A catalog of works displayed at The Austonian is available for viewing here.
Claudia Reese
Texas Wildflowers, 2010. Ceramic. 20” diameter.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Highlights include the American Craft Museum, New York; Art Expo, Chicago; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; The Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C.; and Takashimaya, Tokyo.an Craft Museum, New York; Art Expo, Chicago; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; The Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian), Washington, D.C.; and Takashimaya, Tokyo.
Reese has also taught in universities and conducted numerous artist workshops and lectures. Her work is included in many private and museum collections. She has created a significant number of private and public commissions, including work for the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the City of Austin and The University of Texas at Austin.
Faith Gay
Black Moon Cache, 2007. Acrylic on paper and board. 33” x 72.”
Austin artist Faith Gay explores our culture’s excess by working with materials – discarded paint swatches, packing supplies, plastic beads and everyday household refuse – that have been left behind. For Gay, the process is largely about realizing the potential in these objects. Although she employs various media, Gay’s work is linked by the artist’s use of repetition, pattern and extravagant colors.
Inspired by arrowheads found in the soil of her Austin home during its construction, Gay created a series of painted and collaged panels, featuring radiating arrowhead forms. “Black Moon Cache,” which is included in The Austonian collection, is part of this series.
A Port Arthur, Texas, native, Gay received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture at The University of Texas at Austin. She has exhibited widely throughout the state. In Austin, Texas, her work has been shown at the Austin Museum of Art, Arthouse, d berman gallery (which represents Gay) and Women and Their Work. Another piece from Gay’s arrowhead series is in the permanent collection of the Austin Museum of Art.
Roi James
Dialogue - Meditation on Form, 2008. Oil on Canvas. 6’ x 11.’
In Roi James’ paintings the artist explores how uncertainty can lead to meaning and understanding, how harmony can be experienced even within tension and chaos, and how the recognizable can rise out of purely abstract form. In his new works he responds to these phenomena by creating contemporary icons – works meant to encourage contemplation and meditation.
James’ recent works, including the two featured in The Austonian collection, have evolved from the romantic representational ideal into the symbolic, abstract archetype. James comes from a classical background inspired by the great romantic landscape painters such as Turner, Lorrain, Friedrich, and Moran, but his recent work is more influenced by the work of artists like Klee, Miro, Rothko, Pollack, Riley and Richter.
James creates complex abstractions: layered in familiarity and veiled in mysteriousness. The unorthodox methods he uses to apply and move oil paint allow him to create compositions that are formally beautiful – infused with tension and drama, but also expressive of the spiritual, symbolic, mysterious and eternal. His work counters traditions of rigid certainty, recognizing the deeply complex systems and interrelationships surrounding us. These paintings strike a delicate balance between control and freedom, reality and possibility – they are icons of this sacred space.
Lance Letscher
Showboat, 2008. Collage on board. 74” x 50.”
Using discarded vintage ephemera such as found paper, book covers, old magazines and record covers, Lance Letscher creates collaged compositions of astounding intricacy and craftsmanship. His current work explores formal concerns through the interaction of bold color, spatial shifts and compositional dynamics.
Letscher’s work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally, with recent solo shows in Barcelona, Munich and Paris. His work is also included in many prestigious collections worldwide, including those at the Austin Museum of Art and Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas; The California State University Print Collection, Long Beach, California; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, Texas; Texas State University Permanent Collection, San Marcos, Texas; and Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas.