Sonia Sanchez (Courtesy Marion Ettlinger)

Freedom’s Sisters
The Women’s Museum
Opens Saturday, April 24, 2010

It would be difficult to imagine the course of American history without them: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad; Rosa Parks and her brave refusal in 1955 to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery city bus; Fannie Lou Hamer and her courageous stand at a 1968 political convention. These stories of courage and commitment are among the many featured in Freedom’s Sisters, collaboration between Ford Motor Company Fund, the Cincinnati Museum Center, and the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). The interactive exhibit showcases twenty extraordinary African American women, inviting visitors to bear witness to some of the most important moments in our nation’s history. The exhibition will open to the public at The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future, Saturday, April 24, 2010.

“The women honored in Freedom’s Sisters are an inspiration to people of all ages and backgrounds,” said Jim Vella, president, Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services. “Ford is proud to fund this national exhibition celebrating women who have truly changed our country and our world.”

Activities in support of the exhibition begin Thursday, April 22, 2010, with a private reception for the Freedom’s Sisters local Committee of Honor and other dignitaries. Honored guests will include Freedom’s Sister Sonia Sanchez along with Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier who will emcee the event.

“The Women’s Museum is honored to present the inspiring stories of twenty outstanding African American heroines of American history” said Wanda Brice, CEO of The Women’s Museum. “In addition to the excitement of the exhibit, the community outreach connected to the Freedom’s Sisters is extraordinary. We believe the Ford Fund’s vision is a perfect fit for the mission of The Women’s Museum.”

A variety of engaging educational and community outreach programs are planned during the exhibition’s run. In conjunction with the 20 national Freedom’s Sisters, the Museum honors 20 local Freedom’s Sisters in the exhibition. These women exemplified locally the same courage and commitment in the North Texas community. In addition, an essay contest is open to students in 4th-8th grade who visit the exhibit and answer the question: “Who is your favorite Freedom Sister and why?” Ford Motor Company will award $10,000 in U.S. savings bonds to winning entries. The contest deadline is June 4, 2010.

“It is an honor to be a part of the Freedom’s Sister national exhibition,” said poet and activist Sonia Sanchez. “As the poet Robert Hayden once said, ‘It is time to call the children into the evening quiet of the living room and teach them the lessons of their blood.’ Freedom’s Sisters will teach our children lessons of history, struggle and blood of African Americans. Our children, the middle aged, the elderly will learn the lessons of the blood of the people that have shaped and moved not only America but the world.”

The exhibition has been embraced by a prestigious National Committee of Honor. Members of the Freedom’s Sisters Committee of Honor include Quincy Jones, Dr. Mae Jemison, General Colin Powell, Patti LaBelle and a wide range of national dignitaries, reflecting the exhibition’s broad appeal.

“These 20 women left not a footnote but a footprint on American history,” said SITES Director Anna R. Cohn. “Many of their stories may not be well known, but their roles and contributions were monumental in shaping our country and its conscience.”

Organized around four themes – “Dare to Dream,” “Inspire Lives” “Serve the Public” and “Look to the Future,” Freedom’s Sisters is designed especially as an educational tool targeting students. Historical simulations and interactive displays are being set up to drive home messages and meanings central to each woman’s life.

“The inspiring stories of these women should be told and told again,” said Cincinnati Museum Center president and CEO Douglas W. McDonald. “Cincinnati Museum Center is honored to create this extraordinary exhibit and can only hope that we can provide an extension to the legacies of these strong, courageous and trailblazing women.”

Freedom’s Sisters was created by Cincinnati Museum Center and organized for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. The national tour is made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund. The exhibition will remain at The Women’s Museum through July 4, 2010, then continues on the three-year national tour to Atlanta and Baltimore.

For more information on the Freedom’s Sisters exhibition, visit thewomensmuseum.org or call 214.915.0860

Freedom’s Sisters

• Ella J. Baker
• Constance Baker Motley
• Shirley Chisholm
• Mary Church Terrell
• Septima Poinsette Clark
• Kathleen Cleaver
• Myrlie Evers-Williams
• Fannie Lou Hamer
• Dorothy Height
• Charlayne Hunter-Gault
• Barbara Jordan
• Mary McLeod Bethune
• Rosa Parks
• Sonia Sanchez
• Coretta Scott King
• Betty Shabazz
• Harriet Tubman
• C. Delores Tucker
• Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
• Ida B. Wells

About Ford

Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 224,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Volvo and Mazda. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford’s products, please visit www.ford.com.

About Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services

Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services is committed to creating opportunities that promote corporate citizenship, philanthropy, volunteerism and cultural diversity for those who live in the communities where Ford operates. Celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2009 and made possible by funding from Ford Motor Company, Ford Motor Company Fund supports initiatives and institutions that foster innovative education, auto-related safety, and American heritage and legacy. National programs include Ford Partnership for Advanced Studies, which provides high school students with academically rigorous 21st century learning experiences, and Driving Skills for Life, a teen-focused auto safety initiative. The Ford Volunteer Corps, established in 2005, continues Ford’s legacy of caring worldwide. Through the Volunteer Corps, Ford employees and retirees participate in a wide range of volunteer projects in their communities. For more information on programs made possible by Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services, visit www.community.ford.com.

About Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal

Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal is home to the Cincinnati History Museum, Duke Energy Children’s Museum, the Museum of Natural History & Science, the Robert D. Lindner Family OMNIMAX® Theater, and the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. It is a nationally recognized educational and research resource and one of the top cultural attractions in the Midwest. Cincinnati Museum Center serves more than one million visitors annually, reaching out to almost 200,000 young people through hands-on exhibits and programs. As a center for the community, more than 700 events are held in the building each year. Originally built in 1933 as the Union Terminal train station, the building is a national historic landmark and was renovated and reopened as Cincinnati Museum Center in 1990. For information, call (513) 287-7000 or 1-800-733-2077 or visit www.cincymuseum.org.

About Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES)

SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D.C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. For more information, including exhibition descriptions and tour schedules, visit www.sites.si.edu.

About The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future

The Women’s Museum, celebrating a decade of empowering women in association with the Smithsonian Institution, is the nation’s only comprehensive women’s history museum that chronicles the lives of American women through interactive exhibits. The Women’s Museum is supported, in part, by the City of Dallas, Office of Cultural Affairs. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5:00 p.m. (closed Mondays). For more information, please visit www.thewomensmuseum.org.

Sonia Sanchez (Courtesy Marion Ettlinger)

Haute Helping Hands (detail) by Clarke Curtis, 2010

Congregated
Gallery 5619
April 10 through May 14, 2010

Gallery 5619, part of Mosaic Austin, is pleased to announce the re-launch of its space with the opening of Congregated, an exhibition curated by Shea Little, on view April 10 – May 14, 2010. Originally founded in 2007, the gallery has recently undergone extensive physical and programmatic changes to better position itself as a relevant and leading exhibition space. Mosaic pastor Don Vanderslice states, “We are extremely proud to re-launch Gallery 5619 as a first-rate space for Austin artists and beyond. Our first effort, curated by Shea Little, is the beginning of a new exhibition schedule that will firmly establish us as a gallery committed to serving the artistic and spiritual needs of our community.”

The inaugural exhibition for the re-launch is entitled Congregated and features artists Clarke Curtis, Heidi Landau and Andy St Martin. Guest-curated by artist Shea Little (co-founder of the E.A.S.T. Tour, The Texas Biennial and Cantanker Magazine) the show investigates the notion of collecting – ideas, memories, physical objects, smells, and emotions- all of which combine and congregate into a visual vocabulary from which each artist draws. These three artists create work with different stylistic intentions, but all are connected through their similar methods of amassing and arranging individual symbols to illuminate artistic ideas.

Clarke Curtis collects and re-contextualizes images from our culture, and indeed from his own work, to create odd juxtapositions and interactions – often narratives with animals or inanimate objects. Heidi Landau draws from lasting or impressionable memories, old photographs, and ephemera to breathe new life into faded stories and remnants of the past. St. Martin, a long-time Austin artist, works with an array of symbols and shapes to create patterns that initially appear abstract, but upon closer examination, infer a more representational slant.

Congregated will open with a reception on Saturday, April 10, 2010 from 7-10 p.m. Free beer provided by St. Arnold’s Brewery, and live music by Maps in Latin. Gallery 5619 is located at 5619 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78751. Call 512-751-2360 for gallery hours or visit www.gallery5619.org for additional details.

Future exhibitions at Gallery 5619 will be developed by the gallery’s team and also through the solicitation of proposals from artists and curators.

About Gallery 5619

Gallery 5619 was originally founded in 2007 as part of Mosaic Austin, and will re-launch in April 2010 as one of Austin’s leading alternative spaces for art and artists. Mosaic believes that artistic expression is a natural extension of being created in the image of a wildly creative God. The vision of Gallery 5619 is to provide a space for these gifts to be shared and received.

About Mosaic

Mosaic Austin is a community of believers and seekers with diverse backgrounds and personalities drawn together by the grace and love of Jesus. We are not a “church” in the way our culture has defined it. Our community is more like a family. A family with members who have an intimate relationship with God, others who desire to know God better and still others who are only beginning the journey. Some are musicians. Some are writers. Some are students. Some are artists. Some are computer programmers. Some are retail clerks. Church is a people – it’s who we are. You don’t go to church; you’re a part of the church. As a family we naturally spend time together – meals, movies, coffee, work, prayer. But we all gather on Sunday nights to participate in shared liturgy. We sing, create, hang out, tell stories, talk about life and talk about God. We’d love to have you join us sometime.

Haute Helping Hands (detail) by Clarke Curtis, 2010

Dingy from Yesteryear by Bob Chilton, 2009

Bob Chilton
Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery
April 17 through May 1, 2010

Artist reception on Saturday, April 17, from 6 to 8 p.m.

For the first time Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery will be featuring photographs by Dallas photographer, Bob Chilton. Ranging from black and white to rich color, these photographs reflect imagery of maritime subjects.

Chilton became a photographer many years ago, sharpening his skills in Dallas in labs with local photographers. His passion led to multi-projector slide hows of underwater imagery set to music.

The arrival of the digital age took him to a new playing field. He has since set his sites on
landscape and coastlines that are dazzling with vibrant colors.

Life on the water is one of Chilton’s many loves. He was very active in competitive sailing, having won a North American championship and placed second in a world championship.

One can be easily seduced by his image a beautiful, lonely dingy waiting for its captain. A big red boathouse is vividly captured as merely a reflection in the water. The blood red color is striking, the entire composition seems like a painting in disguise.

Most of the black and white photographs contain tranquil images that give reference to the seaside as well. And other subjects include smokestacks in small cities of industry, pulsating with steam.

This exhibition is timely in that it coincides with the Dallas Museum of Art’s exhibition, Coastlines: Images of Land and Sea. The museum show begins April 25 – August 22, 2010.

For the duration of Bob Chilton’s exhibition, all proceeds to the artist from the sale of photographs will be donated to the Dallas Museum of Art in support of DMA programs in photography.

Dingy from Yesteryear by Bob Chilton, 2009

Directional Change #3 by Joey Brock

Event features unveiling of new mixed media collection, sculptures and benefits Alley’s House

On Saturday, April 3 from 5-9 p.m., Dallasites will celebrate the grand opening of brock studio|gallery and the official unveiling of local artist, Joey Brock with the exhibition of his new series, Northwestern Exposure, and sculptures by Rick Maxwell.

A Texas native, Brock focuses on communicating the clash between urban and natural environments in his works and draws heavily from his frequent travels for inspiration. His latest mixed media collection was inspired by his travels to the Pacific Northwest and incorporates acrylic paint, conté crayon, pencil and paper on clayboard and canvas.

“There is a unique balance that dances between the natural landscapes as they collide with the manmade environment,” said Brock. “I find that there is a certain beauty in the collision of these two worlds and the balance that will eventually emerge.”

Brock first introduced his art six years ago by donating a piece for auction to Alley’s House, a Dallas-based non-profit dedicated to supporting teen mothers. The event served as his foray into the interior design community and since then, private and corporate collectors have enjoyed Brock’s art. In
appreciation, a percentage of opening night sales will be donated to Alley’s House.

The gallery is located at 1320 E. Griffin St. and Brock’s entire collection can be viewed at www.joeybrockart.com.

About brock studio|gallery

Located in the heart of the Cedars district in south Dallas (south of downtown and Interstate 30) brock
studio|gallery joins the neighborhood’s expanding artist community. The building will house four
artists, including Brock’s mixed media paintings, sculptures by Zad Roumaya, fine art photography by
Richard Bettinger and a fourth artist to be determined. Gallery hours are by appointment only. Guests
can look for the little white box sign on the building’s exterior, visit www.joeybrockart.com or call
(214) 850-8520.

Directional Change #3 by Joey Brock

The Cameron Gallery

Art Connects: William Martin, Raé Miller, Mario Oliva
The Cameron Gallery
March 27 through April 8, 2010

The Cameron Gallery is having an artist reception for their latest exhibit, Art Connects. They are featuring the art of William Martin, Raé Miller and Mario Oliva. The reception will be catered by Rafa’s Mexican Restaurant and have live music featuring Spanish guitar. The reception is Saturday, March 27, 2010, from 6 to 9 p.m. The Cameron Gallery is located at 1414 Dragon Street in Dallas. Call 214-747.1414 for more information.

William Martin

William Martin was born in Mexico City and moved to California when he was three years old. Growing up, he spent summers in Querétaro with his grandparents. Martin learned to appreciate the culture, beauty and ways of Mexico. He paints many different genres from still life to portraits, landscapes to abstract. Each piece is a conversation with the viewer about the way he views the subject.

Martin says about himself “I paint whatever strikes me as beautiful and creates a desire to express that feeling with paint. It is very gratifying when someone connects with my work, and wants to make it part of their life, bringing it into their space.” William moved to San Miguel de Allende in 2006 and opened the William Martin Gallery. He has broadened his artistic vision to include colorful, sunlit scenes of the Mexican culture that surrounds him.

Raé Miller

Raé Miller was born in California, and spent most of her life there and in Arizona and New Mexico.

She began painting at the age of 12, exploring watercolors and acrylics for many years. In 2001, Miller began working with encaustic, which is a technique of working with beeswax and pigment with resin. The word encaustic is a Latin term meaning “to burn in”. Because it is impervious to moisture, encaustic media does not easily darken or yellow with time. In 2005, she won Best of Show for her encaustic works at The Arts Center at Hamilton, Novato, CA, and in 2007 at the St. Francis Celebration Invitational Exhibition in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Miller says about her work “I paint because not to paint is unthinkable. I can’t take credit for being the author of that statement, but it’s the absolute truth. When I’m painting, whether working with encaustic, oil or acrylic, there is nothing else on my mind. It’s a pure space, a sort of communication with everything and nothing, everyone or just me, and an attempt to express what lies within.”

Mario Oliva

Mario Oliva, from the young age of 5, has always felt a passion and connection with painting. He creates on canvas a new language, through which he freely expresses his ideas and emotions, while carefully considering the thoughts and ideals of others. After completing his studies at the University of Guadalajara, he found his work being influenced by artists such as Michelangelo, Siqueiros’ Mexican muralism and the surrealism of Remedios. In 2008, Mario arrived in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, to begin a non-profit project called the Pure Naive Project, in correlation with the Centro Infantil de San Pablo. He was also a member of a select group chosen to participate in a book entitled Art in San Miguel, published by photographer Al Tirado. Oliva’s greatest influence was his father, a sociologist, who taught him that the most important influence are not of technique or style, but to express one’s true authentic self. This is what Oliva portrays on canvas, a sense of himself.

About the Cameron Gallery

The Cameron Gallery of Dragon Street, specializes in prominent works of 3-D oil paintings by Reflectionist artist, Carrie Cameron. Monthly debuts from an eclectic and talented group of artists include paintings, sculpture, blown glass, and hand-crafted jewelry. Hours of operation Monday – Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by appointment. Members DADA, Dragon Street Association. For more information, contact The Cameron Gallery at 214-747-1414 or visit the website at www.thecamerongallery.com.

Artist Reception on Saturday, March 20, 2010, from 7 to 10 p.m.

Christopher Rabb’s paintings represent slices of selected comic book compositions in their bare visual elements exposing the raw expressive power of the climax. Rabb’s source is comic books for their inherent expressive visual language. Comics are seemingly simple because they are comprised of three major elements: the image, text, and sequence. Rabb removes the characters and text, leaving activated space, visual movement, and visual time gaps between planes.

The flattened planes emulate cutouts, as if they have been physically removed from the original context and placed inside the composition, creating a culmination of climaxes. This climactic energy aims to capture and immerse the viewer, compelling them to investigate what is taking place. Where there are planes of color exploding, twisting, and distorting space in the compositions, there are remnants of Rabb’s original visual sources, comic books.

Rabb is a native Texan who currently resides in Irving and attends the University of Dallas in pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts in Art. This exhibition is presented in partial fulfillment for the Master of Fine Arts in Art at the University of Dallas, 2010.

Mokah Art Gallery, an extension of Life in Deep Ellum, serves to promote culture and art in Deep Ellum and surrounding communities. At the Cultural Center, Mokah Art Gallery exhibitions feature contemporary art of local artists from the experimental, the emerging, and the established.

Mokah Art Gallery is located at 2803 Taylor Dallas, Texas 75226. Gallery hours are Monday – Friday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or by appointment.

The 4th Wall Gallery is proud to announce the opening of Building Character, a group exhibition of new character-driven work by Urban Contemporary artists C. Kirk, Jeru Gabriel, and Hatziel Flores. The opening takes place on March 5, 2010 from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m., and the show will continue thru April 3. All three artists will be in attendance the night of the opening.

A native Texan, Jeru Gabriel introduces his new larger scale works on canvas with his signature vibrant colors, morphing his passions of underground art, graffiti, portraiture and graphic design. Rarely sketching out full ideas before painting, Jeru’s work is centered in spontaneous creation and relishing the response of the viewer once the art is displayed. Created in various mixed mediums including oils, spray paint, acrylics and markers, Jeru explains, “Label it however you wish, the end result is a bucket full of brightly colored eye candy”.

This exhibition will host C. Kirk’s highly anticipated works on canvas from 2009, as well as a selection of brand new 2010 pieces. Currently fusing fluid sketching and charcoal work styles from his past with spray paint and distress techniques that he has developed over the years, the viewer will notice major differences in genre between the 2009 and 2010 works: while the current pieces dive into a more figurative and abstract realm, the 2009 series of paintings “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” focuses more on a comic-themed visualization of the all-too-human defects of character, faulty perception, and skewed sense of humor. Regarding the upcoming show, C. Kirk states ” I’m so pleased to show these never before exhibited works alongside Jeru and Hatziel, two insanely talented artists I’ve come to know here in Dallas. I’m even more excited that this collection of all our pieces will be on display at The 4th Wall Gallery, a venue that I believe is a vanguard for the Metroplex by showing the current state of what’s going on worldwide in Contemporary Art.”

Also exhibiting a brand new body of work at the show, Hatziel Flores takes his childhood superhero imagery and placing them on the canvas as he sees them now. Once so vivid and powerful in his young mind, the recollection and the line work has faded and characters begin to overlap, evolving into abstraction. Becoming weary of his art school education, Hatziel was introduced to Hip Hop culture and began to get involved with graffiti, which he has developed over the years to express himself through his art in a more gestural manner. Today he incorporates the urban techniques into a surreal art form, morphing his finished pieces into urban-based Modern Surrealism.

Opened in May 2009 and recently named “Best New Gallery 2010″ by D Home Magazine, The 4th Wall Gallery is the creation of Matthew Abramowitz, a man who has earned a reputation among artists and collectors for being among the most respected and finest dealers of editorial and illustrated art. The 4th Wall Gallery is a culmination of the success achieved with The Gallery @ Storyopolis in Los Angeles, which hosted over 80 exhibitions for such artists as Gary Baseman, Calef Brown and greats from the illustrator and graphic novel genre such as Will Eisner. The goal of The 4th Wall Gallery is to exhibit an amazingly diverse group of today’s emerging and established cutting edge contemporary artists in areas of illustration, street art, and pop culture imagery.

The 4th Wall Gallery is located at 2925 Fairmount Street, Dallas TX 75201. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 10:00am – 6:00pm or by appointment. For more information, visit www.the4thwallgallery.net or contact visual director Scott Kaserman at (214) 740-9400 or via e-mail at Scott.the4thwallgallery@gmail.com

Sandow Birk: The Depravities of War

The Depravites of War is a series of 15 large-scale woodblock prints inspired by the series of etchings by Jacques Callot’s “The Miseries of War” in the 17th century, which in turn were the inspiration for Goya’s “The Disasters of War” in the 19th century. The works were published by HuiPress in Hawaii in 2007. A series of paintings completed the project.

Los Angeles artist Sandow Birk is a well-traveled graduate of the Otis/Parson’s Art Institute. Frequently developed as expansive, multi-media projects, his works have dealt with contemporary life in its entirety. With an emphasis on social issues, frequent themes of his past work have included inner city violence, graffiti, political issues, travel, war, and prisons, as well as surfing and skateboarding. He was a recipient of an NEA International Travel Grant to Mexico City in 1995 to study mural painting, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Fulbright Fellowship for painting to Rio de Janeiro for 1997. In 1999, he was awarded a Getty Fellowship for painting, followed by a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship in 2001. In 2007, he was an artist in residence at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2008.

Sandow is represented by the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Los Angeles, Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, and P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York City. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

Muriel Hasbun: barquitos de papel and other stories

I come from peoples in exile.

I became an adult with an extreme sensitivity to the irreconcilable…

Muriel Hasbun

Muriel Hasbun explores the intricacies and emotional reverberations of identity through art, and uses photography and personal histories as vehicles for exchange. Through an intergenerational, transnational and transcultural lens, Hasbun constructs contemporary narratives and establishes a space for dialogue where individual memory and collective memory spark new questions about identity and place.

Muriel Hasbun’s photographic and video work is a process of re-encounter, synthesis, and re-creation. Through it, past and present become interlaced in a renewed configuration; in Santos y sombras/Saints and Shadows, the Palestinian desert and Eastern European ash sift, shift and blend in the volcanic sands of El Salvador, to form the texture of the path on which she defines and expresses her experience. With barquitos de papel/paper boats, she draws from the autobiographical as a point of departure, and alludes to the role of lens-based media in the telling of our stories. The installation beckons to the public to add their own paper boats inscribed with their family history and stories of migration. Hasbun will conduct a workshop to encourage participation in the barquitos de papel collective archive.

Muriel Hasbun’s work has been exhibited at the American University Museum (2008), Museum of Photographic Arts (2007), Centro Cultural de España de El Salvador and FotoFest (2006), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (2004); the 50th Venice Biennale (2003); the Centro de la Imagen (1999); and the 29ème Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d”Arles (1998). Her photographs are in numerous private and public collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Muriel Hasbun is a 2006-08 Fulbright Scholar. She is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Photography at the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, DC.

New Works Space: of Wrath and Proxy Wars

Sirajski and Jessica Benjamin

Born in 1963 in Opovo, Serbia, SIRAJSKI lives with his wife Natasa, son Milos, and daughter Andriana in Celarevo, Serbia in the agriculturally-rich province called Vojvodina. SIRAJSKI started painting at age twelve and had a first public exhibition of his work in high school in 1978. The artist is custodian of the Museum of Applied Arts of Vojvodina which is housed in a castle formerly owned by the wealthy Dunderski Family from the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. SIRAJSKI works are in private collections of prominent collectors including the humanitarian Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Paul Karadordevic (an important patron of the arts). In his many artist colony communities, SIRAJSKI is respected as “an artist’s artist.”

SIRAJSKI is a self-taught artist, influenced by masters such as Dali, Peter Brueghel, Bosch, Richard Dadd, as well as his independent studies in literature, religion and art history, and his conscious and subconscious life experience.

Sirajski resides in Serbia and is represented by Vesna Rafaty in Dallas, Texas.

Jessica Benjamin

“My work focuses on the process and visual impact of contemporary technology on personal and geopolitical perspectives. As technological innovations develop we are continuously introduced to information and images that influence perspectives, decisions, and identity. These influences are delivered to us by media sources such as the Internet and in the advancing ways we document our lives.”

Jessica Benjamin was born in 1974 in Bloomington, Illinois. After graduating from Illinois State University, she moved to Snowmass Village, CO, to work as a summer resident at Anderson Ranch. In the spring of 2000, Benjamin moved to New York.

In 2006, Benjamin moved to Sag Harbor, New York where she currently lives and works.

Recently, Jessica completed two album projects with Wynton Marsalis, “From the Plantation to the Penitentiary”(2007) and “He and She”(2009). In April, her paintings were shown at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York.

About the MAC

Established in 1994, The McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) is a nonprofit organization that stands as a Dallas advocate for creative freedom offering the opportunity for experimentation and presentation of art in all disciplines. It supports the emerging and established artist roll in society providing a forum for critical dialogue with their audiences. This relationship is cultivated through education and innovative programming. The MAC is a member of Dallas Art Dealers Association and The Uptown Association.

Call 214-953-1212 for information or visit www.the-mac.org. The MAC is open Wednesday – Saturday 11 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.

Wood-horse and wood-sheep riding on the aquaplane by Yang Jin Long, 2009

Seizing the New World, Recent Paintings by Yang Jin Long
Crow Collection of Asian Art
January 23 – April 18, 2010

A child of China’s 1960s Cultural Revolution, internationally renowned artist Yang Jin Long will make his American museum debut with an exhibition entitled Seizing the New World, Recent Paintings by Yang Jin Long, at the Crow Collection of Asian Art (2010 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201). The exhibition opens Sat., Jan. 23 and runs through Sun., April 18, 2010. Yang Jin Long’s contemporary paintings reflect his experiences since moving to the United States from China in 2006. In his most recent works, Yang has explored his new surroundings by creating vibrant, provocative and imaginative paintings.

Born and raised in China, Yang Jin Long grew up in a society that stifled creativity and forced its intellectuals and artists to be “re-educated” to serve as laborers in the fields and factories. Now he filters the traditions of his homeland through a Western pop sensibility, often pairing hypermodern and fabled human figures with the remains of pop culture iconography in surreal situations that defy immediate logic.

The exhibition will include eight pairs of large canvas paintings, one series depicting the Four Seasons and a second series that is a colorful exploration of futuristic figures, bright hues and celebration of good wishes and fortune. To commemorate the 2010 Year of the Tiger, a set of smaller paintings of the Chinese Zodiac also will be included in the exhibition.

“Yang’s work mirrors our lives: a complicated blend of cultures, traditions and creative technologies,” said Amy Hofland, Director of the Crow Collection. “His composition is intense, but full of messages – Yang is a teacher on canvas.”

Yang studied traditional Chinese painting in his native city of Zhenjiang in the early 1970s and was in the military when he began to learn about Western painting. Influenced by the formal structure in Chinese watercolors and calligraphy early in his academic career, his extensive training in traditional Chinese painting gives him great poetic depth in his approach to oil painting. Yang strived to develop a concept of working that would allow him to explore relationships between the living and the constructed.

The Seizing the New World exhibition highlights Yang’s acute ability to transform his new medium to a marvelous visual feast, which brings together references to Western and Chinese art masterpieces, music, literature, science and culture. It is Yang’s technical and imaginative skills that allow for his pictorial unions to succeed and speak to a broad audience on a universal and spiritual level.

After graduating college in 1985, Yang accepted the position of Director of the Art Department at Zhenjiang University in his hometown. Since 1998, Yang has exhibited internationally, has works placed in many prominent collections and has received numerous awards in China. His major international solo exhibitions include the prestigious Pacific Cultural Foundation Art Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

Christine Starkman, Asian Art Curator at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the guest curator for the Seizing the New World exhibition. Ms. Starkman recently opened the exhibition Your Bright Future: 12 Contemporary Artists from Korea, which runs through February 14, 2010, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She also is working on the new dedicated space for China and Japan, scheduled to open in early summer and winter 2010.

Admission is free and open to the public. The Crow Collection of Asian Art is open Tuesdays – Thursdays (10 a.m. – 9 p.m.), Fridays – Sundays (10 a.m. – 6 p.m.) and closed on Mondays.

For more information, please go to www.crowcollection.org or call 214-979-6430.

About The Crow Collection

The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art is located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. The Crow Collection is a permanent set of galleries dedicated to the arts and cultures of China, Japan, India and Southeast Asia. The museum offers a serene setting for both quiet reflection and learning, which spans from the ancient to the contemporary.

Cloth-pig taken picture by Yang Jin Long, 2009

Wood-horse and wood-sheep riding on the aquaplane by Yang Jin Long, 2009

Opening reception: Saturday, January 23, 6-8 p.m.

Floor Corner Wall: Selected Work from The Rachofsky Collection, curated by Thomas Feulmer and Christina Rees, features work by artists who address the physical space of the gallery in architectural, psychological, or social terms, and includes sculptural works by Carl Andre, Mel Bochner, Tom Claassen, Tom Friedman, Jim Hodges, Siobahn Liddel, Mario Merz, Charles Ray, Richard Serra, and Rachel Whiteread.

For more info, visit: http://www.theartgalleries.tcu.edu/index.html

Winter Rusiloski (Photo by Michelle Wallace)

Heidi Lingamfelter & Winter Rusiloski: Sky Water Leaves Grass
Mokah Art Gallery
December 2, 2009- January 2, 2010

Although winter is setting in outside, the walls of Mokah Art Gallery are bursting with color and life. This newest exhibit features two female artists, Heidi Lingamfelter and Winter Rusiloski. Both artists’ work centers on nature, however, each uses a distinct approach with the subject matter.

Heidi Lingamfelter

Heidi Lingamfelter uses collagraphs to capture the essence of nature in a tangible work of art. She appreciates the simple beauty of the outdoors and loves collaborating with nature

“Nature is the constant and I am the engineer,” says Lingamfelter.

Lingamfelter collects samples of the outside world, puts them on a press with colorful ink, and then turns the old fashioned crank to create a stunning piece of art. The result is a calming, meditative experience. Instead of using art to shock or push an agenda, Lingamfelter tries to recreate a moment, a simple scene of nature the observer can relate with.

Lingamfelter’s love of texture is apparent in each piece she creates. On the press plate, the ink seeps into the grooves between the grass, bark, or stones. As a result, each collagraph has a unique pattern and texture. Lingamfelter admits to her tactile obsession. She has always been very active and enjoys the physicality of the artistic process- going outside and collecting pieces of nature, then lifting the heavy machinery to create her images. In contrast, she often uses smooth brush strokes to paint the backgrounds for her collagraphs. The combination of lively textures and calming natural elements produce introspective pieces of artwork.

Winter Rusiloski

Winter Rusiloski needed a challenge. Having grown up in an artistic family, she was familiar with most basic art forms. After doing mostly abstract paintings, Rusiloski decided she wanted to branch out a little. During a trip to the Canadian border, she was overcome by the beautiful symmetry of the horizon. The connection between the lake and the sky was captivating. Afterwards, Rusiloski decided to take pictures of these images to use in her artwork.

At first taking pictures of found objects, Rusiloski then asked family members to send her images of the surrounding land in Pennsylvania. The quaint farms, haystacks, and trees provided inspiration for her abstract paintings. She challenged herself to match the colors in the pictures, and to continue the images with abstract lines and forms. Rusiloski works to unite the photographs and the abstract images, to cause them to integrate together seamlessly. As a result, her pieces are vibrant patches of color with hidden images of landscapes and nature.

Both Lingamfelter and Rusiloski use the outdoors as a springboard to create a unique outlook on nature. Their distinct approaches of collagraphs and abstract paintings form visual representations of natural elements. Although each piece is distinctive to its maker, the overall result is a colorful and textural experience.

Heidi LIngamfelter & Winter Rusiloski: Sky Water Leaves Grass is on view at Mokah Art Gallery through January 2, 2010.

Heidi Lingamfelter (Photo by Michelle Wallace)

Winter Rusiloski (Photo by Michelle Wallace)

Opening Reception: December 5, 7-10 p.m.

500X Gallery is opening three new shows for December: New Work by Rebecca Carter and Thomas Feulmer, Melancholia by Julie Barnofski and Holy Saint Mary’s Biscuits Captain! by Mark Collop and Joel Kiser. This trio of exhibits opens Saturday, December 5, 2009. The opening reception is from 7 to 10 p.m.

New Work by Rebecca Carter and Thomas Feulmer

Rebecca Carter presents The Love Letter, a collection of works in thread, neon, and photography investigating love, its absence, and the materialization of language.

Thomas Feulmer’s recent work looks at intimacy, attraction, and masculinity. Each of these notions have been played out in high (art history) and low (workout magazines) cultural arenas. Frameworks of meaning – such as myth, commerce, and history – keep these ideas in a fluid state. Feulmer uses imagery and language from gym culture, religious history, and animal-human interactions as overlapping reference points for work in a variety of media.

UPSTAIRS GALLERY – Melancholia by Julie Barnofski

The images explore physical manifestations of melancholia by specifically pairing fragments of daily encounters of implicit loss without showing what is lost. These photographs are explorations of how loss is materialized and visualized despite its ethereal state. This accounts for their extremely small size, as I ask the viewer to examine them intimately, forging his or her own connection with each piece, and not allowing enough space for more than one person to adequately view them at a time. Though materializing an intangible concept provides a daunting or perhaps seemingly impossible task, melancholy scenes are represented in these images as they stagnantly express morose or nostalgic scenarios, often ambiguous in nature, while remaining indefinable. In addition to this, these photographs involve the viewer as an active participant, asking her to establish her subjective or objective connection to each scene and sense of disconnection from the real (or, what is a mere representation of reality within each photo).

PROJECT ROOM – Holy Saint Mary’s Biscuits Captain!

Mark Collop aka ‘Rollie Fingers’ and Joel ‘Captain’ Kiser present the first screening of “Holy Saint Mary’s Biscuits Captain!” Come celebrate prostate awareness with Rollie Fingers and Captain Kiser as they battle the evil prostate monster ‘Zebular the Third’! There will be fun and refreshments for the entire family.

THE 25-50-100 500X HOLIDAY SALE

500X members have contributed artwork at 3 gloriously accessible price-points! Halleluiah!
Purchase your one-of-a-kind holiday gifts early at the low-low-low price of $25, $50, or $100!
Cash-and-carry…you buy it, you take it off the wall.
Gift wrapping not included.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Spring 2010 Season

The Expo Show
January 16-30, 2010
Opening Reception: January 16, 7-10pm
Project Room: Shelby Cunningham
MORE INFO AT: 500x.org

Shelby Cunningham & Tim Best
February 6-28, 2010
Opening Reception: February 6, 7-10pm
Upstairs Gallery: Todd Camplin
Project Room: Tiffany Wolf

Sarah Williams, Sean Adam Ibanez, Clayton Hurt, & Scott Hilton
March 6-28, 2010
Opening Reception: March 6, 7-10pm
Project Room: Joel Kiser

Natalie Macellaio
April 3-25, 2010
Opening Reception: April 3, 7-10pm
Upstairs Gallery: Murielle White
Project Room: Tim Best

Mark Collop & Joel Kiser
May 1-30, 2010
Reception: Saturday May 1, 7-10pm
Upstairs Gallery: Melissa Wilkinson – Paint Snob
Project Room: Sarah Williams

500X Gallery

500X Gallery is located at 500 Expositon Ave., Dallas, Texas 75226. They are open Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment. For more information call 214-828-1111 or visit on the web at 500x.org.

Powdered Graphite 3 by Timothy Harding

Timothy Harding and Jennifer Jones
mod.shop Gallery
Nov. 14 to Dec. 11, 2009

Artist reception is Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009, from 6 to 8 p.m.

The mod.shop Gallery is pleased to present the intersection of two young artists Timothy Harding and Jennifer Jones who explore pencil drawing on stake white backgrounds. Timothy Harding will be transforming the gallery with his deconstructivist architectural paper drawings. While Jennifer Jones’ work explores the death of her father using charcoal and gesso to delicate pencil drawings.

Timothy Harding treats paper with white gesso to allow the constructed environments to interact directly with the white walls of the setting these works occupy. His work brings in to question where the art works begin and end. The results are environment that appears to be consuming the surrounding areas.

Jennifer Jones (selected as Dallas Nine Artist by D Magazine) explores her feelings and reactions to the experiences that she encountered after her father’s death. Her father’s death caused her to also explore childhood memories which in turned she incorporated into her current work. She uses a range of different materials on each piece to delineate the objects from one another as well as time and place. Some images that are charcoal and gesso stand out more, and in turn, make the delicate pencil drawings seem ghostly quiet.

mod.shop Gallery is committed to promoting the visual arts in North Dallas. mod.shop wants to create a dialog with emerging Dallas artists and the Dallas/Ft.Worth Community. For more information, please visit www.modshopinc.com.

Piano by Jenny Jones

Works on Paper features recent works by Megan McGinnis and Michael Francis dealing with the struggles of growing up. McGinnis’ work focuses on early childhood, and Francis’ on his friend Evan beginning college. Working from photographs, the images are reworked and manipulated to show the beauty and vulnerability of innocence in transition.

Works on Paper is on view at Mokah Art Gallery through November 28, 2009. The opening reception is Friday, November 6, 2009, from 5 to 8 p.m.

About the Artists

Megan McGinnis was born in 1975 in Kincheloe, Michigan. She received her BFA in painting from Wright State University in Dayton, OH and her MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Her work was been exhibited in New York and in many venues throughout the United States and is also featured in many prominent collections. She is currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY.

Michael Francis holds a MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA in drawing and painting from the University of North Texas, and spent a semester in undergrad art at the San Francisco Art Institute. Michael spent his graduate years through last year painting images based on war and destruction. He finished this thread of work with a series of destroyed cities and a book titled Zenith. Michael recently switched to figurative work with unfinished narratives from photographic images taken from family and friends. Michael lives in Dallas with his wife.

About Mokah Art Gallery

Mokah Art Gallery, an extension of Life in Deep Ellum, serves to promote culture and art in Deep Ellum and surrounding communities. At the Cultural Center, Mokah Art Gallery exhibitions feature contemporary art of local artists from the experimental, the emerging, and the established.

Keep up with Mokah Gallery on Tumblr at mokahart.tumblr.com or on Twitter at twitter.com/mokahartgallery.

Anime is an abbreviated pronunciation of “animation,” referring to animation originating in Japan. Manga consists of comics and print cartoons that conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 20th century. Both have origins dating from as far back as the 18th and 19th centuries through the post-WWII era.

Stacy Schultz Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Art History at UTEP, and Polly Perez, Assistant Curator of Education at EPMA, will give a lecture and presentation about the emergence and influence of Japanese Anime and Manga in Contemporary Art and Culture, with an overview of Japanese Art that led to a unique aesthetic movement that seems to be taking over the world.

Anime and Manga are more than a pop-culture phenomenon but aesthetic works with long standing and profound historical and socio-cultural relevance in Japan, as well as a lucrative commercial export.

The presentation will feature a selection of images from Films, Narrative Fiction, Animation, Contemporary Art, Performance Art, and Art History – with particular focus on the work of Takashi Murakami as an example of the convergence of “Pop,” History, and Art. The El Paso Museum of Art currently has a sculptural piece from Mr. Murakami on display in the Museum store with corresponding merchandise and books available for purchase.

Admission to this event is FREE.

Teachers, High School, and College students are encouraged to attend.

The El Paso Museum of Art educational programs are dedicated to presenting new insights about art to the community. Please call EPMA at 532-1707 ext. 23 for more information on this or other educational programming, or visit our website at www.elpasoartmuseum.org.