“Arranging Family” Photographer and sculptor Carlee Fernandez uses the central theme of family — and how the past intersects with the present and gives hope for the future — to demonstrate her centeredness and strength. Her reverence for her ancestors, who join her in spirit, allows her to create something larger than self in her first solo exhibition in Houston, “Arranging Family,” at Inman Gallery. Family, Baptismal Cup, a larger-than-life bronze sculpture, was inspired by her husband’s christening cup. She has meticulously added the names and birthdates for his ancestors back to Rufus (1804) and Emma (1809). Winding around from the other side, she also engraved her own family line, over seven generations, until they meet together with the birth of their sons, Xavier and William. It’s a bittersweet tribute, lovely in its beauty but sad in the knowledge that the family tree must end here, since the cup is now full. The piece appears again in an archival print, Let This Cup Pass From Us, as the legs of her small family of four protrude out, with just the faintest glimpse of the tops of heads inside. Her strength is evident in self-portraits, including 2012, a 99×77 canvas featuring a “real” Fernandez alongside stuffed pillows of her nude family — bawling baby, wry-smiling son, and stern husband doing his best to be dignified without the protection of clothing. The Strand that Holds Us Together did not divulge too many secrets, other than that the mismatched hands shared traits such as short nails and familiarity; a palmist could divine more. The artist’s notes indicate they are father and daughter, adding meaningfulness to this 53×71 archival pigment print. Through February 21. 3901 Main, 713-526-7800, inmangallery.com. — ST
“Conversations from the Satellites” There is an argument that the qualities attributed to schizophrenia — among them the inability to filter out irrelevant information — may be beneficial for creativity, allowing the individual to see connections others may not notice. J. Todd Allison, drawing inspiration from his father’s struggle with that disease, has unleashed a futuristic, scientific and fantastic world at G Gallery. Harnessing the Lure features a serpentine creature; his wood-lined mouth offers up a knitting-hook tongue holding a hanger of seven polka-dotted chrysalis sacs. The background is a hazy, mysterious blue, obscuring hidden objects, flowers, ancient civilizations and faces. They were once great Dancers features a man wrapped in bandages formed of bent and twisted lumber, with the faint hint of pink suggesting a wound or injury. He bears the number 50, a remnant of dance competitions from days past. His dancing partner twirls in a beautifully tiered skirt of pliant lumber, with a stack of glass bell insulators serving as her head. Her semicircle arms of bent wood reach out, ready for the next dance. Darkness descends with Brotherly Love as our heroine appears in a scene with two truncated tree stumps. Floating above are not-so-innocent dartboards, poised like circular saw blades; one can almost smell the sawdust in the air. Equally riveting is Once a Harvester, which reveals a murderous ogre in butcher’s apron — all fashioned with Allison’s patterned, molded planks. Outer-space images are invoked in The Great Insulator as our intergalactic explorer sports a title belt in one hand, a glass diving bell held high. A rocket ship is poised to take off against a topographical backdrop of black and blue lakes, maps, monsters and creatures. Through January 30. 301 East 11th, 713-869-4770, ggalleryhouston.com. — ST
“Jorge Marin: Wings of the City” This installation at Discovery Green has nine wonderful sculptures by an acclaimed Mexican sculptor; some are powerful, some playful, some enigmatic, but all are filled with a love for and an appreciation of humanity that is breathtaking and admirable. Though they represent a higher order of being — most are winged — they have retained their humanity. Abrazo Monumental (abrazo is Spanish for “embrace”) is a pietà-like sculpture of a winged angel holding a dying woman. El Tiempo shows a wounded soldier, his face intact but his head shattered and missing, and his arms severed as well, yet he remains watchful and alert, resolute, courageous, kept alive by his dedication and his need to protect the city. One sculpture is interactive: It’s a pair of giant bronze wings with an opening for the visitor to stand in and be photographed wearing the wings. Titled Alas de Mexico, it is playful indeed, and early on a Saturday evening it was very active, with visitors waiting their turn. There are six winged sculptures, and three that are not winged. Split Monumental has a gymnast with a hawk mask, short hair, balancing on his hands on a globe. Equilibrista 90 Monumental shows a masked gymnast supporting himself with his hands on a globe, his legs stretched straight out, in an elegant line. Hombre Universal Monumental shows a man standing on a large open ring of metal, holding onto it at its top, with outstretched arms, an homage to and an echo of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of the Vitruvian Man, probably the best-known drawing in the history of art. Through February 8. 1500 McKinney, La Branch at Lamar, 713-400-7336, discovery green.com. — JJT
The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden There is a hidden treasure tucked away next to a parking lot, a remarkable collection of majestic sculptures by internationally famed artists, on display behind attractive stone walls in an open-air park; it is the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. It was designed and created by Isamu Noguchi, himself a world-famous sculptor, landscape architect and pioneer of modern interior design. The Cullen Sculpture Garden first opened to the public in 1986 — Noguchi had submitted his initial design in 1979, and refined it over the next five years. The garden covers more than one acre, and is carved into a series of outdoor pavilions, separated sometimes by walls, that permit semi-enclosures around some of the sculptures. The exhibition includes more than 25 works from the MFAH collection, as well as selected loans. The sculptures are deliberately eclectic, demonstrating a range of artistic approaches, so there is no theme, except diversity itself. I liked Alexander Calder’s giant red metal The Crab, so filled with dynamic energy that, viewed from the right position, it seems it might be moving threateningly. It is just outside MFAH’s main building, guarding the entrance. Raymond Duchamp-Villon’s The Large Horse is semi-abstract, with some cubistic elements, and roars with its own energy. Frank Stella’s Decanter is extremely complex, powerful yet playful, a combination of circles and planes, some jutting out to catch and demand attention. I was mystified by the title Bird (Oiseau) for Joan Miró’s massive bronze, since I saw it as an adolescent rhinoceros about to go on a date, hormones aflame. It is witty and great fun. There is more, much more. Ongoing exhibition. 1001 Bissonnet, 713-639-7300, mfah.org. — JJT
“Masks, Monsters and Monoliths” It is a gift to gaze upon a discarded object and see the potential to transform it into something worthwhile; Archway Gallery is featuring two such visionaries in “Masks, Monsters and Monoliths.” Steel sculptor Jim Adams uses acetylene torches to transform junk — gnarly, pitted and twisted — into monsters large and small, each with its own personality and demanding to be the center of attention. Painter Sherry Tseng Hill draws upon her architectural background to repurpose shipping boxes into ornate masks through intentional layering and adornment of paint, coiled paper, and shapes of triangles, flaps and rectangles. The result is an explosion of flamboyantly colorful masks, interwoven and interconnected through chains of paper, similar to the plumbing and electrical lines of a construction blueprint. The juxtaposition of the monochromatic steel sculptures with the colorful tribal masks makes for a pleasing and whimsical show. Don’t miss Jim Adams’s Monster Family, and be sure to bring the children. Dad leads the charge, Mom brings up the rear, with four monster children in between. Ranging in height from 28.5 to 42.5, the five pieces of steel sculpture can be arranged and rearranged; the characters are full of motion and life — some reticent, some dancing ahead, all hungry and talking — with broken, snaggled teeth, bulging eyeballs and long legs atop chicken feet. Tseng Hill’s The Wall is a stunning, thought-provoking piece, with angled gray column splitting the territory in half and protected by a coil of barbed wire. It is intricately decorated, with black rolled-up paper, meticulous lines of gold, red and blue at the top, and red, spiky triangles emanating from the un-crossable border. Through February 5. 2305 Dunlavy, 713-522-2409, archwaygallery.com. — ST
“Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River” As museum-goers, it seems, we can never get enough French Impressionist painting, and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is giving us another opportunity to test that proposition with the exhibition “Monet and the Seine: Impressions of a River.” The premise of the show is straightforward: Claude Monet (1840-1926), the artist who is perhaps the pre-eminent Impressionist, was born in Paris, through which flows the Seine; he grew up in the Normandy port city of Le Havre, at the mouth of the river; and for most of his life he lived and painted in one place or another along the river — including Giverny, made famous by his presence — taking the river and its banks as the subject of countless paintings, or at least the framework for them. This is the first exhibition to focus squarely at this aspect of his inspiration and output. It floats up and down the Seine through 50-plus beautiful paintings made over almost 40 years. Though in a literal sense Monet painted the river, he wasn’t really interested in it as a river. Primarily he was striving to capture the effects of light and color as transformed by nature through days and seasons. There are masterpieces in the show — Argenteuil of 1875, with its two red boats front and center, and The Seine at Lavacourt of 1880, among them. And it reunites the largest number of paintings from the late great “Mornings on the Seine” series to have been brought together anywhere since first exhibited in 1898. Through February 1. 1001 Bissonnet, 713-639-7300, mfah.org — RT
“On the Left Side of Mercury” A person doesn’t need to book a flight on Virgin Galactic to travel to outer space; just stop by Anya Tish Gallery to see Adela Andea’s imaginary naturescapes brought to life through neon, LED lights, Plexiglas, mirrors and spec-fabricated consumer electronics. The pieces are both otherworldly, such as the cataclysm of an exploding planet, and also terrestrial, though straight from the depths of the Mariana Trench. One of my favorites was Transient Light II, reminiscent of a pulsating glowing crystal geode heart, and kept alive with three major arteries in green, blue and violet. Even more compelling was White Giant, a headless space/sea creature of milky translucent amorphous shapes, white spikes and beautiful pale blue crystals and finished off with delicate wisps of monofilament tendrils. Tread carefully near Magma Storm, a giant tangled cluster of orange, tangerine and coral emanating energy and light; plastic tubing feeds the organism like a giant galactic gastrointestinal glob of Lucite and hex shapes — I think I only imagined its heat. The largest piece, or rather collection of pieces, is Nebula (Pillars of Creation). This slow-pulsing color-changing series of convex and concave magnifying glasses casts off prisms of light; the cones and rods of my eyes could see only purple, rose, green, blue and orange, but I’m confident Nebula was broadcasting a higher number of distinguishable chromaticities. Visitors can walk around, underneath and inside the piece for changing effect and perception. My only regret upon seeing this exhibit is that the gallery lights weren’t turned off periodically. I can only imagine how fantastic these pieces must appear in the darkness. Through February 14. 4411 Montrose, 713-524-2299, anyatishgallery.com. — ST
“Postcards from the Trenches: Germans and Americans Visualize the Great War” This exhibition honoring the centennial of the onset of what we now call World War I owes much to the dedication, diligence and talents of the co-curators, Dr. Irene Guenther and Dr. Marion Deshmukh, who marshaled an army of resources to make it possible. The exhibit covers much more ground than simply the postcards. The German artists who served in the war were deeply affected by it, and many went on to portray its horrors in their work. One artist, Otto Dix, recorded his views in satiric and horrifying portraits in War Cripples, 1920, and Wounded Soldier — Autumn 1916. They are powerful indeed. One gifted German artist, Otto Schubert, created art on postcards on a regular basis, sending these home; many of the cards survived, and are included here. Schubert’s Evening Mood at the Front captures the loneliness, desolation and deadliness of war in a compelling portrayal. Schubert sometimes wrote messages on the edges of his artistic drawings; one such is Argonne, Captured French, 1916. There are many more by Schubert — look for the jaunty Off to War and the depressing Building a Trench. On the American side, Jules Andre Smith matches Schubert in artistic talent. His Landscape with Soldiers and Trenches, near Thiaucourt, 1918, is frightening, as the trenches horrify with the primitive protection they offer. The title of his Tortured Earth, 1918, describes perfectly the horror of gouging the earth to create military redoubts. Smith captures a softer side in his Rest Area near Neufchateau, as Allied soldiers bathe in a river. The museum offers for $5 an illustrated catalogue prepared by the curators that is very useful. Through February 14. The Printing Museum, 1324 West Clay, 713-522-4652, printingmuseum.org. — JJT
Texas Teapot Tournament “This ain’t your Grandma’s teapot.” With apologies to the grammar police, I highly recommend visiting 18 Hands Gallery to see entries from the Clay Arts Museum and Educational Organization resembling space creatures, leopard-print boots, monkey heads or something straight out of Tim Burton’s brain. A person could easily picture Hobbits from Middle-Earth drinking tea from Welsh ceramist Geoffrey Swindell’s entry, tiny polka dots on a delicate miniature pot with minaret top. Imagine viewing farmlands from an airplane window but in hues of brown, orange and tan. Scott Dooley’s Industrial Teapot was all angles and elbows, a mottled patchwork of yellow and olive tones, cobbled together with an Erector Set of clay. He had another piece in the show, smaller and more neon-green in tone, which strongly resembled a Rube Goldberg machine. Anthony Martin’s Frozen in Time is an amazing fantasyland creation, a snail-pulled boxlike carriage teeming with frog, snake, worm, scorpion, gecko and spider. Almost grotesque in appearance, though oddly appealing, was Texas-based Steve Hilton’s Crossbedding XIV. Resembling rosettes of fungi or rough, gnarled bark from a diseased tree, it seemed so natural that it could easily be overlooked in a forest setting. Meryl Roth’s Ra-ta-tat Tea featured a lifelike woodpecker on a tree, and her Fit to a Tea leopard-print boot with laces and leopard top was ingenious; the cat’s tail served as the handle. Even if you don’t drink tea, please find the time to view these pieces, many of which were already sold on opening night and will no longer be available for viewing come February. Through January 31. 249 West 19th, 713-869-3099, 18handsgallery.com. — ST
This article appears in Jan 15-21, 2015.
