GRAY CONTEMPORAY
Main Gallery: Group Exhibition

September 8 – October 13,2018
Opening Reception: Sat., Sept. 8, 5-8pm

Gray Contemporary is pleased to announce two exhibitions, in the Main Gallery a group exhibition including Jonathan Anderson, Matthew McAlpine, Jose Carlos Naranjo, Dmitri Obergfell, Gregory Ruppe, and Kamila Szczesna and in the Second Gallery a solo exhibition featuring works by Altoon Sultan. Both exhibitions open Saturday, September 8 from 5:00 – 8:00 pm, and will continue through October 13, 2018.

MAIN GALLERY: Jonathan Anderson, Matthew McAlpine, Jose Carlos Naranjo, Dmitri Obergfell, Gregory Ruppe, and Kamila Szczesna
In the Main Gallery is a group exhibition of local, national and International artists who display varying approaches from sculpture to painting. While together this exhibition is mostly eclectic, each work shares a slightly vague connection rather through the subject matter involving the figure or through the raw, reductive approach to the material in which they work.

About the Artists:
Jonathan Anderson (b. 1977, Scotland) has exhibited widely throughout the United Kingdom. Groups shows include ‘Terra’ Jerwood Art Space London and ‘The Tale’ Torquay Museum. Recent solo shows include ‘Coal Face Buddha’ Art Lacuna London and ‘Pylon Totems’ Oriel Mwldan Cardigan, Wales. Recently commissioned to make a sculpture for ‘The Age of Coal; A European History’ Ruhr Museum, Germany. Currently lives and works in Swansea, UK and Trondheim, Norway.

Matthew McAlpine (b.1994, Australia) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Whadjuk Noongar country (Perth, Western Australia). His practice aims to explore the complexities and problems of celebrating colonial legacies. He graduated from Curtin University in 2016 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours). McAlpine has exhibited in a range of public and artist run space across Australia including the Fremantle Arts Centre, QUT Art Museum and c3 Contemporary Art Space. This is his first time exhibiting in the United States.

Jose Carlos Naranjo (b. 1983, Spain) he graduated MFA Art, Idea and Production in the University of Seville and BFA Painting Program in the University of Fine Arts in Seville, Spain. His most recent solo show has been at SCAN Projects Room in London in 2018. He also exhibited solo show in Galería Birimbao in Seville and Yusto/Giner Gallery.

Dmitri Obergfell (b. 1986, Denver, CO) has exhibited nationally and internationally. Some recent group exhibitions include Supastore Human-We are the product at Dikeou Collection Pop-Up curated by Sarah Staton, Redline 10x, curated by Cortney Stell at Redline, Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place at the Denver Art Museum, Drone of Perseus at Hilde Gallery, and Back to the Future at Casa Maauad in Mexico City.

Gregory Ruppe (b. 1979, Houston, TX) is an artist currently living and working in Dallas, Texas. He co-founded Fort Worth-based artist collective Homecoming!Committee (2011-2014), and experimental project space CULTURE HOLE with frequent collaborator Jeff Gibbons. He received his MFA from TCU in Fort Worth, Texas. Selected exhibitions and performances include Apples, Brooklyn, New York; Réunion Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland; Riverside—Space, Bern, Switzerland; Hiroshima Art Center, Hiroshima, Japan; The Glasgow International at The Modern Institute, Glasgow, UK; Vilma Gold, London, UK; The Berlin Becher Triennial, Berlin, Germany; Le Sud Bébé, Marseille, France; Museo de la Ciudad de Querétaro, Santiago de Querétaro, Mexico; OFG.XXX, Dallas, TX; galleryHOMELAND, Houston, TX; The Nasher Sculpture Center, and The Dallas Museum of Art.

Kamila Szczesna (b. 1974, Poland) is an interdisciplinary artist working in various media and formats including sculpture, drawing, and installation. In her work she explores the complex interactions between body and mind. She earned her MFA degree at the Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw. Her work has been nationally and internationally exhibited and is held in public collections in Poland, Japan, Spain, Taiwan, Korea, and Germany.

SECOND GALLERY: Altoon Sultan

In 2005 I learned the technique of rug hooking, not to make art, but to make rugs for my old Vermont farmhouse, but that changed: I had recently seen a beautiful show of Tantric drawings at the Drawing Center and the very simple, powerful, deeply emotional images had stayed with me; thinking of this work inspired me to make a small wall textile based on one of the drawings, and that in turn led me to realize that with this technique I could explore abstraction, not in paint, but in wool, with loops of wool acting like brushstrokes.

About the Artist:
Altoon Sultan was born in Brooklyn, not far from Coney Island. She was educated in the borough, getting her BA and MFA degrees from Brooklyn College, where she studied with Philip Pearlstein and Lois Dodd. Summer painting programs at Tanglewood and Skowhegan encouraged her to take her art work seriously. Her first painting exhibitions, in 1971 and 1973, were at a co-op gallery in Soho, but soon she was represented by the prestigious Marlborough Gallery, where she had her first show in 1977. She went on to have many solo shows in NYC, at Marlborough and at Tibor de Nagy and throughout the United States over more than 30 years.

Gray Contemporary
3508 Lake Street
Houston, TX 77098
Gallery Hours: Tue-Sat, 11-5pm or by appointment
713.862.4425

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RAFAEL BARRIOS

Art of the World Gallery
Through October 13, 2018

Famed artist, illusionist, and sculptor Rafael Barrios will have an exhibition at Art of the World Gallery for his first ever exhibition in Texas. This exquisite collection will feature over 25 pieces, including two monumental sculptures, all designed to trick the eye and exaggerate their three-dimensionality. His main medium is hand-lacquered steel, which he colors differently so as to play with shape, dimension, and shade.
Art of the World Gallery
2201 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77098
713.526.1201
www.artoftheworldgallery.com

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STELLA SULLIVAN:
A Retrospective

MID-CENTURY MOD IN MOTION

William Reaves / Sarah Foltz Fine Art
Opens September 15, 2018 through November 3, 2018
Opening Reception: Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018, 6-8pm
Gallery Talk with Tam Kiehnhoff at 6pm

Stella Sullivan: A Retrospective
This exhibition will pay tribute to the life and work of Stella Sullivan, a true pioneer of Modernism in Texas. Stella Sullivan (1924-2017) was born in Houston, Texas. Early in life she received private lessons from artist, Ola McNeill Davidson, and attended classes at Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. After graduating from St. Agnes Academy, she studied architecture, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice Institute (now Rice University) and worked for her father in architectural drafting. Sullivan then moved to Michigan where she studied at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, later transferring to the Cranbrook Academy of Art where she graduated with her Master of Fine Arts degree. Sullivan was an instructor at the Museum School (now Glassell School) of Art, the University of Houston, Sam Houston State University, and the University of Delaware. She established the Stella Sullivan School of Art where she taught painting, drawing, design, and silk-screening during the 1970s. Her career as an artist and teacher in Houston spans seven decades.
This exhibition will include Sullivan’s paintings, prints, textiles, life-drawings, and ephemera from her private collection

Mid-Century Mod in Motion
Also on view in the interior gallery will be Mid-Century Mod in Motion. Just over two years after the opening of the exhibition This WAS Contemporary Art: Fine and Decorative Arts in Houston 1945-1965 organized by The Heritage Society, Center for the Advancement and Study of Early Texas Art (CASETA), and the Houston Early Texas Art Group (HETAG), Reaves | Foltz Fine Art revisits the often-overlooked Houston Handmakers group among others, highlighting many important works by artists Margaret Baum, Bill Condon, Henri Gadbois, Ruth Laird, Frank Dolejska, Stella Sullivan, and more.
The inner gallery space will become a menagerie of prints, textiles, garments, ceramics, sculpture, paintings, and source photographs. This compelling installation will open up a mid-century time capsule that may feel oddly familiar to today’s Mod connoisseur.

Reaves / Foltz Fine Art
2143 Westheimer
Houston, TX 77098
713.521.7500

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EMILIE HALPERN:
Polaris

 

Jonathan Hopson Gallery
September 9, 2018 – October 15, 2018
Opening Reception: Sun., Sept. 9, 1-5 pm

Jonathan Hopson is proud to introduce Los Angeles based artist Emilie Halpern for her first solo exhibition in Texas. Emilie Halpern’s work has been described alongside conceptual artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Joseph Beuys, and Lee Ufan. Her work effortlessly captures those elusive moments between endless dark and brightest light – crystalizing a doubted realm into existence. However, recently she lost her husband and was diagnosed with breast cancer while caring for her five-year-old son. Over the course of a few months her life, as well as her work, immeasurably changed:

“Desire is predicated on absence [but] in capturing the elusive, you destroy everything you admired about it.

This work is different. This is about not wanting to die. This is about wishing I could’ve saved someone from killing themselves. This is about grieving. This is about when everything falls apart you still want to keep going.

My husband chose death, I chose life. And art was there. When everything else was falling apart, was on fire, it was my Polaris.”

Polaris is Halpern’s first engagement with art since her transformation. The exhibition consists of a floor sculpture, ceramic vessels and a mural.
Philosopher’s Stone is made up of locally sourced rocks dusted with photochromic pigment. When exposed to sunlight, the achromatic powder transforms into a vibrant spectrum of color.
Urn I & Urn II are black ceramic vessels based on ancient Mayan and Anglo Saxon cinerary urns. The larger vessel contains 6 lbs of ash, the average weight of a cremated man, and the other contains 4 lbs, the average weight of a cremated woman.
Moon Drift is a black circle painted on the wall that represents the distance the moon has drifted from the Earth since man last stepped on the moon.

Jonathan Hopson Gallery
904 Marshall Street
Houston, TX 77066