"Now Even Fresher"

Troy Schulze February 14, 2008 4:00AM

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Texas artists have long rendered our fair state as an outrageous, ironic (and iconic) wonderland, and Lubbock-based Jeff Wheeler is no exception. In 1999, he started an annual art party called "Ulterior Motifs," and an incarnation of that exhibit is on tour through Texas, having already shown in Dallas, Marfa and at the Art Guys' Houston Headquarters. Recently he and his brother Bryan (a remarkable artist as well) saw their work tour Germany for two years. In case you didn't catch the brothers in Germany, no worries - G Gallery is currently hosting a rare solo exhibition of Jeff Wheeler's art, "Now Even Fresher." His imagery embodies the expansive Texas plains, but anything goes when it comes to the cast of characters. The ever-present Texas cheerleader could wind up sharing the same space with a figure from art history and a grizzly bear. In the brightly colored Wrestling for Wealth, we see a mouse-boy teetering on the end of a diving board of a motel pool, lute in hand, while various human and insect guests swim and sunbathe around him. Wheeler's ceramics can mix religion with Texas iconography, like a 2007 piece called Somewhere Near Happy, Texas (#52), in which a painted bull balances atop the heads of four Virgin Marys in a hot tub. Now that's fresh. Noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Through February 25. G Gallery, 301 East 11th Street. For information, call 713-869-4770 or visit ggalleryhouston.com. Free.
Wednesdays-Sundays, 12-5 p.m. Starts: Feb. 2. Continues through Feb. 25, 2008