The show is curated by Design/Works Gallery and Wagner Sousa Modern Art. Since the lobby handout lists the represented artists by the galleries, I'm just going to arbitrarily go down that list and talk about what I saw. Where I can, I'll link artists to their websites and maybe sprinkle in some pictures if I can find some on the web. (Artists: if you prefer to not have your artwork posted here, please let me know and I'll remove it ASAP.)
First up is Graham Daugherty. Daugherty's art are mostly monochromatic abstracts with geometric shapes. "Muted" is the word that came to mind as I looked at his 4 pieces, not quite pastel, but certainly not bright. I was especially taken with the pale aqua of The White from the Moon and the quiet cool gray-blue of Enter November. In some ways, these are paintings that are made to match the sofa in your living room, but they're more than that. There is a moodiness to the pieces, which, upon reflection, might easily pick up the mood of the observer as much as bring a mood upon her/him. I found The White from the Moon online:
Glass artist Mitchell Gaudet has some sand-cast glass and found object pieces in this show. Sadly, I can't find examples of his work online that look like what's in this show. The link I gave him comes closest. They're fun pieces. The one that stands out is Rifle, with it's found, rusted rifle juxtaposed with a series of glass shooting gallery ducks. If you do more websearches on Gaudet, you'll find his work runs a wide range, from the cast glass to blown glass, rough tiles with a wheel or bunch of grapes (as in this show) to some rather lovely art bowls. Nothing online, that I found in my quick search, represents the whimsy or humor the pieces at the Williams Tower. I mean, that rifle is shooting nothing. The glass ducks have nothing to worry about.Don Glentzner is an accomplished photographer, having published work in well regarded magazines and even having pieces in the Museum of Fine Art Houston (among other places). So it will probably hurt his career and reputation not at all if I found the three sea-themed pieces in this show to be pretty but not especially out of the ordinary. Probably just not my thing.
On the other hand, Larry Horn has a series of photographs that are evocative and, in the case of his seascapes, a little spooky. Two of his photos feature very bright light at night. The one that I found most interesting is of a house or shack in the country and very light is coming from the windows. What's most interesting about the photo is that I couldn't tell for certain if the light source was actually inside the house or behind the house. It might have been headlights of, I'd guess, two or more vehicles. Unfortunately, googling "Larry Horn" and "photography" gets me inconclusive results. I couldn't find photography that resembled this show's work (although I did find a photographer who will take shots of your events). If anyone can supply a link to this particular Larry Horn, I'd appreciate it.
Abstract artist Larry Spaid has several pieces in this show, all abstract paintings on paper. The series of smaller paintings strike me as sandpaper with geometric doodles on it. (The sandpaper refers more to the color than texture.) The larger ones are similar only with gray backgrounds. His website says he's influenced by several cultures, most recently Vietnam and Cambodia. I'm not surprised to learn that. My exposure to contemporary Asian art is spotty, at best, but I did think of Asia when I saw his work. Here is a piece from his website that is similar to what he has at the Williams Tower, although not an exact piece:
I find them rather meditative.
Saralene Tapley is the last artist listed under Design/Works Gallery. Her pieces are very large, colorful portraits. I'm not entirely sure what to call the style, other than highly stylized. The paint is thick, blotchy, like it's applied with a spoon rather than a brush. The colors are not what you might call "natural." I find the results interesting and I appreciate the skill and technique. I'm not sure I would say I "like" them. But liking them isn't entirely the point. They certainly held my attention and demanded I look at them.
First artist listed under Wagner Sousa Modern Art is Milton Ausherman. His work seems quite influenced by popular culture, or else I'm completely projecting my life experiences on his work. I'm sure it's a bit of each. One quite large canvas, which is officially untitled, I'd call "color field meets Twister." The background could be a Rothko painting, but the precisely round, precisely placed dots on it made me want to pull it off the wall and play a game of Twister. He does a similar thing with a series of paint-by-number sets (which I loved as a kid). Here's one to give an idea:
Of course, the most obviously pop-culture influenced pieces are two silhouette portraits of George Jetson and Jane Jetson. I'm sure many people of my "certain age" would smile at these.
Patrick Cronin had a series of miniatures, most if not all made on post cards. On some the post card is completely obliterated, on others, there are bits of the post card peaking through. They're fun, most of them having sort of thick, makeshift structures on them, maybe as if Dr. Seuss had lived in Bedrock. He's another artist that I cannot find online.
Steve Gilbert has three photographs up, all entitled Museum People (#s 1, 2, and 3). Two are photos of people looking at art, which makes for self-referential fun. Art of people looking at art. They're also quite interesting, although the one that sticks with me is a photograph of a stout, older woman, bent with either age or dejection, walking alone outside a cold, gray wall that says Pinakothek der Moderne. Something very lovely yet lonely about it. (I found a photography site that is apparently owned by a Steve Gilbert, but I couldn't ascertain if it is the same Gilbert. I'd welcome a definitive link.)
Sculptor Meredith Jack has three pieces and the handout calls them "stabilized foam." I'm not familiar with what that is, exactly, and of course I didn't feel free to tap on the sculptures to see if touching them would explain anything. (A web search sheds some light, not much.) What they look like are metal. Cast iron would have been my first guess. There are smooth rings, tubes, and a heart which has been stuck in molten, barely formed slag. They're emotionally cool. At least, I didn't have a particular response to them. Skillfully made, but I didn't know how to "read" them.
Another scuptor, Marion Mercer, had several wood constructs on display. They strike me as vertical altar pieces, made of different (and differently stained) woods. They are, overall, tall (maybe 3'-5'?) and rectangular, but made of all kinds of shapes. They would make for nice objects for meditation, and bring your own baggage. Is that Jacob's ladder? Or a railroad track? The fact that I think of altars and meditation already says something of the baggage I bring to them. The visible grain of the wood (nothing is painted) gives this art a nice natural feel, while the smooth, stained, and polished surfaces feels highly crafted. Again, no website for the artist that I could find, but I found a photo of his work:
The prints of David Sullivan are nothing if not full of social commentary. In one, a rifle that looks like a cross between a machine gun and a sci-fi ray gun has a barrel that u-turns back toward whoever would pull the trigger. In another, what I can only describe as a pile of intestines with a mouth is being "fed" by a square-mouthed serpent while logos of companies like GM, Hewlett Packard, GE, and Microsoft float in the background. I'm not entirely sure what Sullivan is saying in these pieces, but I'm doubtful that he's looking for corporate sponsorship anytime soon. All of this is done in story-book colors, big bold images, cleanly created with computer design software. It's fun to stand there and study it a bit, all the layers of images and, hence, meaning.
Finally, we have Kamila Szczesna. The work on display is multiple layers of printed glass, backlit to give it a sense of looking at an old X-ray light box. She appropriates images with scientific information---graphs, chemistry visualizations, etc---and draws on them or layers them with other images. The effect is puzzling but engaging. Here's a picture from her website that'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about.
Overall, Resilience is one of the better shows that I've seen at the Williams Tower. If you're in the Galleria, leave your car parked and walk the block or so over and take a look.
