Creature Comforts
Curated by Jennifer Nuttall
Reception for the Artists Friday, July 9, 6 to 9 pm 2010.
Reception for ArtsHouston Saturday, July 10, 11 to 5pm.
Exhibition on view July 9 – August 6, 2010
Anya Tish Gallery is proud to present Creature Comforts, a group exhibit of regional and international artists whose works in sculpture, collage, ceramics, and on paper challenge the uncomfortable yet engaging archetypal characteristics buried within the rich history of storytelling. Embedded within a mythological vein, the works embody anthropomorphic and beastlike creatures that represent well known characters such as the trickster, the mentor, the villain or the hero and the gallery transforms to become a fantastical landscape in which the viewer can travel from one threshold to another. The works, both tactile and sleek, function through a paradoxical aesthetic that appears in one light appealing but in another frightening, essentially exploring the relationship between contrasting themes such as irony and truth, innocence and violence.
Featured artists in Creature Comforts include Louisianan artist Dawn Black, a recent Lawndale studio resident whose rich and captivating gouache paintings reassemble cultural figures from the past and present, and Galveston artist and Lawndale feature Anne Wood, whose kitsch sculptures intertwine taxidermy animals with oozing, edible-looking liquids that provoke dialogues between themes of decay and embellishment. Mindy Kober is a Houston based artist whose gouache paintings interpret fantastical and childlike environments that depict battles between Civil War soldiers with oversized domestic animals while British born and Houston based artist Jennifer Nuttall’s innovative collages explore the unsavory nature of personal and national identity through a host of childlike/animal hybrids. Wesley Harvey is an San Antonio based ceramic artist whose beautiful and delicate figurines are cast from thrown away objects found in old junk and thrift stores. The objects are brought back to life and embody a sense of enlightenment while questioning the boundaries between abandonment and treasury.
