Archway Gallery Exhibitions - 2022
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June 4 - July 6, 2022 Ink & Image 2022 Featuring Printmaking by Archway Artists Davis, Gray, Perkins, Riccetti, Slaby, Spencer, and Straight Guest Artists: Alexander Squier and Molly Koehn |
Archway Gallery is pleased to be a sponsor and exhibitor as part of the city-wide PrintHouston 2022 celebration of printmaking. Mary Lee Gray will take center stage as the Featured Artist, along with six other Archway Gallery printmakers, Blaine Davis, donna e perkins, Shirl Riccetti, John Slaby, Liz Conces Spencer, and Robert L. Straight. Archway is also fortunate to have two participating guest artists, Alexander Squier and Molly Koehn, both accomplished printmakers and instructors at the Art League of Houston. The artists will be present at the gallery on Saturday, June 11, 2022, to visit with viewers and explain their printmaking processes, beginning at 1:00 p.m. through the opening reception, with an Artist Talk at 6:30 p.m. The exhibit will highlight the expressive power of the medium and the diversity of methods used in making a print.
Featured Artist: Mary Lee Gray is an Emeritus member of Archway Gallery. She has an extensive background in printmaking, acquiring her master’s degree from the University of North Carolina and her EdD from the University of Houston. She has taught locally and served as an art director for the New Orleans public television station. Gray’s woodcuts and linocuts combine transparency with layers of collage to create complex nuanced images.
Guest Artist: Alexander Squier is a visual artist who works across media, including printmaking, drawing, video, and installation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts from the University of Rochester in 2010, and his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Tufts University) in 2013. He taught printmaking there before returning to his hometown of Houston to pursue a large-scale installation opportunity, “Remnants/Visions,” in Sharpstown. In 2018, Squier received the city’s Individual Artist Grant to complete, “Earthly Bodies: The Texas Brick Archive,” a mobile museum and archive of bricks collected from around the city. Currently, Squier has a studio at Box 13 Artspace in Houston’s East End, where he also serves as Exhibition Coordinator. He teaches printmaking at the Art League of Houston and the Texas Printing Museum, and headed the Printmaking Department at the Glassell School of Art (MFAH) from 2016 to 2020.
Guest Artist: Molly Koehn. Through observation of the urban environment, Molly Koehn utilizes fiber-based processes to create responsive artworks that embrace the temporal qualities of our fabricated environments and offer parallels between natural and synthetic. Printed, woven, and stitched line by line, layer by layer, and color by color, her works embrace the ever-shifting urban skyline, becoming monuments and mirrors to time. They are as much a skyscraper as they are an empty lot. They are a window as much as they are the sky, and they are native as much as they are cultivated. They blur the line between natural and artificial and ask questions about whether a line exists at all.
Blaine Davis has been a Houston printmaker for over 30 years. Currently a member of Burning Bones Press, and a new member of Archway Gallery, he works mainly on copper plate etchings. His work involves multiple processes on a single plate, including hard ground, soft ground, aquatint, and others. Controlled accidents, textural transfers, and reduction of the plate size results in what is, hopefully, an acceptable image. After printing, other methods are often introduced, such as chine colle' and viscosity printing; even a basic intaglio print might appeal to the eye.
Primarily a painter, donna e perkins brings her love of experimentation to printmaking. For her monoprints, she uses metallic acrylic paint, sometimes augmented with drawing. When perkins was still small enough to stand in the church pew, her parents gave her paper and pencil to keep her quiet during services. In junior high she was given oil paints. Donna has been drawing and painting ever since. After earning a master’s degree from the University of Houston at Clear Lake, she taught art in public schools for 20 years. In 2008 she joined Archway Gallery.
After many years of line drawing, watercolor, and teaching, Shirl Riccetti was introduced to printmaking and its many intriguing techniques. While she has experimented with various techniques; she has settled on using Scratch Foam Board. She draws her composition, cuts using X-ACTO blades and scissors, then prints. Her printing surfaces include watercolor paper, rice paper, and brown paper, and she creates her prints with acrylic paint, printing ink, and calligraphy ink.
John Slaby became involved in printmaking in 2016. After working extensively with non-hazardous electrochemical methods on zinc plates, John has since begun experimenting with drypoint methods. Primarily an oil painter, Slaby has used this medium as an extension of his work with the human figure and other subjects. He has been a member of Archway Gallery since 1993 and currently serves as the Treasurer.
For Liz Conces Spencer, printing her steam-rolled piece Journey was a memorable experience. “I thank my good friend Kevin Cromwell for turning me on to the fun and potential of making an oversized plate and then letting a piece of heavy construction equipment roll over it!” says Spencer. The work itself chronicles the movement of people, so poignant now, but no more so than it has ever been.
Robert L. Straight works across many media, including glass, wood, metal, and printmaking. His prints, whether silkscreen, block, or intaglio all come from his imagination. “I have a sketch book that I doodle in,” says Straight, “then I scan the doodles into the computer and enlarge and adjust the scale of the sketch. They are generally lighthearted and designed to make you smile.”
Featured Artist: Mary Lee Gray is an Emeritus member of Archway Gallery. She has an extensive background in printmaking, acquiring her master’s degree from the University of North Carolina and her EdD from the University of Houston. She has taught locally and served as an art director for the New Orleans public television station. Gray’s woodcuts and linocuts combine transparency with layers of collage to create complex nuanced images.
Guest Artist: Alexander Squier is a visual artist who works across media, including printmaking, drawing, video, and installation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts from the University of Rochester in 2010, and his Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Tufts University) in 2013. He taught printmaking there before returning to his hometown of Houston to pursue a large-scale installation opportunity, “Remnants/Visions,” in Sharpstown. In 2018, Squier received the city’s Individual Artist Grant to complete, “Earthly Bodies: The Texas Brick Archive,” a mobile museum and archive of bricks collected from around the city. Currently, Squier has a studio at Box 13 Artspace in Houston’s East End, where he also serves as Exhibition Coordinator. He teaches printmaking at the Art League of Houston and the Texas Printing Museum, and headed the Printmaking Department at the Glassell School of Art (MFAH) from 2016 to 2020.
Guest Artist: Molly Koehn. Through observation of the urban environment, Molly Koehn utilizes fiber-based processes to create responsive artworks that embrace the temporal qualities of our fabricated environments and offer parallels between natural and synthetic. Printed, woven, and stitched line by line, layer by layer, and color by color, her works embrace the ever-shifting urban skyline, becoming monuments and mirrors to time. They are as much a skyscraper as they are an empty lot. They are a window as much as they are the sky, and they are native as much as they are cultivated. They blur the line between natural and artificial and ask questions about whether a line exists at all.
Blaine Davis has been a Houston printmaker for over 30 years. Currently a member of Burning Bones Press, and a new member of Archway Gallery, he works mainly on copper plate etchings. His work involves multiple processes on a single plate, including hard ground, soft ground, aquatint, and others. Controlled accidents, textural transfers, and reduction of the plate size results in what is, hopefully, an acceptable image. After printing, other methods are often introduced, such as chine colle' and viscosity printing; even a basic intaglio print might appeal to the eye.
Primarily a painter, donna e perkins brings her love of experimentation to printmaking. For her monoprints, she uses metallic acrylic paint, sometimes augmented with drawing. When perkins was still small enough to stand in the church pew, her parents gave her paper and pencil to keep her quiet during services. In junior high she was given oil paints. Donna has been drawing and painting ever since. After earning a master’s degree from the University of Houston at Clear Lake, she taught art in public schools for 20 years. In 2008 she joined Archway Gallery.
After many years of line drawing, watercolor, and teaching, Shirl Riccetti was introduced to printmaking and its many intriguing techniques. While she has experimented with various techniques; she has settled on using Scratch Foam Board. She draws her composition, cuts using X-ACTO blades and scissors, then prints. Her printing surfaces include watercolor paper, rice paper, and brown paper, and she creates her prints with acrylic paint, printing ink, and calligraphy ink.
John Slaby became involved in printmaking in 2016. After working extensively with non-hazardous electrochemical methods on zinc plates, John has since begun experimenting with drypoint methods. Primarily an oil painter, Slaby has used this medium as an extension of his work with the human figure and other subjects. He has been a member of Archway Gallery since 1993 and currently serves as the Treasurer.
For Liz Conces Spencer, printing her steam-rolled piece Journey was a memorable experience. “I thank my good friend Kevin Cromwell for turning me on to the fun and potential of making an oversized plate and then letting a piece of heavy construction equipment roll over it!” says Spencer. The work itself chronicles the movement of people, so poignant now, but no more so than it has ever been.
Robert L. Straight works across many media, including glass, wood, metal, and printmaking. His prints, whether silkscreen, block, or intaglio all come from his imagination. “I have a sketch book that I doodle in,” says Straight, “then I scan the doodles into the computer and enlarge and adjust the scale of the sketch. They are generally lighthearted and designed to make you smile.”
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May 7 - June 2, 2022 Imperfectly Perfect Featuring New Paintings by Mohammad Ali Bhatti |
Bhatti firmly believes that art doesn’t necessarily have to be pretty or perfect, but it must evoke emotion. “In my early career, I was trained as a figurative artist and attempted to be a painter of ‘perfectness,’” he recounts. “During my PhD studies in Comparative Arts, I realized that artists are capable of expressing emotions and ideas as they wish.” In his abstract expressionist works, Bhatti approaches the canvas with a simple idea, a concept, or a theme and begins with random marks, developing small and large shapes, and connecting them with more lines and shapes. Spontaneous brush strokes, contrasting colors, and multiple layers create a sort of transparency and richness of texture. Complexity of design occurs intuitively -- the appearance and disappearance of motifs and elements that float in neutral space. “The incompleteness or unfinished surfaces of my canvases may look imperfect to some, but for me it is the complete fulfillment of making a statement,” says Bhatti. “It is a journey to discover the perfection in the beauty of imperfection.”
In addition to his Abstract Expressionist paintings, this exhibition will include some of Bhatti’s Southwestern pieces, which showcase his figurative art and portraiture skills. “I am electrified by the exceptional country life of the American west,” he explains. “I feel driven to capture on canvas the beauty of life on a ranch, livestock, rodeo activities, rocky mountains, and wide open landscapes.” Bhatti’s ultimate artistic goal is to offer the viewer a complex composition that captures the attention, stimulates thought, and opens a dialog between the work and the viewer. He strives for an aesthetic that encourages open-mindedness while harnessing positive energy and the power of imagination to reveal the beauty of our “imperfectly perfect” world.
In addition to his Abstract Expressionist paintings, this exhibition will include some of Bhatti’s Southwestern pieces, which showcase his figurative art and portraiture skills. “I am electrified by the exceptional country life of the American west,” he explains. “I feel driven to capture on canvas the beauty of life on a ranch, livestock, rodeo activities, rocky mountains, and wide open landscapes.” Bhatti’s ultimate artistic goal is to offer the viewer a complex composition that captures the attention, stimulates thought, and opens a dialog between the work and the viewer. He strives for an aesthetic that encourages open-mindedness while harnessing positive energy and the power of imagination to reveal the beauty of our “imperfectly perfect” world.
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Group ExhibitionFor the Love of Earth
April 2 - May 5, 2022 A Group Exhibition in Celebration of Earth Day 2022 Featuring the Work of Archway Artists in Partnership With the Citizens Environmental Coalition (see below) (25% of Group Exhibition Sales Go to CEC) |
For thousands of years humans have used art to express their experiences in the natural world. Today that natural world is changing under the weight of industrialization and other human activities. Earth’s ecosystems are collapsing before our very eyes, and artists, just like everyone else, are feeling the effects, both physically – suffering floods, fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes - and emotionally. Scientists have been warning of climate change and impending disasters for decades, and we are now seeing the results of our collective inattention. If Earth is to be preserved as a habitable, sustaining home for future generations, it is up to us to act now. This is the only home we have.
Archway artists believe that art has a powerful voice and with it, they hope to raise awareness of the need to take collective action and inspire hope that our species can undergo the renewal necessary to save our home. This exhibition challenges the viewer to consider the fragility of our planet and all living things on it and to take actions which will bring beneficial change. The state of our natural environment presents complex problems that require us to change our behaviors. We live in a finite world with finite resources, and a global population that has increased almost threefold in the last 75 years. As climate activist artist John Akomfrah said in an interview with ICA Boston, “This is not the 18th century anymore—it’s not unlimited landscapes and unlimited space to explore ad infinitum, wasting away, trashing away as we go along.” We are all children of this Earth and need to take care of our beautiful inheritance so that we can pass it on to future generations.
Archway artists believe that art has a powerful voice and with it, they hope to raise awareness of the need to take collective action and inspire hope that our species can undergo the renewal necessary to save our home. This exhibition challenges the viewer to consider the fragility of our planet and all living things on it and to take actions which will bring beneficial change. The state of our natural environment presents complex problems that require us to change our behaviors. We live in a finite world with finite resources, and a global population that has increased almost threefold in the last 75 years. As climate activist artist John Akomfrah said in an interview with ICA Boston, “This is not the 18th century anymore—it’s not unlimited landscapes and unlimited space to explore ad infinitum, wasting away, trashing away as we go along.” We are all children of this Earth and need to take care of our beautiful inheritance so that we can pass it on to future generations.
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Archway Gallery is partnering with the Citizens Environmental Coalition. For over 50 years, the CEC has worked to foster education, dialogue, and collaboration on environmental issues in the greater Houston area. Made up of more than 100 local environmental nonprofits, small businesses, and government organizations, the CEC aims to serve the Houston region through environmental stewardship and conservation programs that uplift ongoing work in the area, connect people to employment and educational opportunities, and encourage collaboration within the community. Among the CEC’s programs are the Houston Earth Day celebration in partnership with Discovery Green, the annual Wild About Houston and the Wild and Scenic film festivals, the regional Environmental Educators Exchange, the Greater Houston Environmental Summit, and the highly regarded Green Jobs Board, among others. Support for CEC will help to advance the important collective efforts of our environmental community. 25% of sales from the show go to the CEC.
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The pandemic prevented Larry Garmezy from making his annual photographic pilgrimage to the natural springs of the Northern Rocky Mountains. Stuck at home, he turned to a source of water a little bit closer -- his fifty-year-old pool. The patterns formed by the circulation jets function as a stand-in for the natural water surface distortion and ripples he usually photographs. Garmezy’s show, Stuck, is a unique, often playful, chronicle of a disrupted life, a deserted downtown, and how stuck we, as individuals, remain as our society ripples and shifts.
One suite of images began with a simple desire to create a still life using persimmons ripening in Garmezy’s backyard. With a glance at the ripples near the pool jets and around thirty dollars in quarters to sink the fruit, a suite of “not-so-still-life” images was born. Garmezy then experimented with immersing his earlier photographs of mountain springs, urban Houston, and a Mexican street, creating a “second derivative” set of altered images. Other experiments captured floating leaves; their shadows distorted by the lensing effect of surface tension around their edges.
The common thread? Garmezy’s images are typically impressions or abstractions of the visual landscape, distorted by physical processes that create surprising and fleeting patterns —including the warping of glass in a skyscraper. Videos illustrating how the pool became his artistic playground will be on display alongside the work. See the work. Click here to read more backstories and a backstage look at how the images were captured.
Larry Garmezy, a geologist, spent 32 years traveling the world with Shell Oil after graduating from Amherst College and Penn State University. A lifelong photographer, he has had four solo shows as a member artist at Archway Gallery in Houston. His work has been in numerous juried shows, hangs in homes, offices and public spaces across the U.S. and Europe, and has been published in Spotlight Contemporary Art Magazine (issues 15, 17, and 23). Two of his images from this exhibition will be highlighted in Issue 27.
One suite of images began with a simple desire to create a still life using persimmons ripening in Garmezy’s backyard. With a glance at the ripples near the pool jets and around thirty dollars in quarters to sink the fruit, a suite of “not-so-still-life” images was born. Garmezy then experimented with immersing his earlier photographs of mountain springs, urban Houston, and a Mexican street, creating a “second derivative” set of altered images. Other experiments captured floating leaves; their shadows distorted by the lensing effect of surface tension around their edges.
The common thread? Garmezy’s images are typically impressions or abstractions of the visual landscape, distorted by physical processes that create surprising and fleeting patterns —including the warping of glass in a skyscraper. Videos illustrating how the pool became his artistic playground will be on display alongside the work. See the work. Click here to read more backstories and a backstage look at how the images were captured.
Larry Garmezy, a geologist, spent 32 years traveling the world with Shell Oil after graduating from Amherst College and Penn State University. A lifelong photographer, he has had four solo shows as a member artist at Archway Gallery in Houston. His work has been in numerous juried shows, hangs in homes, offices and public spaces across the U.S. and Europe, and has been published in Spotlight Contemporary Art Magazine (issues 15, 17, and 23). Two of his images from this exhibition will be highlighted in Issue 27.
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Nowruz - A New Beginning
February 5 - March 3, 2022 |
The word Nowruz means “new day.” Occurring on the spring equinox, on or around March 20, Nowruz is celebrated as the beginning of the New Year by more than 300 million people worldwide. For over 3,000 years, Nowruz has marked a new beginning and a sense of renewal. In her new series of abstract paintings and sculptures, Maryam Lavaf seeks to create an energy and vibrancy reflective of the Nowruz spirit as we move into the season of its celebration after a COVID-driven challenging 2020-2021.
Maryam believes that even the darkest situations contain a spark of positive energy. Our task, she says, “is to look for that spark – in nature, in humanity, or in someone’s eyes – to know it is always there, encouraging us to change and to move forward.” This year, as the world comes together to defeat COVID-19, Maryam encourages us to let the new beginning spirit of Nowruz serve as an inspiration to recover and rebuild in a more just and sustainable way. “Change is difficult, but it is necessary and is a natural part of life,” says Maryam Lavaf. “It challenges us to be open to possibility, to acknowledge our own resistance, and to celebrate the renewal and blooming we can bring forth.”
In this exhibition, Maryam Lavaf explores the concept of renewal by embracing change in her own view and approach to her work. The footprints of nature can be traced throughout Lavaf’s work. “Nature stimulates the primary sense – the ecstasy of existence and the essence of life -- for me,” she explains. “It’s the same sense that we experience in love.” Each of these new works begins with a sound from nature -- the sound of a raindrop or a leaf falling. She then allows each sound to form its own visual logic, and each work is guided by its own rules according to its unique demands. Collectively, Lavaf strives to present the elements of nature in abstract form through her work.
Maryam Lavaf began her life in Iran. She received a Bachelor of Arts with a Major in Painting from Tehran Azad University in 2002. In 2004, Lavaf moved to Houston. Her first connection with the arts community in the U.S. was through the Visual Arts Alliance where she met fellow Archway artist, Becky Soria, who connected her to a group of artists at Winter Street Studios. In 2015, she began an exploration of ceramics under Jeff Forster’s supervision at the Glassell School of Art. She is currently an active member of Archway Gallery.
Maryam believes that even the darkest situations contain a spark of positive energy. Our task, she says, “is to look for that spark – in nature, in humanity, or in someone’s eyes – to know it is always there, encouraging us to change and to move forward.” This year, as the world comes together to defeat COVID-19, Maryam encourages us to let the new beginning spirit of Nowruz serve as an inspiration to recover and rebuild in a more just and sustainable way. “Change is difficult, but it is necessary and is a natural part of life,” says Maryam Lavaf. “It challenges us to be open to possibility, to acknowledge our own resistance, and to celebrate the renewal and blooming we can bring forth.”
In this exhibition, Maryam Lavaf explores the concept of renewal by embracing change in her own view and approach to her work. The footprints of nature can be traced throughout Lavaf’s work. “Nature stimulates the primary sense – the ecstasy of existence and the essence of life -- for me,” she explains. “It’s the same sense that we experience in love.” Each of these new works begins with a sound from nature -- the sound of a raindrop or a leaf falling. She then allows each sound to form its own visual logic, and each work is guided by its own rules according to its unique demands. Collectively, Lavaf strives to present the elements of nature in abstract form through her work.
Maryam Lavaf began her life in Iran. She received a Bachelor of Arts with a Major in Painting from Tehran Azad University in 2002. In 2004, Lavaf moved to Houston. Her first connection with the arts community in the U.S. was through the Visual Arts Alliance where she met fellow Archway artist, Becky Soria, who connected her to a group of artists at Winter Street Studios. In 2015, she began an exploration of ceramics under Jeff Forster’s supervision at the Glassell School of Art. She is currently an active member of Archway Gallery.
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Joel Anderson takes us along on a walking tour of public spaces, parks, and gardens as he captures the many spectacles of beauty right in front of our eyes. Several images are from Houston’s Hermann Park. “It was the first nice weekend after the big freeze of 2021,” Anderson explains. “People were out enjoying some warmer weather and there were signs that the pandemic was abating, but this was against a backdrop of bare trees, severely pruned shrubs, and dead grass -- perfect conditions allowing me to add my own leaves and flowers into the scenes.”
Also serving as reference for several paintings is the Chicago Botanic Garden which Anderson explored during an art festival excursion in the area. “Being a koi pond owner, I’m fond of scenes of water lilies and Japanese stone lanterns,” Anderson continues. “Their bonsai trees were just amazing, each one a spectacle in itself.”
Encaustic painting -- beeswax mixed with damar resin -- was practiced by Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C.E. A mid-20th century revival, including works by Diego Rivera and Jasper Johns, brought encaustic painting back into prominence. Anderson’s creative process incorporates modern digital methods into this ancient medium. His style combines clear imagery with a slight abstraction and then a reassignment of color values. Implementing this with encaustic medium results in something a little different yet still familiar.
Also serving as reference for several paintings is the Chicago Botanic Garden which Anderson explored during an art festival excursion in the area. “Being a koi pond owner, I’m fond of scenes of water lilies and Japanese stone lanterns,” Anderson continues. “Their bonsai trees were just amazing, each one a spectacle in itself.”
Encaustic painting -- beeswax mixed with damar resin -- was practiced by Greek artists as far back as the 5th century B.C.E. A mid-20th century revival, including works by Diego Rivera and Jasper Johns, brought encaustic painting back into prominence. Anderson’s creative process incorporates modern digital methods into this ancient medium. His style combines clear imagery with a slight abstraction and then a reassignment of color values. Implementing this with encaustic medium results in something a little different yet still familiar.