Join us on Saturday, December 3, 2022, at 1 PM for an artist talk with Julie DeVries about her ALH PLATFORM project, Morning Fields. The talk is free to attend and will be held on the ALH Patio, weather permitting.
Morning Fields is a large-scale painting from my Fields series,” says the artist. “It consists of various lines, patterns, colors, and transparencies that are made in spontaneous and improvisational ways to create an allover image informed by the visual environment around Houston, a visually layered city with uncontrollable growth, saturated color, and light, in a constant humidity induced state of decay.” Morning Fields is inspired by a walking path in a small section of forest in the local park near her neighborhood. This park is not a pristine natural environment, it’s a small wild respite wedged against Houston’s urban and suburban sprawl, something rare in that area of town. Julie walks there several times a week, usually around sunrise when patches of warm light dot the canopy and illuminate the depths of the dense flora. The imagery is memory-based and is meant to evoke the overwhelming and moving sensation of being surrounded by various patterns of leaves, endless greens, and warm dappled sunlight.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Julie DeVries is an artist and educator living in Houston, TX. Her artistic practice includes painting, installation, digital drawing, and animation. Her work has been collected both locally and nationally and has been exhibited in both commercial and non-profit spaces. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago focusing on painting and Latin American art history and spent a semester studying abroad in Argentina. She also received her MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Houston. She currently serves as a Visual Arts faculty member at Lone Star College North Harris and is represented in Houston by Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
ABOUT PLATFORM
Art League Houston is excited to present PLATFORM, a new, ongoing opportunity for emerging, mid-career, under-recognized, as well as established artists to exhibit new works of temporary public art on a billboard-like platform on the exterior of the ALH building. This program grew out of ALH’s strong history of presenting public art projects such as Insta11ations (2019-21); 360 Degrees Vanishing by Selven Jarmon (2014-19); The Funnel Tunnel by Patrick Renner (2012-13), and Inversion by Havel Ruck projects (2005-06).
The platform was originally designed for a monumental, site-responsive paper artwork by artist Hong Hong which was installed on the façade of ALH’s building adjacent to the Sculpture Garden from April through July 2021. In response to the continued pandemic, ALH opted to keep the wall installed as part of the organization's ongoing effort to create new opportunities for the community to engage with art in a safe way. The program commissions new work and encourages artists to grapple with the challenges of presenting artwork in the public realm, in an outdoor environment, and at a large scale while offering an exciting and important opportunity for artists to exhibit temporary public artwork outdoors.
This project is generously funded by Mid-America Arts Alliance, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the state arts agencies of Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.