Two for the Show: Colors Converge in Joint Exhibit at Anya Tish

Two for the Show: Colors Converge in Joint Exhibit at Anya Tish

'Voz de Mujer' by Escallon

THIS WEEKEND, A new show goes up at Anya Tish Gallery. Dialogues: A Convergence of Color and Form features works by Colombian-born painter Tatiana Escallón and sculptor Marisol Valencia, who hails from Guadalajara, Mexico. Escallón’s large-scale abstract paintings are filled with color and action, and Valencia’s twisted and folded porcelain and steel sculptures are just as beautiful as they are unsettling. While each artist explores wildly different mediums of expression, hot-blooded emotion is contained in the colors they choose and the forms they create. The show opens Friday, Jan. 12, and both artists will be present.


'Ways to Endure' by Valencia

This isn’t the first time Escallón has shown at Anya Tish. Last summer, two of her paintings, “La Fiesta (The Feast)” and “Voz de Mujer (Woman’s Voice),” were included in Strike the Match! — a sensuous, all-too-brief pop-up exhibit of Texas-based female painters curated by Tish and gallery director Dawn Ohmer. Both of those paintings began as original poems, and throughout her work, words in both Spanish and English share space alongside harried-looking dots, dashes, and longer lines, not unlike the emotive, gestural work of such abstract expressionist heavies as Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly. Using acrylics, oils, graphite, and materials such as rope and wood, Escallón conjures a form of assemblage that is closer to alchemy than collage.

Valencia has lived in the United States since 2004, and recently completed the Block XXI program at the Glassell School of Art and was awarded a certificate of achievement for her studies in ceramics. Her new series of sculptures Ways to Endure is the result of her experimentation with the physical properties of porcelain, and a comment on how we endure or crumble in the wake of tragic circumstances. Each sculpture begins with an ordinary cardboard box as its armature, which Valencia covers with a porcelain slip, and then fires at an unusually high temperature. Out of this unusual but methodical firing process unpredictable cracks, textures, and deformations occur, as each box crumbles or collapses entirely.

Dialogues: A Convergence of Color and Form is on view through Feb. 24.

Art + Entertainment
Top Attorney Lauren Varnado Says Networking Is Key: ‘Relationships Are Everything’
How did you get to where you are today? It takes a village. I was fortunate enough to have great mentors and individuals who instilled confidence in me. I think that when you face a challenge or an obstacle, you are able to overcome and make things happen. You can continue moving forward, more resilient over time.
Keep Reading Show less

'Is that how you treat your house guest'

ARTIST KAIMA MARIE’S solo exhibit For the record (which opens today at Art Is Bond) invites the viewer into a multiverse of beloved Houston landmarks, presented in dizzying Cubist perspectives. There are ornate interior spaces filled with paintings, books and records — all stuff we use to document and preserve personal, family and collective histories; and human figures, including members of Marie’s family, whose presence adds yet another quizzical layer to these already densely packed works. This isn’t art you look at for 15-30 seconds before moving on to the next piece; there’s a real pleasure in being pulled into these large-scale photo collages, which Marie describes as “puzzles without a reference image.”

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment

Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian cocktail

SPOOKY SEASON IS starting early this year with the release of the Beetlejuice sequel in theaters on Friday. Houston cocktail bar and pizza joint Betelgeuse Betelgeuse is celebrating the film with two weekends of events and specials.

Keep Reading Show less
Food