Unhinging the Distant / CSAW

Write up by Kathryn Kelley (Dec. 2006):

The show, Unhinging the Distant, includes recent MFA graduates and soon to graduate emerging artists, Doug Cason, Woody Golden, Leslie Magdaleno and Emily Sloan. Curated by Kathryn Kelley.

Dredged archives of near history become the source material for these artists. We are drawn close by strangely intimate narratives that emerge from the altered objects as they are unhinged from the past. Your inclination will be to touch and know. Ponder as you will, but no touching please.

Emily Sloan, recognized in PaperCity this month, works sculpturally back and forth between the representational and the abstract. In both cases, the narrative does not stand still. Emily’s work either is affixed to or references the antiquated and is highly tactile in nature.

One Screw, Nine Ways / Deborah Colton Gallery

Pictured: In and Out Arrangements by Emily Sloan.

Press Release:

ONE SCREW, NINE WAYS—ART EXHIBIT
AT DEBORAH COLTON GALLERY



Nine artists, Joel A. Bender Jr., Trentyn Fator, Loli Fernandez, Lloyd Woody Golden, Dennis Harper, Jan Arthur Harrell, Iskra Ivanova, Samantha Medellin, and Emily Sloan, graduate students from the University of Houston working with The Art Guys, will exhibit artwork inspired by the screw from November 17 to December 1, 2006. The exhibition will be held at Deborah Colton Gallery, 2500 Summer Street, Houston 77007, 713/864-2364. An opening reception honoring the artists will be November 17, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm and will be free and open to the public.
The basic hardware screw, the biggest little invention, acts as an impetus for the artworks that will be exhibited. It provides the starting point and theme for the show.
The artists work in an array of media including paper, metal, mixed media and ceramics. They utilize a variety of approaches to the shared inspiration of the screw, whether conceptual, symbolic, abstract, obvious or obscure.

A House Divided / The Dallas Contemporary

Burning House / Texas Hwy. 59N @ Seven Oaks

Burning House Installation, located on Hwy, 59 in Polk County, between Seven Oaks and Leggett, Texas.

Wild Ride / Wings

Specific Arrangements

These specifically arranged artworks use pattern, arrangement, and sequence to uncover and at times cover the possibilities and options that we strive to keep at our disposal and life. Is choice presented or fear of a final decision avoided?

The artworks are moveable and can be repositioned. This flexible quality permits the works to be arranged in a particular and unique way every time they are presented. The potential for reinvention and discovery by both others and myself is inherent in the artwork, thus provoking creative thought and granting a participatory quality that otherwise would not be possible. People are encouraged to engage the works as they are displayed; as well as to immerse themselves mentally in the richly variable possibilities of the artworks’ contained potential. This gives the pieces the characteristic of being collectively created and recreated. Democratically, other people are given an opportunity similar to my own of considering the arrangement of the work, thus establishing a direct line of communication between myself, others and object.

Incidental Arrangement

The Incidental Arrangement is a system of acrylic panels which are subordinate to light. Reflection and diffraction reveal and conceal the surrounding environment and whatever enters into this environment becomes a participant in this system.