Visual art news, views & reviews in Dallas, Texas, USA

A Recent Survey of 
Art in Dallas - Part 2

Story + photos by J R Compton

Continued from Page 1

November 2004

Ross Odom
Cloud and Three Quarters and White House
digital prints from silver emulsion film
both labeled 16 x 20 inches

Before visiting the Swiss Avenue Contemporary, I dropped into the dark interior of the Continental Gin residence foyer gallery. Somehow I didn't even expect this much, although I bumped into Plush owner Randall Garret on his first forray there — it's almost always locked.

Despite their indifferent lighting — leaving every other piece in invisible darkness, I was joyed to find Ross Odum's string of deceptively simple, nearly geometric, film-based digital black and white photographs of architectural elements that I thought worth struggling with my recalcitrant camera for many nearly hopeless minutes to capture.

Frances Bagley - Wrapped, 2000
cast bronze - 78 x 30 x 19 inches

If I haven't seen this exact same Frances Bagley sculpture, I know I've seen one awfully darned similar more than a decade ago — maybe two, and I still like looking at it, as it seems to dance floating across the airy, spacious, brightly sunlit gallery at Pan American.

Slowly circling the green lady to find the best angle, I had to touch it, pat its butt gently, so my fingers knew it wasn't the suspended somehow open-weave fabric it looks but cast bronze, with the rough sheen of rusted copper — almost like dancing with an old friend.

Mark Monroe - 1216 Grand, 2004 (detail)
paint, wood, rope and lead balance weights

My camera seriously malfunctioned (after being zapped by a fuse-popping shock last night, I guessed) or I would have more photographs of the intriguing shelter objects at Dallas Center for Contemporary Art (D-Art)'s architecture show.

I'm bored silly by the intricate balsa models of buildings scattered about the galleries — The MAC had a show of them couple years ago, and yeah, they're detailed and scale, but so what. However, the actual enter-into spaces are inviting and visually — if not all altogether olfactory — rewarding, although one looked like an up-scaled Linnea Glatt rip, with not much else socially or aesthetically rewarding.

I did like trailing down a long, narrow hallway and into a closed-in tomb-like (what I'm calling a) eclipse house with its subtle, arced light show in the ceiling, but its fresh paint odor in such a tight space made me want to run for fresh air before my head exploded.

I especially liked the hulking squat house structures (two comprising one piece) dotting the interior landscape, and it's yet another place I have to go back to, now that my camera has calmed and quit spitting indecipherable error messages while forgetting my images.

The next night I searched the Calendar for "November 6," copied down the place names and headed out, realizing driving past the cemetery that I had no idea what the show was or whether I'd ever find a parking place.

I decided if I didn't, I'd just drive on to 500X — skipping SMU's Pollock opening for not wishing to hassle with on-campus parking in the dark — but I did find a wide slot right up front at The MAC.

Oh, Otis Dozier, I realized as I stepped into the lobby. Glad I'd found a spot.

Inside it looked like I'd just missed a panel discussion. A friend said it was long and slow and not the emcee's forte. Fancy dressed ladies and snappy codgers in cowboy hats lingered around and in folding metal chairs and especially in front of the art, a lot of which I'd seen before — in books, catalogs, etc.

So I concentrated on the works that didn't look so much like somebody early in the last century did them — My Doziers, not everybody else's. A different take, I hoped — skipping a little dose of history.

The picturesque Ghost Town Colorado mining leftovers were nice in a now hackneyed and clichéd way; and the ethnic watermelon paintings had their charms, of course. Lots of cowboys; even his oil of Hopi Snake Dancers from 1955 bending surreally, blending into the wind, which I almost put here.

Otis Dozier - Elephant of Mysore, India, 1959 - oil on canvas

His big vivid, clean, red other kind of Indian with a large elephant, oil on canvas stands out, though I still cannot say exactly why. Something unexpected, illustrator like, almost polished.

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Otis Dozier - Waterlilies, 1929 - oil on canvas board

I shouldn't be all that surprised that someone might paint Impressionism in 1929, but I hadn't seen this before, or surely I would have remembered. Startling colors, thick, loose brushtrokes in a joyous melee of paint. Yum. Another something I could dance to.

Otis Dozier - On the Lot, 1931 - oil on canvas

But it's this beauty that won me over. Maybe it's something vaguely photographic in its massive yet delicate, realist portrayal of forms of pure white steed framed in an abstraction of tents, stakes, dirt, grass and sky.

Not sure why but it reminds me of Orozco, only without the socialist stridency or wash of colors. Similar hues maybe. Hard to imagine horses' butts could be so beautiful.

And I didn't notice till now that, its i.d it notes "purchase prize, Fifth Annual Allied Arts Exhibition of Dallas County, 1933," from back when the Dallas Museum of Art still held shows of Dallas artists, lo those many eons ago, even though its own PR claimed that as a founding principle.

Tina Medina - Genuine Authentic Ethnic Art, 2004
mixed media, $100 each

Was that me asking for more protest art? The night after I wrote that, I found some at 500X. Meet Tina Medina's prepackaged "Genuine Authentic Ethnic Art. "Enjoy the art / avoid the people who make it," what looks like a hand painted handkerchief says. Wry ethnic commentary from the little, member's gallery downstairs.

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Anila Quayyum Agha - Untitled 27, 2004
full view and detail
mixed media on paper - 58 x 20.5 inches

Just up the stairs, part of the 5 x 5 show upstairs at 500X is Anila Agha's stitched and textured what appears to be a facing pages of a journal or sketchbook, marked and colored with thread and stains. Strong, luscious "drawings" marking another potential Artist Worth Watching — her work in Sphere during this year's Outside The Lines show were likewise amazing, subtle and rich.

Anila used to be a DARts Supporting Member, and her progress since has been remarkable. It's a privilege to get to watch such growth.

 

Then there's Steve Cruz's decorated truck from last month's State Fair...

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