This Summer Gallery Show Includes a Cactus Party Favor

THIS SCORCHING HEAT has done no favors for most plants and plant-lovers. But on Saturday, July 9, from 1-4pm, Jonathan Hopson Gallery hosts Oasis, a special “green sharing” event where visitors are invited to view some incredible art, enjoy a cool drink and purchase a specially priced cutting or potted plant from the home-based gallery’s extraordinary cactus garden.

Each summer, gallery co-owners Jonathan Hopson and Debra Barrera — who opened the gallery in 2016, and are married and parents to a ten-month-old girl named Aurora — take time to trim and share cacti cuttings from their garden with their Montrose neighbors and the larger Houston community. This year, they decided to combine the ritual with curation. Anyone who purchases a work from the exhibit can chose any size plant to take home at no cost. And if you work with public park or non-profit that has a cactus garden, Hopson and Barrera are more than happy to donate a cutting upon request.

Lauren Moya Ford's glazed ceramic piece 'Red Palm'

Guadalupe Hernandez's 'Quetzacoatl' installation

Oasis is rooted in the gallery’s current show pulp, a collection of smart and often humorous works on, made out of and/or inspired by paper. Six contemporary Texas- and Southern-based artists: Troy Dugas, Brandon Tho Harris, Guadalupe Hernandez, Hong Hong, Lauren Moya Ford, and Liz Rodda contribute to the show. For Oasis, new works by Hernandez and Ford will be on display.

Hernandez, who recently received his MFA from Houston Baptist University, and whose first solo exhibition Recuerdos Vividos is currently on view at San Antonio’s Presa House Gallery, creates meticulous, labor-intensive papel picado (or perforated paper) tissue banners that pay homage to his Mexican heritage and family history.

Meanwhile, like many young, contemporary artists, Ford’s practice embraces several mediums, including writing, printmaking, and live performance. For Oasis, she will be showing a large selection on new ceramics, which Barrera describes intriguingly as “drawings that have now become ceramics.”