sub-theme runs through the work - an ominously foreboding landscape (the horrible woods, the threatening sea), a place where children go willingly or otherwise, to work out their greatest fears and anxieties.

Blind Philosophy is a one-night exhibition of over 33 works Gilbert has created using human ashes over the past 7 years. A catalogue, with essays by Gus Kopriva, Catherine Anspon, and Susan Albert accompanies the exhibition.

The human ashes that Gilbert uses in his paintings are either unclaimed cremated remains obtained at funeral homes, or those willed to him by others.

"the Private," an exhibition curated by Clint Willour of early drawings and prints (1976-1987) by Dixie Friend Gay, 2007 Texas Artist of the Year - Sept. 7 - Oct. 19, 2007. Although well known for her lush depictions of landscapes and waterways, the majority of these erotic, exquisitely detailed early works have never been publicly exhibited. The opening reception for "the Private" is Friday, Sept. 7, 6-8 p.m. beginning with a talk by Dixie Friend Gay at 6 p.m. A catalogue, with an essay by Christopher French, accompanies the exhibition.

Informed by both painting traditions and the natural and built environments, Veneman's large paintings are complex, with rich multi-layered surfaces that describe a space which is at once illusory and tangible. Carefully drawn lines appear to be ropes and architectural structures, as they are engulfed by waves and swirls as chaos overcomes order. Planes overlap and intersect, blending together or sharply conflicting. Forms dissolve and reemerge, their color, marks and texture altered. The accompanying series of small black and white ink drawings forms a counterbalance to the highly-charged colorful spaces, offering clearly readable glimpses of spatial environments in flux.

Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston: Who We Are, April 30 - June 16, photograhps and stories of Houston-based evacuees and survivors of the hurricanes produced by the Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston Project. The opening reception is May 8, 2007, 6-8 p.m., beginning with a talk by project co-directors Pat Jasper and Carl Lindahl, and photographer Alice McNamara at 6 p.m. Music will be provided by Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, a native of New Orleans, who is one of the Houston-based survivors featured in the show.

Popunation was a collection of large-scale wooden sculpturesclustered in areas around the gallery. The sculptures depicted everyday actions of characters, but with a twist of absurdity. The setup and placement of each piece are akin to that of a carnival sideshow, something that is meant to be gawked at.

The Northern Ireland (Location of Victims' Remains) Bill, passed in May 1999, provided an amnesty to help the identification and location of people who had disappeared during the 'Troubles'. These images show locations which were identified and became known as the 'Sites of The Disappeared', where the IRA buried people they murdered in the 1970s and early 1980s.

The works were a response to the notoriety of D.W. Griffith’s controversial 1915 film and blockbuster hit, The Birth of a Nation, which depicts the Ku Klux Klan as liberating people from the African American menace. Despite its subject matter, the film is still included as one of the 100 greatest classic American Films by the American Film Institute. The show consisted of large-scale drawings on paper, intended to be fictitious Birth of a Nation comic book covers.

The 2005 Texas Artists of the Year, The Art Guys present an exhibition featuring some of their famous and infamous art works made with and about food.

"Vital Surge aptly describes both Joan Fabian's life and her work. The desire to live is a vital aspect reflected in Fabian's work. Joan's artwork became crucial to her while she was battling cancer because it provided her with a positive focus. The surge relates to spurts of energy, as the way in which Fabian is influenced and energized by the stimulation, motion and culture of busy cities. Joan's artistic forms, full of color and patterns, dance around with this positive energy and they challenge the normal reaction of human instinct. Fabian's travels to Pakistan made her question value systems and the way we judge what we call art as well as what we consider being beautiful."

At the Metropolitan Multi Service Center (1475 West Gray)

Art League Houston and Chase present “Affinities,” an art exhibit celebrating Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, curated by Mari Omori. The exhibit examines what it is to be both an Asian Pacific American artist working in America and an American artist whose work evolves around the eastern thought. Presented through a dynamic range of media, this melding of the east and the west has created the uniquely beautiful and powerfully original assemblage of works in this exhibition.

Artists exhibited include: Bennie Flores Ansell, Amita Bhatt, Serena Lin Bush, David Chien, James Lance Frazior, Mimi Kato, Kay Nguyen, Seifu Sandaiji, Kiriko Shirobayashi, Masaru Takiguchi, Yi-Chi Wang, Weihong and June Woest. (view works from the exhibition) Opening reception: Monday, May 9, 2005 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. JPMorgan Chase Building

Rendered with thick applications of radiant colors, Livermore's paintings are intensely personal, dream-like explorations of the natural world. Over the past 25 years her subjects have ranged from the ordinary to the sublime, including luminous floral arrangements; the hustler bars and frenetic streets of Juarez, Mexico; and the storied Jornada del Muerto Valley in New Mexico. Annabel uses Juarez, Mexico as her primary subject from early on, focusing on everything from Palm Sunday processions to prostitutes and transvestites in gritty bars. Her subjects are often shadowy yet united with incessant grace. Although no one has actually met Annabel, her oil paintings of dour moutainscapes, luscious flowers and grim street scenes have claimed many enthusiasts and followers.

"The Implosion" Text by Arthur Wortmann, courtesy Mark Magazine,Issue #2, Spring 2006 "In the summer of 2005, an extraordinary structure on Montrose Boulevard in Houston took motorists by surprise. A wooden building had obviously been struck by a passing tornado. Sucked by a raging force from the back of the building, the boards of the facade frantically twisted into what looked like a horizontal chimney that had ripped a hole through a second wooden building sanding several metres behind the first. Passers-by were inescapably drawn to the vortex of the wooden wreckage; if they didn't blink, for a fraction of a second they could see straight through both buildings.

It was not a diabolical natural disaster that was responsible for this scene but a pair of artists, Dan Havel and Dean Ruck. The two wooden buildings - used for decades by the local arts council, Art League Houston, as classrooms and exhibition space - were to be replaced by a new-build project. For the few months that they awaited the demolition crew, they were reincarnated as an architectonic installation. Owing to the lack of a budget, Havel and Ruck erected the work with the materials on hand: dismantling the existing building, board by board, they used the old timber to realize their installation. The project became a kind of exercise in architectonic excavation; they turned the premises inside out. Impossible to illustrate the implosion of a recycling process in a more salient way.

If ever a structure deserved the label 'uncanny', it has to be Inversion House, a building stripped of its soul, devoid of life. Its gaping hole fulfilled the same role as the hall closet in Mark Danielewski's brilliant novel House of Leaves (the space tunnels into a dark and never-ending void) : both were sinister signs of the presence of another dimension. That the installation has now been demolished is an apt part of the picture. As a memory, the image is a haunting reminder that although architecture exists to provide shelter, buildings do not always assure peace of mind."

Curated by Zena Stetka- Howe & Don Stevenson