Take a look at Jeanette Degollado’s For Cassie and you might get the wrong idea about the new premiumgoods exhibit “Reload.” The painting shows a young woman pointing a gun, surrounded by graffiti-like images, but artist/curator Melinda Mosheim says the title for the show comes not so much from gunplay but from President Obama’s promise of change. “The country is coming to a new place in the world, it’s reloading,” she says. “We all need that, to be rejuvenated, but we’re using a badass word, ‘reload,’ to describe it.”

Like the other exhibits at the sneaker store, the work in “Reload” is outsider art. Mosheim’s works, for example, are multilayered paper-based images. “I’m working with torn posters which are taken down from abandoned buildings mostly in the Third Ward; I salvaged those as they were coming off of the walls. I’m also doing some work with very abstract recycled collage pieces. I have these bits of paper that are smaller than [shredded] paper. I took things like car ads and junk mail, and I cut them into these itsy bitsy pieces and then reassembled them. I take something that was whole, disintegrate it and then restore it into something unique. I also work with pornography a little bit. I abstract those, so there’s a little bit of sexy stuff going on too.”

Unlike most previous exhibits at premiumgoods, “Reload” includes just 30 or so works, most of them in the four-to-six-foot-tall range. “We usually do a more-is-more approach, to the store and to the exhibits,” says Mosheim, noting that in the past shows have included a much larger number of artists and smaller works. “We wanted to step away from that this time.” There are just five artists participating in “Reload” — partners Shizoq and Heidi, musician-turned-artist TKNY, Degollado and Mosheim. Regular viewing hours are noon to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. 2416 Times Boulevard. For information, call 713-523-8825 or visit www.myspace.com/premiumgoods. Free.
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 12-7 p.m. Starts: May 9. Continues through May 30, 2009