Construct

featuring Nathan Green, Jeff Mueller, Thor Johnson, Monica Vidal
Brazos Gallery, Richland College, Dallas
March 10-27, 2011

and

Art Depot Gallery, Lubbock, TX
Aug – Nov, 2010

Richland College’s Brazos Gallery hosts “Construct,” featuring Nathan Green, Thor Johnson, Jeff Mueller and Monica Vidal. The exhibition contains undulating video patterning, meticulously crafted narratives, and spatial/perceptual inquiries. The vibrant and multi-faceted art works challenge and captivate viewers while avoiding prescribed methodologies. The exhibition will take place from March 10 through 27, 2011 with an opening reception on Thursday, March 10 from 4-7 PM.

The works in the exhibition offer a complex assortment of experiences united by a perceptual bombast. Each artist creates from individualized methodologies –appropriated graffiti, digital mandalas, personal mythology, and spatial inquiry— offering contemporary diversity charged with visual dynamism.

About his choices for the exhibition, curator Ryder Richards says, “The ability to attribute rational constructs upon art simultaneously sabotages and enlightens the viewing experience. It seems to be what we do: ask questions of the work we find compelling. For this exhibit the artist’s pieces offer stories of individual construction and process, but in the end can no longer be contained by rational answers as the works form an individual experience.”

~Ryder Richards, 2010

Nathan Green, Install from Construct, Lubbock, TX 2010

+ Reviews for Construct:
Arts and Culture Magazine, DFW_ Review by Charissa Terranova

Front Row, D Magazine, “Modernism at Play” by Lucia Simek
PDF of Article

+ About the Artists:
Nathan Green, an Austin resident, creates personal work while also playing a vital role in the Okay Mountain collective. Okay Mountain has received both the PULSE Prize and the Viewer’s Choice award at PULSE Miami in 2009 for their “Corner Store” installation. Recently OK Mountain exhibited at Freight and Volume, New York, NY with a current exhibit at the Blaffer Museum. (NY Times review.) Green has traveled and exhibited extensively in the US and participated in several artist-in-residence programs. Nathan’s “painting conglomerates” both skew and subvert traditional exhibition techniques while addressing the specificities of the individual works and the gallery itself.

Thor Johnson, video still. “Summer Flower Mandalas 4”

Thor Johnson, a Dallas based artist, has been exhibiting throughout Dallas this Fall. Johnson works in several styles from collage and drawing to complex video arrangements allowing viewer interaction to alter the video output. His complex patterning and Mandala based videos form mesmerizing systems of chance aesthetic fluidity.

Jeff Mueller “Eat the Vegan” cut aluminum, automotive finish, 30×36

Jeff Mueller, a Chicago, IL resident, has exhibited extensively in the US, most recently at Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago, IL. Mueller utilizes appropriated text intermingled with visual images producing a visual conversation. The works are created from a variety of media such as powder-coated copper, adhesive vinyl, resin and paint.

Monica Vidal’s “Tumor Hive” 2008, 11’x22’x12’, fabric, mixed media

Monica Vidal, a Houston resident, recently participated in the Art 342 residency in Colorado. She has recently exhibited at the Lawndale Art Center in Houston and is preparing for an upcoming exhibition at the University of Kansas. The work in “Construct” is based on a tumor removal Vidal experienced in 2007, which led to a large scale ‘hive,’ or portable dwelling made of fabric, while also channeling an ancient Aztec deity.

+ IMAGES::