THE ARTS
Two Southern Artists with Colorful Histories Exhibit Mixed Media Art at LMFA On display at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts January 7 through February 18, an exhibit called “It’s Not About Me” frames a loose narrative, unique to the northeast Texas region around a mixed media and photographic art display by two local artists– Daniel Hays and Terrenceo Hammond. LMFA’s interim director Tiffany Jehorek says the exhibit investigates historical and artistic notions of identity, context, and subjectivity with new media blending with traditional art forms like paintings and sculptures. Some works, she notes, are more concerned with art and its context, while others reference historical events of East Texas.
Daphne Prairie – The Nature of Things, on display at The Fire Station Museum in Mount Vernon, includes Summer Sky (above) and May Morning (below). Photos by Steve Beasley.
Preserving the Delicate Scenery of Texas Tallgrass By Elaine Rogers Landscape painter Deborah Paris of Franklin County spent close to two years observing and painting intricate views of Daphne Prairie in the Mount Vernon area, a project that resulted in a fall exhibit of her work at Fort Worth’s Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT). In February, “Daphne Prairie – The Nature of Things” goes on display once again, this time taking up residence closer to home with an extended showing at The Fire Station Museum in Mount Vernon. A remnant of the once-abundant tallgrass meadows of Texas’ diminished Blackland Prairie, Daphne Prairie hides in plain sight amid the rural area’s pastures, roads, and small towns — preserved by owner B.F. Hicks, whose family has cared for the land since the early 19th century. Estimates are that such tallgrass prairies once occupied 12 million acres but have dwindled to less than a tenth of that due to plowing, over-grazing and development. As a conservation advocate, Paris says she
was drawn to Daphne Prairie’s “tranquil splendor” when Hicks invited her to explore the natural setting. The result was a body of work that spans 20-plus paintings, with canvases that reveal — and revel in — cloudy, wintry days, swaths of native tallgrass and sunny views of the hidden gem’s colorful wildflowers. “I loved that the prairie was encircled by woods and that there were creeks and ponds around — things I always like to paint,” the artist explains. “I worked really hard to design these paintings to reflect my interest in the intimate corners of the prairie.” Earlier works by Paris are featured in three books, among them, Landscapes of New Mexico and Texas Traditions (Fresco Fine Art Publications) and Plein Air New Mexico (Jack Richeson Art Publications). In pursuit of her artistic endeavors, Paris keeps a gallery space on the square in Clarksville at 120 W. Main St. An opening reception for her exhibit at The Fire Station Museum is scheduled the evening of February 3. Regular hours at the muse-
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um, located at 201 S. Kaufman Street, are 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. Permanent displays include a Don Meredith exhibit and a Nation’s Bird Egg Exhibit. For more information, call 903-537-7012.
Daniel Hays works in various mediums but focuses on painting. Raised in Chandler after his family moved from Germany in 1991, the artist received an associate’s degree in art from Tyler Junior College and a bachelor’s of fine art degree from the Rhode Island School of Design. As a dual citizen of Germany and the U.S., he says he believes the juxtaposition of the two cultures throughout his childhood led to deep interest in notions of context and time.
Hammond, another southerner, describes himself as “a painter, first and foremost,” and employs a technique he terms “contemporary new realism” with a goal of finding “common ground between the historical form of painting and the indexed stacking of images created by digital media.” Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, he studied art and Asian theater briefly at California State University and elsewhere, but attributes much of his artistic development to an explosive period of creativity stemming from time spent on the streets of Hollywood selling art and working in the film industry, both in front of and behind the camera. “From the Techno — urban visual place in which we all live, I try to reflect the beauty and the beast of our society,“ he says, adding, “hopefully with more beauty than beast.” The “It’s Not About Me” exhibit complements the museum’s Aboriginal Permanent Collection. For more information, call the Longview Museum of Fine Arts at 903.753.8103 or visit lmfa.org.
The LMFA exhibit features recent works inspired by themes of sustainability and history that the artist says “engage the language of painting through a local lens.” Hays says his body of work mirrors his personal history and aesthetic influences as well as an “uncomfortable” intertwining of art production and consumer culture. “I think my painting process is an earnest — albeit possibly impotent and at times cynical — protest against the imperative of automatic productive labor and the exploitation of natural resources, “ the artist explains. He adds that it is also “an attempt to constantly question my position in the systems of which I am a part.” Hays met co-exhibitor Hammond during a residency exchange program between Berlin and Prague, Czech Republic, where the two painters found a mutual interest in “the poetics of surface and materials.”
IT’S NOT AB OUT ME... D ANIEL HAYS & TERRENCEO HAMMOND
OPENING SATURDAY JANUARY 7 • 6-8PM
JANUARY 10 – FEBRUARY 1, 2017
903.753.8103 • LMFA.org 215 E. Tyler St. • Longview, TX 75601
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