Inside the Art Car Parade

May always bring my two favorite things: Mother’s Day and the Houston Art Car Parade! This year is the twenty-freaking-fifth anniversary of that wonder on wheels and the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art (www.orangeshow.org) is celebrating with, of course, the Parade on May 12.  –Sarah Gish

 Mark “Scrapdaddy” Bradford

Years involved in Art Car Parade: 24 years.

How did you get into this? My great-grandfather was an inventor, and I have always wanted to invent cool contraptions…the parade has always provided the forum for me to do this. I love to perform with my latest creations each year in the parade.

Hours on average spent on car? Minimally 1000 hours on most every car I’ve built…I have several.

Car model and year? 1988 Honda Helix 250cc motorcycle, 1987 Honda Elite 80cc, combined to power the three-wheel car.

Do you dress to match your car? My wife Nicole has a spot on each of my cars, and I normally build a costume for her to wear and perform with the car, while I drive it.

What’s the strangest question you’ve ever been asked about your car? Regarding Mr. Green, “Is that the Grinch?”

What will your next car be decorated with/as? My next car will more than likely be decorated with stainless steel scales, a trademark of mine.

How much is your car worth?  Priceless…I love it too much!

Does your car have a nickname? Mr. Green pretty much covers it…no need for a nickname! I guess I’ve heard children call it “Monster Man.”

What movie could your car have had a role in? Probably The Grinch. Mr. Green does look kind of like him. Many of my other cars could be in Jurassic Park, as they look like some form of mutant dinosaur.

If your car could talk, who would it sound like? He does talk…he sounds like Tarzan. He has 50 Tarzan car alarms that make the “Tarzan yell” because he’s king of the concrete jungle.

Which car, other than your own, do you admire most? Faith by David Best. David has always been a mentor to me. I also have to really admire Iron Maiden by Kenny Browning.

If 002 had a car, what should it look like?

One that I built…take your pick!

 Robynn Sanders

Years involved in Art Car Parade:

21 dog years.

How did you get into this?

I was hatched into it from a 20-foot tall metal chicken.

Hours on average spent on car? 200 hrs.

Car model and year? 1963 Porsche 365B.

Do you dress to match your car?

Hippies don’t wear clothes…

What’s the strangest question you’ve ever been asked about your car?

Why the hell did I copy Janis Joplin’s Karmann Ghia.

What will your next car be decorated with/as? It will be my boyfriend’s 250Z or David’s Bugatti… both are top secret, think unicorns and feathers…

How much is your car worth? 60 cents.

Does your car have a nickname?

Does your mom?

What movie could your car have had a role in?

Pulp Fiction – DICK DALE!!!

If your car could talk, who would it sound like?

Cheech Marin or Bobcat Goldthwait.

Which car, other than your own, do you admire most? Stupid Deloreans and the ’87 Chevrolet Celebrity that parks at the end of my block.

If 002 had a car, what should it look like?

A 1982 AMC Gremlin.

jake goldstein

 

Car Von Tiki.

Years involved in Art Car Parade

Car was first in Houston’s Art Car parade in 2007.

How did you get into this? I saw ArtCarFest at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2003 and thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. I brought the Von Tiki to the same show in 2005.

Hours on average spent on car?

I don’t spend any time on it. I bought it like this one year from a Saks catalog with a really big tax refund check.

Car model and year? 1987 Toyota Van (before there was a Previa, they just called it “Van”).

Do you dress to match your car? Not when I’m going to work or the store.

What will your next car be decorated with/as? My newest car is decorated with Texas-themed stained glass, and is a race car.

How much is your car worth? $20K; for $25K I’ll put a new engine in it for you, though the current one runs pretty well.

Does your car have a nickname? Children, who aren’t familiar with tiki bars, usually call it the “Pineapple Truck.” Children that aren’t familiar with the idea of trucks call it the “Pineapple Car.”

What movie could your car have had a role in?  The Von Tiki was in Paul Wall’s and Baby Bash’s “Lemon Drop” video: DJ in the back, turntables on the bar, and so many dancing girls around it that you couldn’t see the van that well. It was also offered a role in Un Chien Andalou, but we turned it down, which was probably a mistake.

If your car could talk, who would it sound like? Probably me. We spend a lot of time together.

Which car, other than your own, do you admire most? I love a lot of the cars. But I find something new on Kirk Suddreath’s Jesus Monkey Car every time I look at it, plus it’s a daily driver.

If 002 had a car, what should it look like? A tribute to Houston fountains: the Williams Waterwall on the sides, Wortham Fountain in the front and Mecom Fountain on the trunk. With real running water.

Smitty Regula 

Car Hen-a-tron II.

Years involved in Art Car Parade 10 years.

How did you get into this? Mom took me to my first parade in 1986 or 1987.

Hours on average spent on car? Hen-a-tron took about 6 months 336 hours.

Car model and year?

Originally a 1989 Mazda B2000 truck.

Do you dress to match your car?

Previous car “Laundry car,” yes, this one no.

What’s the strangest question you’ve ever been asked about your car?

I have had a person ask me if they could sign it. (They had a Sharpie® in hand at a gas station and were ready to write on the car; I let them for I thought it was a strange request. Then I asked if I could sign their car and they wouldn’t let me – I told them that it wasn’t fair!)

What will your next car be decorated with/as? It will be a giant Christmas tree that drives around.

How much is your car worth? I would sell it for $10,000. (The real worth? I have no idea. It hits trees and wires so probably $500.)

Does your car have a nickname?

No, not really, Chicken car.

What movie could your car have had a role in? It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World.

If your car could talk, who would it sound like? It talks; it is usually a smart ass, very quick to insult.

Which car, other than your own, do you admire most? Swamp Mutha.

 Photography by Sofia van der Dys

Marina Zurkow’s Necrocracy

Brooklyn-based artist Marina Zurkow will be presenting one of her many works titled Necrocracy, an exhibition that will explore petrochemical production and nature that combines drawings and video animation as well as sculpture. “The title of the show, “Necrocracy,” governance by the dead, alludes to the lives, deaths and resurrection of hydrocarbons, the stuff of fossil fuels that once lived as marine organisms populating the Permian Sea 250 million years ago,” said Zurkow.  The show is composed of seven new animated works and a labyrinth of 50 ten foot high banners of things made out of petroleum plastics. Examples of these include IV bags, flip-flops, rubber chickens, artificial flowers, nylon umbrellas, gas masks, police riot shields, cell phones, skateboard wheels, diapers and even condoms. Zurkow says the animations, which will include some video and some software driven, will look at the petroleum rich landscape of West Texas through a series of lenses: the geological time, larger ecosystem and the interdependence of resources like water and oil. In helping to prepare for this exhibit, in January 2011, Zurkow was able to participate in a two-week research trip supported by DiverseWorks, where Zurkow traveled to the Permian Basin. There Zurkow was able to meet with people who work in the oil industry as well as cattle ranchers and geologists.

Zurkows’ first motivation to participate in this type of art was to do a portrait of a West Texas landscape, as well as work on a series of animated landscapes about human-altered ecosystems. The first was in Northumberland, United Kingdom. “These landscapes each include not only local natural features like plants, animals, weather, but also humans and the things we have brought and changes we have made; in the case of England, which looks completely natural, the earth had been mined and changed for 3500 years, and a lot of mythologies sprung up around it. In the case of Wink, Texas, which is the site of the second landscape in the series, the water-filled sinkhole looks completely natural but was caused by human interventions in the land. As I made my way through the landscape and read about the time it took for the Permian Sea to dry up and migrate thousands of miles to its present position under West Texas, and compress all those hydrocarbons into what eventually became the petroleum we pull up out of the earth, I became progressively more interested in plastic – how it’s made, how much we interact with it, how natural it’s become in our lives, as well as keenly aware of issues like the relationships between resources such as petroleum and water,” said Zurkow. To see this piece, visit www.omatic.com/play/friend/mesocosmWink/.

 Necrocracy will be available for viewing at the DiverseWorks Main Gallery from March 17 through April 21. In addition there will be an opening reception on March 16 from 6-9pm. The exhibition will also feature a short film “NeoGeo” by Marina Zurkow and Daniel Shiffman in the flicker lounge. This event is free and will be open to the public.

Also open to the public on March 18, at 1pm, Zurkow will give a tour of her exhibition, Necrocracy.  The artist will discuss her research trip, ecosystems and technology she created to produce video animations.

Since 2000, Zurkow has exhibited at the Sundance Film Festival, The Rotterdam Film Festival, The Seoul Media City Biennial, Arts Electronica, Creative, The Kitchen, The Walker Art Center and The National Museum for Women in the Arts and Eyebeam, among other venues.  Zurkow is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and has been a NYFA Fellow, a Rockefeller New Media Fellow and a Creative Capital grantee. Zurkow is also on the faculty at NYU’s Interactive Technology Program, and lives in Brooklyn, New York, according to the DiverseWorks press release. “Necrocracy” is curated by DiverseWorks’ Artistic Director Sixto Wagan and former Co-Executive Director Diane Barber. For more information on Marina Zurkow, visit www.o-matic.com.

Correspondent: Natalie Epperley

What’s Age Got To Do With It?
MARIA HUGHES
Shares How Her Endless Love for Art Defies Any Age

This Nuevo Laredo, Mexico native, a 40-plus year resident of Houston who has witnessed many risings and settings of the sun, has seen changes take place not only within her inner being, but in the world in which she lives. Yet, in times of trial and triumph, she has learned to be abased and abound in whatever state she finds herself. At 80 years young, she continues to yield to the creed that it is never too late to make your dreams come true. She is none other than artist Maria Hughes, who did not experience her first solo art exhibit until her 77th birthday, and her second exhibition two years later. And, as Hughes exuberantly gears up for her third major art show in April 2012, she remains a living true testament that age is truly nothing but a number. Yet such passion for art didn’t evolve overnight for this widowed mother of one son (Hughes lost her husband in a traffic accident in ’78), but rather dates back to her adolescent years when her imagination was daily immersed in the rich colors, textures and landscapes of her hometown of Laredo. Ingenuity and self-expression would later reveal itself in Hughes’ early, 8-year career as a window decorator for an interior decorator/department store. Yet, her creativity longed for development and expansion; in 1963, at the age of 32, Hughes transitioned to Houston to broaden her art experiences. Per Hughes, “Initially, I studied art at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for almost two years. I decided that I wanted to teach and make a living out of my passion for art. I enrolled at the University of Houston, secured my BS degree in art education, and began teaching art education in Houston ISD at Madison High School in ’67, primarily working with ceramics. I often took ill due to the lack of school exhaust systems. Consequently, when HISD afforded an all-expense paid opportunity for me and 24 other teachers to earn a master’s of education in guidance and counseling from Texas A&M University (due to a shortage of bilingual counselors in HISD), I embraced it. Art would temporarily take a back seat. This was a blessing because the A&M instructors taught us after school on campus; we only commuted to A&M for instruction during the summer. After earning my master’s degree, I worked as a counselor for many years. My greatest experience as a counselor was at an alternative elementary school; by cultivating youth, working with parents and making home visits, I gained a lot of experience which was not only personally gratifying, but humbling because I knew I was making a difference in the lives of others. When I retired from HISD in 2003, I delved back into my greatest love, art. My love for art was always there. I couldn’t be happier to give it my full-time attention again!” Talk about coming full circle! Joining the Houston Art League, Hughes enrolled in a class 7 years ago taught by her former student, Armando Rodriguez, who has since converted her into a monotype printmaker painting on clear acrylic using special paints, then transferring the image onto paper by pressing the two together via a printing press, adding color for inimitableness. Hughes’ third exhibition, “Sigo Soñando” or “Still Dreaming,” will exhibit a new series of vibrant, abstract monotypes. She has invited artists Scoti Carden and Clemente Garcia and sculptor Daniel Esquivel Brandt to join her in this experience at Canal Street Gallery. “I believe in giving back and helping other artists along the way. These are three talented artists in their own right and I want our community to partake in their wonderful works.”

COMING SOON! “Sigo Soñando” or “Still Dreaming” Opening Reception sponsored by 002houston Friday, April 23, 2012 (6 – 9pm) Second Reception Saturday, April 14, 2012 (2 – 6pm) On view from March 30 – May 8

CANAL STREET GALLERY 2219 Canal Street | Houston, TX 77003 713.228.3848 | www.canalstreetgallery.com Open 11am to 3pm, Friday-Sunday

 www.mariahughesart.com
quetahughes@aol.com

by Susan M. Bynam Photography by Sofia van der Dys

Curtis Gannon

Is there an era, a cutoff point for an era of comics that interest you from which you tend to work?
Good question. Primarily the ’60s and the ’70s, I guess even the ’50s. What they would call the “Golden Age” is kind of ’50s, ’60s, and the “Silver Age” is primarily ’70s. They’ve been making reprints for quite a bit of these comics for about 10–15 years, and I make my work from these reprints. I love the colors they use. I love the way they were drawn back then, the simplicity of the printing… now, with digital, they’re almost photographic they’re so well printed. Plus, there’s something about the comics from that day and age. You know, you always knew the good guy was gonna win, no one ever really got killed, there was no cussing, there was no… a very latent sexuality – and comics today, it’s pretty much like cable television. They’re pretty over the top. So I like that innocence, you know?

Did you grow up reading comics actively? Were you really into it?
Oh, definitely. I grew up in a small South Texas oil town with nothing going on… little Alice, Texas. No one’s ever even heard of it unless you broke down there or got relatives. And I just ran into this guy down the street who had boxes of comics and before I knew it, I had a couple of boxes of my own and… I don’t know, I just read comics all the time. I just loved it. Always tried to find people who had stashes of them, would always try to go to garage sales and for a while even thought about being a comic book artist.

There’s something about comics that can’t be reproduced in film, etc. People either get comics or they don’t, but it’s difficult to explain that ‘it’ that comics has, isn’t it?
Definitely. It’s interesting you mention film, because film and comics are probably two of the closest-related medias.

Because of the panels.
Yeah, and the sense of… the first panel on the left is going to be the first scene, and then the next, and there’s this kind of sequence of events and time… it just happens a lot faster in film. Those images are going by very quickly. Where in comics, it’s all still moments with time in between, and you know, the gutters are a very big element in my work – the white lines that separate the panels on a page – and from one panel to another; it can be the time of a breath or it could be literally a million years. The first panel could be dinosaurs fighting, and the next one could be a guy getting into a spaceship. Anything can happen. Time and space … you know, you can start on Earth, you can end up on Mars in the second panel. Anything can happen, and that sense of this perpetual time machine, almost, with limitless possibilities between panels is something that’s very attractive to me. I’m always kind of rediscovering that tool of this media.

Your work is sort of a commentary on how everything is being reappropriated these days – especially in digital form. How do you feel about that versus what you do, which is very physical, very craftlike with the material?
It’s so easy to walk that line between what is appropriating, what is using something legally and what is stealing it or misusing it, which is the worst of all possibilities. And that question always comes up about my work, and there’re two things: one, I’m actually using the comics books, which – they’re public property. Everything I use, you could go to Barnes & Noble or to Third Planet Comics, and find the exact same thing, and I like that about it. And also, these things are very much kind of an homage to these artists and writers of this time. I love Jack Kirby; I love Stan Lee. Stan Lee is my Mark Twain. And so these pieces are very much just kind of a nerdy, fanboy love of this material.

Is your Plexiglas stuff going to be in the show
coming up?
I’ve got a couple for this show, and this will be the first time these have been shown in an exhibition, the Plexi pieces. I’m also making some new pieces that have never been shown that I call “page mosaics,” where I’m cutting all the pages out of a comic… the first layer is just pages, and then I put layers in front of that that are the pages with the windows, overlapping and overlapping. But they’re just pinned to the walls, pinned over and over … so every time I reinstall the piece, it’s a new piece. I’m trying to break out of this rigidness of the system, and making something organic that I have to reinterpret every time. And then I’m also making these pieces that I’m calling “plot weaves,” where I’m cutting the comics into strips, and then I’m weaving the pages back together, and making almost like these little mats. It’s totally goofy. I just thought about simple childhood projects and what you do with paper. The projects you would have done in Sunday School or even the second grade. I try to keep my hands in multiple formats. I find that interesting. You go to an art show and you see one piece and they all look the same, just different sizes. And I try to keep reinterpreting it. It keeps me sharp, and I think it keeps the viewers interested.

“and everything in between.” is on view through March 2, and will also be open to the public on Saturday, February 11, from 2 to 5pm, in conjunction with Winter Street Studios Second Saturday Open Studios. Closing reception on Friday, March 2, 6-8pm.

Spacetaker ARC Gallery
2101 Winter Street, B11
Houston, TX 77007
www.spacetaker.org

Interview by Lance Scott Walker
Photography by Cody Bess

JAPAN365: A Drawing-A-Day in 2011
A winning project for Japan relief efforts, for the sake of art, and for you!

Houston artist and teacher J Muzacz, teaching English and internationalization to schoolchildren for the past year in Japan, opted to document his time in Japan with daily sketches created solely by ballpoint pen (hence the birth of JAPAN365: A Drawing-A-Day in 2011, a Japanese/English book compilation that will feature all of his sketches in Japan for the past year) – a project largely inspired by his Australian friend Joel Brewster, who previously recorded 365 electronic music tracks daily during his time spent in Korea. Muzacz’s desire to share his humble interpretations of the wondrous beauty and mystery of Japan took on new meaning after the March 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, which triggered powerful tsunami waves resulting in a vast number of fatalities, a number of nuclear accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant and exorbitant devastation to Japan’s infrastructure and communities. Although Muzacz’s residence in Japan was located far from the destruction, the aftermath and shock that headlined daily news made it difficult for him to draw anything other than still-life drawings of his breakfast.

“I pledged to document each day (i.e., a drawing a day starting January 1, 2011), initially, as part of a New Year’s Postcard project, yet my enterprise took on new meaning in the wake of the natural disaster,” said Muzacz. “After letting the shock of the disaster subside, I began to explore the web for the most illustrative photos. I realized that if my project should remain an authentic retrospective, I would have to draw some of these current events. It was difficult seeing so much wreckage and thinking of the millions of people affected by this tragedy.”
Yet, as Muzacz moved forward, inevitably capturing iconic images of destruction, a fresher sequence of events began to unfold in Japan. “I have sought to find the most inspirational and comforting images that both capture the humanity of the situation and the incredible spirit of the Japanese.” Leaning on support of local people, colleagues, Japanese friends and oftentimes total strangers, Muzacz meticulously chooses his subjects. Images range from folk in Japanese history to current events to ancient straw huts, Bento food, wild plants, pop culture, landscapes, graffiti – the list goes on. “My work is partly a visual learning process with thorough meditation and research to depict each drawing with accuracy and care. I solely use ballpoint pens to find freedom in simplicity with my artistry and as an attempt to master a medium that is perfect for long-term backpack traveling due to its accessibility, light weight and sportability for wherever my travels take me,” shares Muzacz.

Talk about “WIN” appeal!

JAPAN365 will transcend far beyond the creation of an art book compilation. Seeking online pledges to support self-publication of the first edition, coupled with his lofty goal of selling 1,000,000 books, Muzacz anticipates gifting approximately $6,000,000 of the proceeds to support the Japan Red Cross and ongoing relief efforts there.

“New Year’s Eve 2011 will mark my last drawing of the year. Completing this journey is a WIN-WIN-WIN situation. Through pledge support, I anticipate successful self-publication, marketing and promotion of JAPAN365 and its paperless e-book download and print purchase availability in early 2012. YOU win, by pledging and receiving a really cool book. I win by becoming a published artist/author. Most importantly, JAPAN wins by getting $6,000,000 for ongoing relief efforts when we meet our goal! It is my hope that my drawings and efforts to compile an attractive volume for purchase will make enough money to pay for the project itself AND have a few million dollars left to extend to Japan.”

Check out Muzacz’s work on his blog at jmuzacz.posterous.com.
To make your online pledge to JAPAN365: A Drawing-A-Day in 2011 Project, learn of the amazing perks available for your monetary gift, please visit the
JAPAN365 campaign website: www.indiegogo.com/
JAPAN365-Drawing-A-Day-Project.

By Susan M. Bynam

PATRICK TURK

How has being from Galveston, a place really shaped by nature’s plans, informed your own work?
Galveston is such an enigma to me. I find it morbid, cynical, mystical, depressing, proud, arrogant, resilient and optimistic, among other things. I’m not sure if those attributes are instilled in the populace of the island through some sort of cosmic communion with nature’s plans or not. The distinction of being the home to the most deadly natural disaster in American history is certainly emblazoned in every Galvestonian’s heart and soul from birth. The juxtaposition between the destruction of the [1900 Storm] and the spirit involved in the subsequent rebuilding of the island is indicative of the attitude and identity of the island and people from there. I don’t think the actual historical events of the island are reflected in my work in a literal way, but I do think that some of the recurring themes I explore can be attributed to the attitudes of the island that are a result of those events.

Your work comments on time travel. Are you a science fiction fan?
I really like a lot of sci-fi, fantasy and horror especially in terms of the illustration related to those genres from the late 40’s through the early 70’s or so. I especially gravitate towards the pulp cover art being produced during that time. 

Do you have favorite books on time travel?
”The Holographic Universe” by Michael Talbot. It’s not just about time travel, it really covers all sort of hypothetical phenomena like out of body/near death experiences, along with astral traveling and psychic stuff. There’s a lot of “questionable science” in there, but it’s a pretty good read nonetheless.

Duchamp once said that the worst compliment someone could give him was that his work was beautiful. What’s the worst compliment someone could give you?
I really can’t think of one, not something offensive at any rate. I want people to see my art as they do. If they think it’s beautiful, so be it. I hope people enjoy my work; I strive to create things that cause delight and curiosity. Some of my subject matter is a little dark, but ultimately, I am not trying to put people off with it.

You’ve worked with light, LED and otherwise; what is next for you?
I feel like I’m still really just getting started with the lights, and the more sculptural elements of some of my recent work, so I would like to continue exploring those avenues to see where they go as well as experimenting with reflection and optical magnification applied, and how those things interact with the collage.

How did you become interested in quantum mechanics and atomic science? Drugs.

www.pturk.com

By Lance Scott Walker
Photography by Sofia van der Dys

Artist Mark Masterson Is Under Repair

Should you pass by the dock of Winter Street Studios some evening, you’d likely spot a quiet figure in the shadows, catching fresh air before immersing himself in his workspace for the night. Painter and printmaker Mark Masterson may be a bit shy, but there’s nothing bashful about the bold new body of work making up his debut solo show, Under Repair: New Works on Paper, this October at the Spacetaker ARC Gallery.

“While others are aspiring to high art, I’d rather smack you in the face.” Not a shocking statement from your typical artist, but nonetheless surprising coming from this docile telecommunications salesman-by-day. “Art should be provocative.”

If provocation is Masterson’s aim, he achieves it with his latest series of paintings and lithographs inspired by 16th-century Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The work toys with Bruegel’s satirical depictions of peasantry, exposing the absurd and vulgar aspects of the era’s common life. Beginning with Masterson’s boyish impulse to recreate a wicked battle scene, Under Repair’s first piece, Battle of Strong Boxes and Money Bags, was completed in 2009 as present-day economic tidings went sour. Only afterwards did he realize its pertinence to modern social and political issues – abandoning his initial inclination to reject politics as his work’s motivation. Vivid and unsentimental, “grime, spoilage, waste, excess, violence and sloth are all wantonly laid out on the canvas, displaying harsh reality.”

the thin kitchen

As interesting as the work’s content is Masterson’s process. Shredding and crumpling heavy linen paper, he reconstructs the fragments to build irregular three-dimensional canvases. “Paper, like metal, has a memory.” Evocative of decaying frescos, the paintings fuse 16th-century style and 21st-century sensibility with sophisticated, but biting commentary on the contemporary human condition.

Masterson hasn’t followed the normal trajectory of a promising artist: He actually enjoys the structure of his day job with GraybaR, where he’s been employed for 15 years since he graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in printmaking. However, it’s his “evil twin” (his words), Patrick Masterson, who has made art his sole career and recently made news with his involvement in a new printmaking venture, the Burning Bones Press. While the brothers may playfully quibble over who’s the better printer, Mark’s first love has always been painting. He was fascinated with printmaking’s technology and the mystery shrouding an image until the proof is pulled. He once mixed colors for six months at the Houston Fine Art Press. “It was the best job I’ve had…holding colors up to the light all day,” he ruminates. “I learned their secrets, then left.”

He then turned to painting, for which he’s had no formal training since the age of eight. (Despite the twins’ predilection for it, a career in art was not encouraged in the Masterson household and he changed his major to art in secret.) It’s not as though Masterson’s work hasn’t been recognized – he’s been a regular in group shows at Lawndale Art Center and the Art League for years. And as one of the longest standing tenants of Winter Street Studios, his practice has been deliberate. Yet, while painting was once only therapy after a long day’s work, he’s recently come to grips with his desire to emerge. Having willingly removed himself from the game for years, his drive is now to overcome his reticence and be more aggressive about exhibiting his work. But he’s quick to add, “The day it stops being fun is the day I stop doing art.”

Under Repair: New Works on Paper by Mark Masterson

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 1, 5–9pm

Open Studio: Saturday, October 8, 2–5pm

Spacetaker ARC

2101 Winter Street, Studio B11, Houston, TX 77007

Free and open to the public; Gallery visits by appointment.

By Jenni Rebecca Stephenson | Photography by Kennon Evett

Sharon Kopriva brings Cathedrals, Phantoms and Naked Dogs to Colton & Farb Gallery

At first glance, the words Naked Dogs might seem like another kooky piece of imagery meant to garner attention for an otherwise lusterless art show, but this is, in fact, about naked dogs. The Peruvian Hairless kind. And the show is far from lacking in luster.

While perro sin pelo are not the sole attraction in Sharon Kopriva’s massive artworks, they are key to both the aesthetic and the themes. “I am in love with my dogs,” she says of the canines, renowned for their healing powers by the Incan cultures of Peru. Kopriva currently has three of these beloved pets. She has been breeding them since returning from a life-altering trek through Machu Picchu some years ago, while completing her art thesis at the University of Houston. In addition to the symbolism of basic human frailties they provide and to the spiritual powers ascribed to them, hairless dogs make excellent models: With their obvious musculature, they are akin to the naked forms of classical nude paintings.

“Frida Kahlo loved them too!” Carolyn Farb chimes in. A legendary art collector and now Creative Director for the Colton & Farb Gallery, Farb is one to know. She owns a Frida Kahlo. She also owns a few Koprivas. “Sharon’s vision is universal. She deals with challenging subjects of life, death and after life. She transcends any limitations or boundaries,” extols Farb. The socialite and philanthropist commissioned Kopriva to create a pair of nuns sitting on a church pew about twenty years ago, and a bevy of serious collectors have since gravitated towards Kopriva upon seeing the sculptures in Farb’s home. “Other artists touch on similar themes, but I have never seen her experience with her work duplicated,” she explains.

Architectural photographs printed on canvas (by Dan Allison of Texas Collaborative Arts) served as backgrounds and starting points for the roughly 29 large-scale works that make up Cathedrals, Phantoms and Naked Dogs. Digitally enhanced images of cathedrals are superimposed with rocks, trees and dogs resulting in a kind of surrealism/romanticism. “It’s definitely a combination of the spiritual knowledge I gathered in Peru and the spiritual knowledge that gathered me in my childhood, Catholicism,” explains Kopriva who grew up in a Sicilian-American family. “I’m putting religion in the background and putting nature and dogs in the forefront,” she muses.

Fueled by early morning cans of Diet Coke, Kopriva has taken an already successful idea and supersized it, replete with her signature 3D built-up relief at the bottom of the images, masterfully constructed from chunks of concrete and wood debris. “Sharon‘s work touches the deepest depths of our souls, referencing our own personal journeys while also conveying a sense of history, place and society. Even in this exhibition, with works that reference tragic events like Tiananmen Square and 9/11, there is no dwelling on sadness,” says Deborah Colton, Director of the Colton & Farb Gallery in Texas and the Managing Director of Deborah Colton Gallery (which is still the “parent company” of Colton & Farb Gallery).

Colton’s eye for art is well established. Since opening her gallery in 2004, she has continually presented national and international contemporary art exhibitions and become a must on any serious art collector’s itinerary. “My inspiration has always been the vision that art can make a positive difference in the world,” she says. Kopriva’s latest oeuvre is another notch in Colton’s belt.

Having her art in several museum collections, including the Menil, is serious street cred for this artist. Having Carolyn Farb as a friend doesn’t hurt, either. “People are buying them right out of the studio before the paint is even dry,” says Farb. “It’s a magnificent show. Collectors wouldn’t feel like ‘Oh, I already have a Sharon Kopriva!’ There is yet another vista.”

Insider’s Corner:

• Carolyn Farb has a deep-seated fear of cats.

• Colton & Farb has art on display at über-cool Philippe Restaurant.  Available for take-away!

• Deborah Colton also owns OUTPOST NYC DCG.

• The minimalist Gallery structure is easy to miss –keep your eyes peeled for the sign!

Through June 25,2445 North Blvd. 713.869.5151www.coltonfarbgallery.com

By Nadia Michel | Photography by Anthony Rathbun