Calendar of Events

July 6 - August 1, 2009 - Dick Wray's Art Houston reception will be July 11 with the open house from 11-6 and reception for the artist 6-9 pm. This is Dick’s 75th year and he has had a one-artist exhibit every year since 1959. When art historian Jim Edwards was first introduced to Wray’s paintings, he wrote that he “was immediately swept up in the dizzying lushness of jostling colors and shapes.” He writes, “Dick Wray’s paintings are much more complex. Big, boisterous and intoxicating. Multi-flavored. Like a bag of jelly beans tossed into a hot bowl of minestrone.”

Edwards felt of his first meeting with Wray’s paintings that “they were tough, aggressive and unapologetic.” In helping to define for himself an emotional equivalent for Dick Wray’s work, Edwards wrote in fall 1985, “for me, these are extremely confrontational works; loud, big-city painting, if you will, a kind of ketchup spill/head turn/door slam/fender bender/dog kick realism.”

Dick Wray’s work hangs in museums across the United States including the Museum of Fine Art, Houston; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Albright-Knox, Buffalo; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Antonio Museum of Art; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, among others.

June 3 - July 2, 2009 - San Antonio: Dr. Scott Sherer, director of the University of Texas at San Antonio Art Gallery (Main Campus) is pleased to announce a special exhibition, Transparent/Translucent, curated by Houston-based, art historian and critic, Wade Wilson. The exhibit opens with a reception for the artists from 6-8 pm, Wednesday, June 3, 2009 and will remain on view through July 2, 2009. Transparent/Translucent includes works by artists Anila Quayyum Agha,  Lucinda Cobley,  Michael Crowder,  Danielle Frankenthal, Meredith” Butch” Jack,  Yoko Motomiya,  McKay Otto,  Nicola Parente,  Gordon Terry and  Joan Winter.

Working from places which reflect both literal and philosophical elements of the transparent and/or translucent, the artists in the exhibit, Transparent/Translucent remind us that things are not always as they appear and we cannot always see through them.”

American playwright Lillian Hellman wrote in the Prologue to her memoirs, Pentimento, “Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens, it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman’s dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter “repented,” changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.” (Pentimento 3)
The exhibit incites us to look carefully at what it is we are seeing and what we “think” we are seeing. So much of our vision falls between the two. Things which we deem transparent may in fact become more illusory or translucent.
The exhibit focuses on the myriad interpretations of exactly what it means to express a vision which engages either the physical  and/or metaphoric aspects of that which is transparent and/or translucent. Some of the artists such as Danielle Frankenthal, McKay Otto, and Lucinda Cobley, for example, capture a more literal meaning in their works using materials such as glass, resin panel or specialized stretched materials through which light travels. Other artists such as Meredith “Butch” Jack, in contrast, create works out of materials which are, in fact, quite the opposite of what they appear to be.   

Curator Wade Wilson has curated and co-curated more than 200 exhibitions over the past 25 years and has published more than 300 essay s and reviews since 1983. Wilson is president and owner of Wade Wilson Art, a contemporary art gallery in Houston. 

May 29 - July 3, 2009 - Danielle Frankenthal's exhibit of new paintings opens on Friday May, 29th, 2009 with a reception for the artist from 6-9 pm and will remain on view through Saturday, July 3, 2009. Danielle Frankenthal makes marks and strokes live on a a transparent surface of acrylic resin panel. She often paints on one or both sides of the panel and then layers two panels with a space between to create the "painting." An underlying tension often exists between the use of line and color. Philosophically, mark-making in Frankenthal's works embraces tenets of the Concrete Painting movement, yet she carefully articulates those tenets in her own particular vocabulary. The artist challenges assertions made by Yves Klein in his essay titled "The War: A Little Personal Mythology of the Monochrome," in which he said, Line and color are at war." Frankenthal makes of line and color one thing.

Now Available

The following pieces are now available for viewing at Wade Wilson Art.  To make an appointment to see any of these or other works, please contact Wade Wilson at wade@wadewilsonart.com or 713.521.2977.

Lucinda Cobley, (In)between Space (iii), 2008, oil and pigments on etched glass, 12 x 28 inches

Jill Moser, Red Stills 3, 2006, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches

Dick Wray,Untitled, 2007, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 18 inches