The H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery Presents “Across the Board”
(September 6, 2018) Dallas, TX – The H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery at El Centro College announces “Across the Board,” running now through September 29.
Gallery Reception: Thursday, September 13, from 4 – 6 p.m.
"Across the Board" focuses on a group of artists whose work demonstrates expressive use of line, color, and patterns to distort pop culture icons, create surreal characters, and explore sentimental memories from childhood.
Featured Artists:
Danielle Kent is a resident painter that specializes in watercolor paintings that are whimsical and realistic. Her work examines themes of resilience, sensitivity, a dichotomy of femininity, and power. Ms. Kent shows her work regularly in the DFW area, works as an art educator, and is a visiting artist for Big Thought.
Franco Fazio is a University of North Texas student pursuing his Bachelors in Fine Arts, Franco’s work analyzes his love for pop culture and the grip it has on him as well as society. He makes use of heavy line work and vibrant colors to create these abstract characters that have references to old video games and cartoon characters. Franco believes the reach of pop-culture is powerful and is often discredited. He says “whether viewed as cynical or endearing, It’s my perspective that contemporary artists should be encouraged to borrow and recycle ideas from established work in an effort to shift preconceived perceptions of originality—allowing for alternative methods to describe the work in a new context, this redefines the appropriated imagery and allows for the juxtaposition of elements to suggest new meaning in ideas already established.”
Born in Mexico, Max Quest grew up watching anime and Saturday morning cartoons on Cartoon Network. What stood out the most to him about those shows were the bright vivid colors. He says no matter what the mood being fed by the images portrayed the colors mellowed the story; masking it with fun spectrums of tones and shades, which would sometimes hide violence, tragedy, or sadness in plain sight. These shows, along with his passion for drawing, inspired his interest in color today. Max’s work uses the same techniques to represent metaphors of his own personal experiences. He says it's a way for him to cope with adulthood and make sense of the world around him. The images in his work spawn from graffiti, cartoons and pop culture.
Rapheal Crump is a local painter and graphic designer born and raised in New York City then later relocated to Dallas, TX. His current body of work entitled “Mystery of the Flying Kick’s” is inspired by an old urban neighborhood custom known as “shoe tossing”. “Shoe tossing”, which is neighborhoods have shoes hanging on power lines, could mean a variety of thing. Sometimes it meant someone had passed away, this area was gang territory, it marked a drug area, or someone got bullied and their shoes were stolen. Having grown up in an urban environment himself, this and his love for rare high fashion sneakers impacted him the most as a kid. With these two iconic elements combined, Crump has created a sort of social commentary in his work on how an everyday items meant to protect our feet have become materialistic and overvalued that they often seen out of our economical reach. Kind of like shoes on a power line.
Viktor Ortiz is a local print maker who reconstructs images of ancient Aztec deities to explore spirituality and the roots of Mexican culture. He uses a form of printmaking known as “linoleum block printing” which involves a sheet of linoleum that is carved into to create a relief then used like a stamp to print an image on paper. As a traveling artist, he takes his experiences from these trips and incorporates the values and ideals of the people he encounters and works them into his pieces.
Perla Vargas is currently a University of Texas at Arlington student pursuing her bachelor’s in Fine Art. Her current work consists of unique handmade creatures and miniature environments that give viewers a glimpse of another world. She brings this world to life by seamlessly sewing natural and artificial fibers like wool and acrylic yarn together. Perla continues to push the authenticity of her work by exploring the origins of wool and its complete process, from raising and shearing her own sheep, to cleaning and dying the wool.
Robert S. Garza is a self-taught illustrator, painter and graphic designer born and raised in Dallas. His work combines the use of illustration, color theory and minimalism to create a pop art / graffiti blend that reflects his fascination with the human body and his exploration of the emotional spectrum. Robert uses simple shapes, vibrant colors and silhouetted figures to create paper shadow boxes inside non-traditionally shaped wooden frames. Robert says that this style allows him to invite the viewer to impress his or her own thoughts and feelings into his work while gently guiding them to understand the message he’s communicating. With this, he hopes to create a silent emotional conversation with his viewer that is internally understood.
Steven Hamilton Originally from New Jersey but raised in Dallas, TX, Steven Hamilton is a visual artist working primarily with stencil and spray paint. His work explores the impact of others and similar mindsets, with a graffiti influence thrown in. His stencils are hand cut, commonly between five and ten layers, and taking upwards of 100 hours to complete. His current work “The Mentality Patterns series”, works to change the attitude which certain objects reflect through the use of a simple pattern. These items personify the sloth, criminal, alcoholisim and herd mentalities that are found most present in everyday life. The patterns work in contrast of the objects. In most cases adorning and glamorizing the objects, disrupting the preconception.
Briena Segundo says of her work, “I really like drawing cute stuff, and I’m also into horror and gore. I struggle to want and be both so I decided to splice them together”. Briena is an illustrator and designer from the Dallas Fort Worth area who pulls a lot of her influences from anime and Goth culture. A lot of her works depict strong female characters which Briena states that she’s always been empowered by. Using bold line work and a whimsical color pallet the artist draws characters fighting monsters, using magical powers, or in a powerful stance to really illustrate the strength and power these characters have.
For more information, please contact Raymond Butler at 214-860-2190 or raymond.butler@dcccd.edu or visit www.elcentrocollege.edu.
Gallery hours are Monday through Wednesday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.