"Nature Studies" Propaganda can kill, and one famous example is the story of New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who, in 1931, regurgitated Communist propaganda about Joseph Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union. While a misinformed America slept, Stalin forced individual farmers to work on collective farms and fulfill impossible government quotas. Unable to consume their own grain, almost seven million persons starved and died as the result of a 1932-33 famine in Ukraine. This is a very personal story for artist Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak, whose parents escaped the famine. Her paintings, drawings and collages, interspersed with newspaper clippings and photographs, are a graphic cry for help. On display now at Hunter Gather Project, her work draws attention to the current crisis in Ukraine. During a visit to Chernobyl, Bodnar-Balahutrak became fascinated with the idea that, over time, nature will reclaim the evidence of horrific acts, and people will begin to forget. Will the Grass Grow Over It? is a beautifully layered collage, with the base consisting of photographs of hungry people, sometimes lying dead in the street, and news clippings about the hunger-extermination. She has painted blades of grass, some dead but newer growth as well, interspersed with the words of Soviet Russian writer and journalist Vasily Grossman. "And what has become of all that awful torment and torture? That all will be forgotten...? That the grass will grow over it?" The exhibit includes several important pieces, cleverly incorporating Soviet coins, rubles, maps and animals. What Balls! gets to the heart of the fact that Ukraine should stop waiting for leaders to emerge in the West and that the country can only depend on itself.Through March 7. Hunter Gather Project, 5320 Gulfton, Suite 15, 713-664-3302, huntergatherproject.com. — ST
"New Work: Group Show" A collective of ten artists, most of whom have shown at Zoya Tommy Gallery in the past, represents the swan song for this location but not for this gallery, which will reopen at 4102 Fannin on March 6. Marco Villegas's Long May She Wave was a standout, with its multidimensional layers of blacks on white and a thoughtfully placed breaking-waves stencil effect. Lindsey Nobel's Liquid Line offered a study of white-on-white fibrous synapses resting on top of the canvas with an almost organic floral portrayal of brain connections. Felipe Lopez invoked a hook theme with mixed results. White Degrees showed an architecturally perfect deep-blue sea with a solo hook riding the calm ocean waters. Between Then and Now featured a cobalt-blue hook suspended by filament, hanging like the sword of Damocles over a mirror. It was only Le Crochet Floraison that seemed unfinished, with its crudely painted double-stemmed flowers affixed to the wooden hook base with messily applied plaster. Thirteen pieces by the late Laurent Boccara, arranged horizontally and ranging in size from 7x5 to 10x8, collectively told a story of a man fascinated by maps, geography and ancient labyrinths. It was only later when I realized he also had worked as a field archaeologist. Eric Sall's Slice portrayed a futuristic Picasso-like organism with an embryonic dark center, rendered with meticulous edges and overlays of multisize leaves and resting on a smeared base of red stars. His three other pieces used the similar technique of dark under painting, with an over-painting of oil, then a peeling away of patterned diamond and geometric shapes. Through February 26. 4411 Montrose, 713-523-7427, zoyatommy.com. — ST
