PAST EXHIBITIONS
2023
2023 Texas Artist of the Year: Vincent Valdez
September 22 - December 2, 2023
In his exhibition as the Art League Houston (ALH), 2023 Texas Artist of the Year, Vincent Valdez examines memory and remembrance from both personal and cultural perspectives. His installation piece, Siete Dias/Seven Days, features an installation of twenty-one banners suspended from the gallery's ceiling that showcase a handful of the over 150,000 individuals who have disappeared in Central and South America since the 1970s.
Central to Siete Dias are fourteen haunting portraits of disappeared individuals drawn from an archival calendar originally published in 1980s Central America. These ghostly depictions exude a palpable presence, organized in a chapel-like arrangement, with three rows of portraits inviting visitors to contemplate the enigma of their absence.
Seven single-word text panels are interwoven among the evocative images, each representing a day of the week in Spanish. These text panels poignantly symbolize the passage of time, amplifying the ongoing absence and uncertain fates of these missing individuals.
In addition to Siete Dias, Valdez recreates a personal memory of his first museum experience through a curation of work. In collaboration with Joe Diaz, a long-time collector and advocate for Latinx and Chicano art (and Valdez’s first collector,) Valdez aims to elevate and acknowledge the artists who inspired his dedication to his craft.
Works by Luis Rivera, Roger Brown, Luis Jiménez, Peter Saul, Alex Rubio, Benito Huerta, Enrique Chagoya, John Hernandez, George Grosz, Ben Shahn, Kathy Vargas, John Valadez, Cesar Martinez, Delilah Montoya, Lucas Johnson, Adriana Corral, Raymond Pettibone, Gloria Osuna Perez, Mel Chin, and Valdez’s great-grandfather José M. Valdez will be featured alongside Valdez’s works.
The catalog Undercurrents: Vincent Valdez, published by ALH and designed by Cereal Box Studios, will be available in conjunction with this exhibition. The publication offers a perspective into the evolution of Vincent Valdez's artistic style and thematic continuity. Comprising eighteen meticulously crafted loose-leaf pages, three fold-out posters, and an illuminating essay penned by renowned curator and writer Lucy R. Lippard, this collection of work focuses on two pivotal phases of his artistic career: the formative first six years from 1999 to 2005 and the recent impactful period spanning 2015 to 2023.
2023 ALH STUDENT EXHIBITION
Ieda Acunzo, Melissa Bailar, Anne Bark Squier, Sushma Bhan, Roger Boak, Leslie Brock, Jennie Chou, Kimberly Crawford, Tania DeJohn, Kay Dotsey, Ana Eigler, Pat Engle, Kevin Garcia, Rachel Gonzales, Erik Gronfor, Sandra Guandique, Kelley Hawkins, Sheila Hetherington, Neveen Khalaf, Susanna Kieval, Kellie Lawrence, Corelie Malcaba, John Martel, Jose Luis, Marmar Mollazal, Alexis Newkirk, Catalina Noyola Lozano, Kassandra, Holly Seddon, Cara Shaffer, Mehnaz A. Shafi, Paul Shain, Jorge Squier, Lori Taylor, Jerrolyn Travers, Tammy Vanderbur, Pamela Vangiessen, Mary L. White
On View: August 5 - September 9, 2023 I Main Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is excited to present the annual 2023 ALH Student Exhibition, a group exhibition featuring works in jewelry, drawing, mixed-media, ceramic, printmaking, and painting by students from the Art League School.
The mission of the Art League School is to create a supportive, accessible, and inclusive community where all learners can exchange and discover new skills and ideas through the art-making process leading to personal and artistic growth, meaning-making, and a lifelong relationship with creativity.
The Art League School provides lifelong learning opportunities in arts education for adults of all backgrounds and levels of artistic experience. Founded in 1968, the Art League School offers a wide range of educational offerings and creative opportunities to over 1,200 students annually through studio art classes and workshops
Led by professional artist instructors, classes and workshops take place online as well as in three fully equipped studio spaces where students work in painting, drawing, ceramics, watercolor, printmaking, mixed media, and jewelry. To ensure individual attention and to accommodate varying skill levels, courses are maintained with a limited number of students. Students also have access to exhibitions, lectures, public programs, and artist talks offered throughout the year to further their training as artists.
ALH is currently in a multi-year initiative to re-imagine the role of an Art League School to foster radical imagination, reduce economic barriers to art education and impact positive social change through the arts.
2023 ALH INSTRUCTOR EXHIBITION
Peter Broz, Angel Castelán, Lucinda Cobley, Leslie Cuenca, John Davis, Tess Doyle, Caroline Graham, Guadalupe Hernandez, Nyssa Juneau, Nicolle LaMere, Laura Lawson, Polly Liu, Rikki Mitman, Norola Morgan, Steve Parker, Naomi Peterson, Laura Spector, Myke Venable
On View: August 5 - September 9, 2023 I Hallway Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is excited to present the annual 2023 ALH Instructor Exhibition, a group exhibition featuring works in jewelry, drawing, mixed-media, ceramics, printmaking, and painting by some of Houston’s exciting emerging and established artists who teach at the Art League School.
The mission of the Art League School is to create a supportive, accessible, and inclusive community where all learners can exchange and discover new skills and ideas through the art-making process leading to personal and artistic growth, meaning-making, and a lifelong relationship with creativity.
The school provides lifelong learning opportunities in arts education for adults of all backgrounds and levels of artistic experience. Founded in 1968, the Art League School offers a wide range of educational offerings and creative opportunities to over 1,200 students annually through studio art classes and workshops.
Led by professional artist instructors, classes and workshops take place online as well as in three fully equipped studio spaces where students work in painting, drawing, ceramics, watercolor, printmaking, mixed media, and jewelry. To ensure individual attention and to accommodate varying skill levels, courses are maintained with a limited number of students. Students also have access to exhibitions, lectures, public programs, and artist talks offered throughout the year to further their training as artists.
ALH is currently in a multi-year initiative to re-imagine the role of an Art League School to foster radical imagination, reduce economic barriers to art education and impact positive social change through the arts.
KILL THE IMAGE!
2023 ALH SUMMER INTENSIVE EXHIBITION
On View: August 5 - September 9, 2023 I Front Gallery
Mariela Banda, Leah Barberena, itZel Carrizales-Aguilar, Alexa Celedon, Isabella Landin, Evelyn Leon, Nikia Mack, Catelin Mo, Ariana Ocegueda, Peace Okoh, Ana-Sofia Powell, Marissa Reyes, Isabella Roman, Carla Salcedo-Cano, Savannah Struzik, Sophia Zhang
Art League Houston (ALH) is excited to present Kill the Image!, the 2023 ALH Summer Intensive for Teens Exhibition, a group show featuring works in sculpture, drawing, mixed-media, ceramics, fiber arts, photography, and painting by some of Houston’s most promising young artists. The title of this year’s exhibition, chosen collectively by the 2023 Summer Intensive cohort, comes from the phrase “Kill the image that is killing you”, a manifesto on breaking free from stereotypes or negative self-perceptions that stifle authentic expressions of the self.
The Summer Intensive For Teens (SIFT) program is held annually every June - July at ALH, and features four weeks of art workshops, site visits, open studio time, and public art work in the form of a collaborative mural project. This year’s cohort worked under the guidance of muralist Thomas Tran and SIFT studio assistant Elisse Gachupin to design a mural that explored students’ day-to-day preoccupations, anxieties, hopes and fears as teenagers in 2023. The mural is installed on the south wall of the ALH building, alongside the 2020-22 SIFT murals. The Summer Intensive culminates each year in an exhibition of student work completed during the program, and stands as a testament to these students' use of creativity as a tool to reckon with identity and find their places in the world.
The mission of the Art League Houston Summer Intensive for Teens is to create a supportive, accessible, and inclusive community where students can expand their creative comfort zones and artistic skill sets, while learning the scope of Houston’s arts ecosystem and making connections with local artists and organizations. Students leave the program armed with tools and resources to pursue a career in the arts, as well as lasting relationships and a sense of community.
ALH would like to thank Bridget Bray, Peter Broz, Alberto Careaga, Eepi Chaad, Zhaira Costiniano, Elisse Gachupin, Ian Gerson, Sammetria Goodson, Guadalupe Hernandez, Amie Krebbs, Alexis Pye, Emily Sloan, and Thomas Tran for sharing their time and talents with this year’s cohort. ALH would also like to acknowledge our friends at all the arts organizations across town that welcomed our group into your spaces so generously.
TREMBLE
IAN GERSON
On View: May 26 - July 22, 2023 I Main Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by 2022 Houston Artadia Awardee Ian Gerson, whose multidisciplinary practice incorporates sculpture, installation, and community engagement. Titled Tremble, this exhibition investigates climate injustices, trans consciousness, and queer longing. Gerson weaves flimsy tapestries with ropes culled from Galveston Bay and the Houston Ship Channel, mylar, personal and hand-dyed clothing scraps, and dried plants as a way of centering the refused, the invisible, the marginal. The weavings are architectural, freestanding and leaning, taking on bodily references and transforming over time.
Tremble features a body of work that utilizes text, intentionally challenging and refusing easy legibility, depending on the vantage point, viewer, and context. Stemming from personal encounters navigating (un)natural disasters, mental health, and transitioning, Gerson’s work asks how a trans experience, embodying adaptability and resilience, can be looked to as a model for surviving climate crises and social precarity.
The exhibition takes its title from Eduard Glissant’s “un tremblement,” of which he writes, “The thinking of trembling is not the thinking of fear. It is the thinking that is opposed to the system.” Building on this idea of the trembling, Gerson follows in Paul B. Preciado’s footsteps and is fixated on how trans embodies the tremble; in the voice on T, in the refusal to conform to normative legibility, and in expanding the bounds of the possible.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ian Gerson is a queer and trans interdisciplinary artist and educator born and based in Houston, TX. Ian has shared work across art spaces in the US and in Mexico City, including Socrates Sculpture Park, The Bronx Museum, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and BOX13 ArtSpace, and has participated at several residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, MacDowell, and the Galveston Artist Residency. Their work has been supported by a 2022 Houston Artadia Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Foundation for Contemporary Art Grant, and a Public Art Grant from the City of Galveston. Ian holds an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University and a BFA in Studio Art from the University of Texas at Austin.
Instagram: @ianmilesgerson
FAMILIAR
BIG CHICKEN & BABY BIRD
On View: May 26 - July 22, 2023 I Front Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Familiar, featuring the dynamic artistic duo Tsz Kam and Nat Power, also known as Big Chicken & Baby Bird. Through their bold and vivid paintings, Familiar invites viewers to explore the theme of duality and pairings. Kam and Power's works transform mythological creatures into characters with inevitable roles within an imagined world. The exhibition presents ornamental patterns that convey the rhythm of a dance, simultaneously known yet unfamiliar.
Through their collaborative work, Kam and Power create a new mythology that centers around the ambiguity of gender and the experience of shifting between girlhood and womanhood. Their paintings capture the tension between seduction and repulsion, oscillating between the two to create a rich visual narrative.
While set in a fantastical world, Familiar leaves the audience to question our perceptions of the world and the roles we play within it.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Tsz Kam (Big Chicken) was born in colonial Hong Kong in the early 90s and grew up in the post colonial period till their teenage years when they moved to Texas. Kam is interested in studying ornamental and decorative motifs from various cultures and how notions of beauty are transformed through different cultural lenses. Using both the perspectives of an insider and an outsider, Kam reestablishes a sense of belonging through their works.
Nat Power (Baby Bird) was born and raised in Texan suburbia. She completed her BFA at UT Austin in 2016 and has since continued to live and work in Austin, TX. Power has been working as a tattooer since 2019, taking influence for painting from the narrative and intention of images presented in the tradition of tattooing. Her work observes the manifestation of feminine rage and its suppression, depicting characters that stall on the boundary between acceptability and anger.
Kam and Power met while studying at The University of Texas at Austin, where they obtained their BFAs. They formed the collective duo Big Chicken & Baby Bird, and have been collaborating since 2015.
Instagram: @tszkam_art
@natpowertat
AMAZONIAN DAYS
DAVID DELGADO
On View: May 26 - July 22, 2023 I Hallway Gallery
Art League Houston (ALH) is pleased to present Amazonian Days, an exhibition of paintings by David Delgado, whose practice captures mundane objects that hold present but unspoken conversations about labor, material wealth, and capitalism. This body of work references objects from 2021-2022 that the artist was given while working at an Amazon warehouse and captures the occurrence of the employer-to-employee gifting dynamic.
The still life paintings featured in Amazonian Days are a reminder for Delgado of a time when Amazon exchanged and bartered labor hours with gifts. During Delgado’s year at Amazon, it was commonplace for hours to be cut due to shipping shortages. Management was simultaneously giving employees random incentives, mostly in the form of gifts, which ranged from treats, food, and workwear. He documented these gifts when received and later rendered them in acrylic on panel.
Delgado’s experience at Amazon is all too familiar to the artist. Other instances of odd labor compensation come to mind for Delgado, such as when his family first immigrated to the United States from Mexico. He recalls family members would be compensated less than minimum wage but at the same time given gifts of furniture and appliances. By memorializing mundane objects, Delgado stands to disrupt the routine and question some absurdities that we disregard for the sake of normalcy.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
David Delgado (b.1992) is a visual artist from Houston, Texas. As a first-generation Mexican American with a bilingual upbringing, symbolic language is a strong part of the artwork he creates. Through questioning and showcasing objects that often go disregarded, Delgado’s work evokes larger conversations centered around labor and value in a capitalistic-centered environment.
Delgado earned his BFA in Studio Art Sculpture from the University of Houston in 2014. He was an illustrator for the Daily Cougar Newspaper 2011-2014. From 2013-2021, he worked as a bronze patineur and office manager at a bronze art foundry that his family established. He has since returned to academics, teaching art to K-6 students with organizations such as MECA.
Delgado’s work has been featured throughout Texas, exhibiting work with the Mexic Arte Museum (Austin, TX), Hardy & Nance Studios (Houston, TX), Craighead Green Gallery (Dallas, TX), Fort Worth Community Art Center (Fort Worth, TX), Moody Gallery (Houston, TX), and Blaffer Art Museum (Houston, TX).
Instagram: @daviddelgadoart
WE OUTSIDE WIDDIT
TYLER DEAUVEA
On View: May 26 - July 22, 2023 I Sculpture Garden
Art League Houston (ALH) is pleased to present WE OUTSIDE WIDDIT, a sculptural installation by Tyler Deauvea, a multimedia artist whose work features several re-occurring characters that explore the personal journey of a “Black Man in America.” WE OUTSIDE WIDDIT celebrates Deauvea’s entrance into a new medium and the unique interaction that his work has with audiences. Additionally, it displays the representation of a group of people who are often underrepresented in a space where heterosexual Black Men are not typically celebrated or rarely seen.
Although Deauvea does not directly address social issues in America, his work carries a profound political statement that speaks to the lived experiences of marginalized communities. Inspired by the "Otaku" subculture of Japan, Deauvea's characters "ZOE" and "ZOEY" serve as a conduit for his stories, inviting viewers to see themselves in the scenes he portrays. His artistic style, which he describes as "AFROPOP," infuses his work with vibrant colors and bold lines, reflecting the energy and spirit of his creations.
For Deauvea, the act of creating is a meditative process that allows him to release himself in each moment, giving life to his personal narrative and inviting others to find meaning and resonance in their own journeys.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Tyler Deauvea is a multimedia artist based in Houston, TX. He is self-taught, and his artistic journey began with photography and film during his time at Lamar High School. As a broadcast journalism student at Texas Southern University, Tyler honed his craft using Houston’s nightlife as a source of inspiration. He later transitioned to digital collage while interning at Instrument, a digital marketing company in Portland, Oregon, in 2015.
Within the same year, Tyler's artwork was featured on the album cover for Iman Omari's project "High & Higher Loops," which was released by Fresh Selects, a local Portland record company. However, in the three years leading up to his first formal showing, Tyler struggled to package his work in a way that was easily digestible for casual audiences.
In the spring of 2018, he began to create a body of work that gave birth to ZOE and ZOEY, the characterized mainstay of his work going forward. Tyler was formally introduced to the art world by way of a chance meeting with Robert Hodge at the 2019 show "Collect It For The Culture II," where he exhibited alongside established artists such as Mark Flood, Floyd Newsum, and Jesse Lott. Later that year, he also exhibited at the David Shelton Gallery alongside younger artists like Alexis Pye, Brandon Thompson, and Kate Mulholland in the show “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright Now.”
In 2020, Tyler was the Artist in Residence on BET’s Instagram page, where his work was showcased, and his artistic practice was detailed over the course of a week. He also collaborated with Premium Goods for an installation for his basketball project "FOR THE LUV OF THE GAME," which paid homage to the passing of Kobe Bryant and the childhood heroes of his youth. This body of work granted him a feature on SlamOnline.com, a prominent basketball website. Additionally, Tyler participated in the MFAH's first-ever virtual "Art Encounters" series.
Later that year, he began to work in textile.
In November of 2021, Tyler's unique canvas collaged works, along with some of his later digital works, were showcased in a show with Glass Rice Gallery in San Fransisco. The exhibition also featured a visual film piece entitled "BROKE BOYS GET FIXED," which shared the same name as the show.
Most recently, Tyler spent a few months in the Houston-based P.A.C. residency during the first quarter of 2023. While there, he extended his artistic practice even further to include animation cel drawings.
Instagram: @tylerdeauvea
2023 Carnival MARTY
Healing Arts Artists: Josena Arquieta, Ramiro Bermudez, Torey Brown, Ellie Cammack, Derinda Cay, Julie Cervantes, Sarah Coleman, Cynthia Edmondson, Betty Gonzalez, Readie Hayward, Jan Huff, Kimberly Humphreys, Lesa Jackson, Eileen Keller, Shirley Konnateh, Janet Luddington, Byron Mays, Larry McEntire, Jose-Luis Mogollon, Rick Nugent, Ronnie Queenan, Lillian Roddy, Debra K. Simms, Tri Stardust, Rebecca Torres, Russell Wilde
Compassion Circus: Alberto Careaga, Leslie Cuenca, Julie DeVries, Ibsen Espada, Guadalupe Hernandez, Nyssa Juneau, Josh Litos, Ceci Norman, Quentin Pace, Steve Parker, Preetika Rajgariah, Emily Sloan, Britt Thomas, Myke Venable, David Waddell
Small Gems: Alex Barber, Eepi Chaad, Lucinda Cobley, Kathy Drago, Marley Foster, Ian Gerson, Marcos Hernandez Chavez, Nicolle LaMere, Maureen Lax, Ruhee Maknojia, Matt Manalo, Patrick Palmer, Naomi Peterson, Ellen Phillips, Cary Reeder, Julia Rossel, Laura Spector, Thomas Tran
CARNIVAL MARTY - A Healing Arts Extravaganza that featured live music, refreshing cocktails, and the return of our annual Healing Art Exhibition in ALH’s Main Gallery featuring artwork created by artists participating in the Healing Arts program. There was the Small Gems art auction featuring small-scale artworks by local artists in ALH’s Hallway Gallery and Compassion Circus, a new art auction in ALH's Front Gallery featuring artwork by local artists inspired by the theme of Healing.
Proceeds from the event benefit the Healing Arts program, which provides high-quality art instruction to adults 17 and older in the Houston community living with chronic illnesses or physical disabilities. Led by professional Teaching Artists Rebecca Bass and Emily Sloan in a supportive, community-minded, professional studio environment, Healing Art is one of the only programs of its kind that is specifically located in an art school and exhibition facility, outside of a clinical setting. This unique environment provides students with access to tools such as kilns and printing presses, as well as exposure to exhibitions by local, national, and international artists. The program also features talks by artists exhibiting at ALH.
Someone in my car
Violette Bule
On View: February 24 - April 22, 2023
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present Someone in my car, an exhibition by Houston-based artist Violette Bule. Someone in my car invites the viewer to consider the duality of the usually anonymous interactions of ride-sharing from the perspectives of both passenger and driver. In a car-based city like Houston, residents and visitors without a personal vehicle rely more and more on strangers to drive them to and from their destinations. This installation of work captures Bule’s year-long performance as a ride-share driver, transforming her lived experience as a contemporary flaneur into works of art for an exhibition that includes photographic portraits of her passengers, videos of the city, and audio clips of conversations she overheard while driving.
Bule is interested in pushing the boundary between art and life, amplifying vulnerability as a potential form of empowerment. Starting the job out of economic necessity, she began photographing her passengers. This work takes those interactions as a point of departure and invites the viewer to add their experiences to the project by signing up to schedule a ride-share with the artist, extending the participatory nature of the exhibition.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Violette Bule is a Venezuelan-Lebanese conceptual artist. Her work engages with a wide variety of topics—migration, identity, memory, violence, community engagement, digital technologies, the politics of space, and the social and political reality of contemporary Venezuela—and has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Tokyo Art Center, Tokyo, Japan; Ante America, Bogota, Colombia; Museo of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Venezuela; Transart Foundation for Art and Anthropology, Houston, Texas; and Lite-Haus, Berlin, Germany, among others. She was selected for the Insta11ations public art initiative founded by MOCA, Art League Houston, and Houston Arts Alliance, Houston, Texas. She was also the recipient of a SOMA SUMMER - MEXICO CITY grant awarded by the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, and the artist residency awarded by Cornell University.
Instagram: @violettebule
A Good Cry
Sallie Scheufler
On View: February 24 - April 22, 2023
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present A Good Cry, an exhibition by Albuquerque-based artist Sallie Scheufler. A Good Cry questions and scrutinizes the nature of crying behavior. The artist asks the viewer to consider the following questions: what affects my ability to control my body? Why is emotion often separated from the body? Can crying be a valid form of communication? Is crying an action or a reaction? Does crying equal weakness? Is crying performative? How much of crying is learned? Is crying always emotional? How can manipulating the experience of crying give me control over the act itself?
A Good Cry is inspired by, and literally made of tears. Through a series of performative videos, Scheufler induces crying to regain a sense of control over her body, using onions, menthol, a high-powered fan, and forcing herself to fake tears. The Futile Handkerchiefs, made of various materials, fail to offer solace or an ending to tears; instead, they generate more tears, cause pain, or embarrassment. A video installation about the act of swallowing a birth control pill, every day, every week, every month, every year, to control her body in turn makes her body lose control. Crystals grown from her own tears on used tissues make a disposable object precious and serve as a record of her cries. A too-tall-to reach tissue box provides a seemingly endless volume of tissues for the never-ending cry. A box made with a single tissue reserved for a vital cry. Akin to Sarah Ahmed’s Feminist Killjoy, who creates social discomfort, Scheufler calls attention to the moments when the salty fluid is met with social unease.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Sallie Scheufler (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator. Scheufler uses personal history as artistic fodder in the context of intersectional feminism through performance, video, photography, and sculpture. They examine and unveil the power structures present in different forms of verbal, written, and non-verbal communication. Scheufler has exhibited their work at the Amarillo Museum of Art, Northlight Gallery in Phoenix, AZ, the University of New Mexico Art Museum, Wo/Manhouse 2022 in Belen, NM, and during Miami Art Week at Fair Play, among others. Scheufler is the recipient of the Beaumont Newhall Fellowship and the Robert Heinecken scholarship. In 2018, they received their MFA in studio art from the University of New Mexico. They currently reside on Tiwa Territory in so-called Albuquerque, NM with their spotted dog and partner.
Instagram: @salliescheufler
QUIET RUPTURES
Alexander Squier
On View: February 24 - April 22, 2023
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present Quiet Ruptures, an exhibition by Houston-based artist Alexander Squier. Quiet Ruptures is a selection of new and recent drawings and printmaking works, inspired by the push and pull between the natural and built environments, as embodied everywhere in Houston in the form of crushed curbs, submerged sidewalks, leaning telephone poles, and masses of concrete juxtaposed with the occasional vine or palm. The images in the exhibition consider and extrapolate from ubiquitous elements of the urban environment, as well as specific examples that are iconic within the Houston vernacular. Squier states “I am interested in relationships between people (myself included), their structures and infrastructures, and the natural landscape. How do trends in urban development, construction, and economics reflect culture or philosophy? My aim is to develop a better understanding of what forces are behind this constant state of flux, and to incite thoughtfulness regarding the decisions involved.”
Squier enjoys imagining the world through the lens of time on a grander scale, and is drawn to ruins and archaeological sites, where the dynamic between nature and human monuments plays out over centuries. Both in ancient places and modern cities, if left unchecked for long enough, nature quickly reasserts itself. As structures are slowly swallowed up, or disintegrate, their meaning becomes hidden, and harder to decipher.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alexander Squier (b. 1988, Houston, he/him) is an interdisciplinary artist, working across media including printmaking, drawing, sculpture, installation, video, and sound. Based in his hometown of Houston, Texas, he works out of his studio at BOX 13 ArtSpace in the city’s East End District, and teaches printmaking classes at Art League Houston and the Houston Printing Museum. He has also taught at the University of Houston, and headed up the Printmaking Department at the Glassell School of Art (Museum of Fine Arts Houston) from 2016 - 2020.
Squier earned his Bachelor's Degree in Studio Art from the University of Rochester in 2010, and his Master of Fine Arts Degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Tufts University) in 2013. In addition to his studio practice and teaching, he is also a curator and organizer, currently serving as Exhibitions Manager at Sawyer Yards, and formerly heading up exhibitions as Director of Programs at the Alta Arts in the Gulfton District from 2021 - 2022.
Instagram: @alexander.squier
2022
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL; OR, EVE CAN’T STOP DREAMING ABOUT THAT GODDAMN SNAKE
ASHLEY PRIDMORE
On View: December 16, 2022 - April 22, 2023 I Sculpture Garden
PRESS
365 Houston - This Month's Must-See Exhibits in Houston: December 2022
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake, an installation in the ALH Sculpture Garden by artist Ashley Pridmore, who is based in New Orleans, Louisiana. All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake is a site-responsive installation focusing on creative and destructive forces in the natural world, and loss of home and habitat resulting from events such as floods.
Pridmore describes the concept of the installation as “All Things Being Equal; or, Eve Can’t Stop Dreaming About That Goddamn Snake and a flood has torn through the garden, leaving debris from everywhere smashed against her beloved tree. This flood is the end and the beginning, this flood is just the middle of the story in a world that floods. As the waters move on, they’ve left behind texture and piles of overlapping feelings. Eve’s snakes coil and writhe through the scape, binding everything together, weaving and caressing and entwining. What is knowledge, anyway?”
The artist employs Biblical references to the story of Eve, the snake, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the story of Noah and the great flood, which references her evangelical childhood as well as literary sources such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost. While both of these Bible stories discuss actions and their respective consequences, Pridmore’s installation acknowledges such consequences and chooses to reframe the garden in a new state.
The installation embeds itself into the ALH Sculpture Garden via the site’s pre-existing features, establishing itself as the new native species of the garden. Utilizing both manmade and natural materials in surrealistic ways, Pridmore calls attention to the conflict of human impact on the natural world and nature’s forceful response to that impact. Despite the mark humans have left on the world, nature finds a way to respond and return, with unforeseen adaptations.
Artist will discuss the complex intersections of art, nature, and literature at a public talk on Saturday, 12/17
Immersive outdoor installation for sustained visitor engagement and contemplation
Artist Ashley Pridmore
Image courtesy of the artist
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ashley Pridmore is a mixed-media sculptor who works with found natural objects. Pridmore grew up in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York and now lives in New Orleans, LA. Her work is an exploration of decomposition and recomposition using bones, leaves, branches, shells, quills, teeth, and thorns. Combining man-made ideas with items from the natural world, Pridmore explores the tensions between life and disintegration, sanctuary and peril. These tensions emerge through the creation of hollows, spaces, or barriers - places to hide or to live. Her process has recently begun emphasizing site-specificity. As a maker, Pridmore is constantly trying to push herself in terms of scale, materials, and depth of narrative. She wants her objects to interact visually and physically with their immediate location. It is her goal for the work to have a sense of unity and balance within its environment. This includes considerations of scale, color, supports, and surfaces. The artist’s sculptures carry a distinctive found-object aesthetic and a narrative nature. She believes these characteristics make them interactive and memorable for many different people. Her works are accessible and engaging to a wide audience, inviting the viewer to consider both image and surface to create their own narrative.
FIGHT SONG
STEVE PARKER
On View: December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023 I Main Gallery
Community Impact: 17 events to attend in the Houston area this weekend, Feb. 10-12
365 Houston - This Month's Must-See Exhibits in Houston: December 2022
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present FIGHT SONG, an exhibition by Austin-based artist Steve Parker. FIGHT SONG is an installation and performance featuring a National College Athletic Association (NCAA) marching band performing sonic meditations. The project examines themes of healing, injury, and labor in football, drawing from legacies of sonic therapy, including 12th c. abbess Hildegard von Bingen’s liturgical songs, Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening practice, Anthony Braxton’s radical marching bands, and Guadalupe Maravilla’s Disease Thrower sculptures.
FIGHT SONG materializes in two forms: as a sculptural installation and as a halftime-style performance. The installation works like an immersive musical composition featuring an ecosystem of automated sonic sculptures made from salvaged marching band instruments. As audiences come into the gallery, they enter a constellation of invented instruments suspended from above and around them – like an exploded technical drawing of a marching band.
Parallel with the installation, the project includes a series of video works featuring an NCAA marching band performing sonic healing meditations in public spaces. The band, marching in full regalia, performs routines that activate the exhibition space with elements of continuous, live performance.
Artist will discuss the complex intersections of music, sport, art, sonic warfare, and healing at a public talk on Saturday, 12/17
Interactive installation for sustained visitor engagement
This project is generously supported by the Music Academy of the West Alumni Enterprise Award and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Steve Parker is an artist who works with salvaged musical instruments, amateur choirs, marching bands, urban bat colonies, flocks of grackles, and pedicab fleets to investigate systems of control, interspecies behavior, and forgotten histories. His projects include elaborate civic rituals for humans, animals, and machines; listening sculptures modeled after obsolete surveillance tools; and cathartic transportation symphonies for operators of cars, pedicabs, and bicycles. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize, the Ashurst Prize (UK), the Tito’s Prize, a Fulbright, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Parker has exhibited and performed at institutions, public spaces, and festivals internationally. Highlights include the the American Academy in Rome (Italy), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (Arkansas), CUE Art Foundation (NY), the Fusebox Festival (Austin), Gwangju Media Art Festival (Korea), the Guggenheim Museum (NY), the Lincoln Center Festival (NY), Los Angeles Philharmonic inSIGHT (LA), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), MASS MoCA (Massachusetts), the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio), Rich Mix (London), SXSW, and Tanglewood. As a soloist and as an artist of NYC-based "new music dream team" Ensemble Signal, he has premiered 200+ new works.
Parker has been awarded support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, the Copland Foundation, the Puffin Foundation, and the Mid America Arts Alliance. He is curator of SoundSpace at the Blanton Museum of Art, Executive Director of Collide Arts, and a faculty member at UTSA. He holds degrees in Math and Music from Oberlin, Rice, and UT Austin.
CUIR
MOE PENDERS
On View: December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023 I Front Gallery
PRESS
Community Impact: 17 events to attend in the Houston area this weekend, Feb. 10-12
Glasstire - Review: “Moe Penders: Cuir” at Art League Houston
365 Houston - This Month's Must-See Exhibits in Houston: December 2022
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present Cuir, an installation of work by artist Moe Penders, who is based in San Diego, California. Cuir is an introspective dialogue around queer and trans narratives in the context of queer politics, war politics, and imposed heteronormativity. The term cuir is ‘queer’ in Spanish, taking its pronunciation from queer. In the Spanish language, vocabulary is gendered, creating conflict with Pender’s non-binary identity. The creation of this work began in 2020, focusing on the areas of Kushkatan, now known as El Salvador, and the occupied territories of Turtle Island, a name for the lands now known as North and Central America. Cuir is a dialogue around transness, translation, and migration between Kushkatan (El Salvador), Karankawa (Houston), and Kumeyaa (San Diego).
The work in the exhibition explores Pender’s relationship with the in-between by connecting facets of war and displacement in El Salvador, transness, and experiences of existing in different spaces that border these liminal zones. It looks at situations through lenses of categorization of social class, race and colorism, gender, and religion. Penders’ queerness is invalidated by both their biological family and home country.
The works are created from large format film cameras, creating life-size prints that invite the viewer to be aware of queer bodies in the American South and El Salvador. Photography allows Penders to situate themselves between countries, genders, and languages. Cuir centers the trans narrative through a dialogue about translation, the in-between, generational trauma, and heteronormativity. This body of work focuses on the haves and have-nots, creating metaphorical visibility through language. The series also looks at the impact of war, borders, and the effects on communities across generations through violence, poverty, and generational trauma. Penders also explores the idea of traveling between borders and binaries, directly impacted by their time in Houston and San Diego, which borders Tijuana, Mexico.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Moe Penders is a Salvadoran artist, whose practice is mainly framed in traditional photography. They moved to Houston in 2009 to attend the University of Houston where they received their BFA in Photography and Digital Media and are currently in UC San Diego getting their MFA. Their work explores the social construction of home, intersectionality of identity, and gender expression. Moe is interested in conversations that touch upon different social aspects which are relevant to their life and experiences.
The inside of Envelopes
Hedwige Jacobs
On View: December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023 I Hallway Gallery
PRESS
Community Impact: 17 events to attend in the Houston area this weekend, Feb. 10-12
Glasstire - Top 5: January 19, 2023
The Great God Pan is Dead - Junk Mail as Art
365 Houston - This Month's Must-See Exhibits in Houston: December 2022
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present The Inside of Envelopes, an exhibition by artist Hedwige Jacobs. The Inside of Envelopes is a site-specific installation featuring drawing and animation. Jacobs’ work explores how we live and interact as a society, capturing the collective experiences of isolation, inertia, and desperation that are especially prevalent in this contemporary moment marked by the Covid pandemic and struggles for social change occurring globally.
So-called security envelopes are printed on their interiors with patterns that make it difficult to discern their contents when sealed, helping to keep items like checks or contracts more secure during their transit in the postal system. For this exhibition, the artist has created an installation of collected envelopes which densely cover the walls of the gallery. Jacobs uses these envelopes as her primary material, modifying each envelope with drawn figures, patterns, and abstract forms. She then brings them together in organic groupings on the gallery walls. The installation will also feature Jacobs’ animation where she brings individual envelopes to life, each of them hand drawn in multiple frames.
The frequency of receiving envelopes by mail is declining, and personal mail is even more rare in this digital era. Jacobs invites viewers to consider the ways in which we communicate, how that has changed over recent years, and how we would like to shape that communication in the future. Since 2020, with the combined effects of the pandemic and movements for social change globally, points of connection between individuals feel increasingly precious and simultaneously harder to maintain. The artist reflects on these ties and ponders how long physical mail will continue to be a part of these exchanges.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hedwige Jacobs is a Singapore-born Dutch artist. She is a Houston-based artist that currently lives and works in Jakarta, Indonesia. She holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in The Netherlands and an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Selected shows include: Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; Anya Tish Gallery, Houston; Women & Their Work, Austin; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Box 13 Artspace, Houston; The Amarillo Museum of Art, Amarillo; Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Hague; Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Blaffer Art Museum, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Drawing Center, New York City; Friedman Benda, New York City; and the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore. Her work is included in private, corporate, and museum collections.
WE GON PUT IT ON THE HOOD, BEFORE WE PUT IT ON GOD
GREGORY MICHAEL CARTER
On View: December 16, 2022 - February 11, 2023 I PLATFORM
PRESS
Community Impact: 17 events to attend in the Houston area this weekend, Feb. 10-12
365 Houston - This Month's Must-See Exhibits in Houston: December 2022
Art League Houston (ALH) is proud to present We gon put it on the Hood, before we put it on God, an exhibition by artist Gregory Michael Carter. In this third presentation in ALH’s newest public art initiative Platform, Carter investigates the current political climate by referencing a range of influences including product and graphic design, mecha anime, West African and Renaissance sculpture, and American television culture, among others.
Carter draws inspiration from the poetry of Lucille Clifton (1936 – 2010) and her deep engagement with history as a subject and its potential reframing through literature and the arts. For this exhibition, the artist references an excerpt of Clifton’s renowned poem i am accused of tending to the past:
i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
-Lucile Clifton
Carter’s research-based practice also deeply engages with current political events. The artist states: “In April, the governor of Florida signed into law a bill that is designed to restrict the discussion of race and privilege in classrooms and in the workplace. Much of the work I’ve done over the past few years deals with the idea of gathering true history, wherever it may hide, and creating new relics based on those truths, to replace the ones stolen by the Europeans and the Americans during the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade. In many instances these works seem to repair the damage to the collective black image, due to a consistent attack by the inherently racist American media. This particular work is an interactive one that addresses some of my views on the current political climate here in the U.S.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gregory Michael Carter is a Houston-born artist and community activist. Currently living and working in St. Louis, MO, Gregory is fascinated and influenced by cultural history and global politics. He has travelled to 30 countries and visited more than 50 UNESCO world heritage sites. He is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily with drawing, printmaking, painting, collage, and photography. He is founder of The Milburn Institute for Research and Development, a nonprofit organization based on the Northside of St. Louis, across the street from Fairgrounds park. He also is the co-founder of Thirdwardsfinest.com, an online retailer dedicated to supporting and uplifting his home neighborhood in Houston by donating half of its revenue to local nonprofits including Project Row Houses, SHAPE Community Center, and others. His work was on view at the San Antonio Museum of Art, as part of the Texas Biennial.