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

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SEE ALSO Short Show Reviews from 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and All Our Long Reviews

Recent Dallas Art History
2008 Short Reviews

Stories + Photographs by J R Compton
unless otherwise noted

The most recent stories are at the top below. Each is introduced by its listing from the DallasArtsRevue calendar including, when the institution has bothered to send us one, the full list of participating artists. I repeatedly request those lists, but some institutions just don't care about artists. Most of these short reviews originated on The Calendar Page though they originate from anywhere on the site.

Billy Hassell - Hedge, 2008 - oil on canvas - 36 x 96 inches - photo by J R Compton
more Billy Hassell images on his updated site

Tracy Hicks - Global Warning" still/Life and Billy Hassel - Field Notes at The Mac through June 21

Tracy's mini bio in the publicity for this exhibition does not state that he is one of two founders of Dallas Artists Research & Exhibition (DARE), whose nonprofit status 'made' The Mac what it is today, especially when they show area artists' work, like this show, in fact, like this year's whole exhibition schedule so far. Hooray for The MAC, for finally living up to its founding purposes, except of course, these are hardly struggling artists (except in the way we all are constantly).

Hassell's wonderfully detailed and patterned bird pictures and Hicks' intriguing translucent frog jars are a natural. Pun intended. Fascinating details in both Hassell's paintings and Hicks' translucent installation. Nice to have Hassel's sketchbooks in the show. I remember some of those paintings at Conduit, saw one here and look forward to others.

Hicks shows lines and colors and patterns, also. Shadows, too. In very different directions. Glow in the dark and beautiful.

 

Oak Cliff Visual Speed Bump Art Tour 2008 http://www.dallasartcast.net noon-5 Saturday May 17 with Tim Best, Jim Burton, Sarah Maxwell English, Diane and Stuart Sikes, Tina Medina, John Campbell, Paul Greco, Amy Halko, Harmony Padgett, Jen Rose, Erik and Vernonica De Anda Tosten (organizers), Brennen Bechtol with Arttruck, Iris Bustillos Bechtol, David Willburn, Kim Cadmus Owens, Gillian Bradshaw-Smith, Ken Craft, Brian K Jones and Brian K Scott (aka Chuck and George), Christina Nicole Scott, Susan Whitmer, Scott Winterrowd, Steve Cruz at MFA Gallery, Simeen Ishaque, Eddy Rawlinson, Deborah Roberts, Polly Perez and Zonarosa Studio

So many great names of Oak Cliff, 500X' great recent past, Drive By tour and Big As Night artists, this has got be an amazing, mostly compact, art tour. Click those links to visit other pages involving these same artists. Or google this site search (very fast, unlike the previous site search that still peppers many of these pages) for any of the other names, we've previously published stories about. This looks to be an aces high tour.

 

member Where Art Lives - The 5th Annual North Dallas Artists Studio Tour with Ann S. Adams, Jane Bayne, Martha Box, Jack Brockette, Naomi Brotherton, Adriana Cobo-Frenkel, Sheila Cunningham, Annie Davis, Lisa Ehrich, Brad Ellis, Anne Fairchild, Ann Cushing Gantz, Ann Gavin, Karen Gilboux, Sue Gordon, Reed Hoover, Pat Kochan, Bill Kysor, Ellen Niewyk, Anne Norvell, Betty Robbins, Peg Rosenlund, Linda Rowe, Jeanne Sanders, David Schulze, Deborah Shannon, Jayne Sparrer and Jane Stephenson is 10-5 Saturday April 26 and 1-5 Sunday April 27

Wow! A great leap forward in an art tour website. Click "artists" and immediately see work by all the artists on the tour on one page, so we can pick and choose. Nice. Pix there are clickable for more details, images, emails and personal websites on specific artist pages. Great way to promote the artists, not just the tour. The map is smallish print, but there's a downloadable printable PDF version, too. I'd complained about their organizational skills before, but I'm impressed enough we might revisit this one. Hope other tours see this site for ideas. They could learn something.

See our story about the first North Dallas Tour. The one tour members told me I should have sent somebody else to review.
 

The Storm - David Bates at Dunn and Brown Contemporary through April 12

David Bates - The Flood, 2006-2007
ooil on canvas - 84 x 64 inches

Very large, graphic images of the sort David Bates does best — the people, land and waterscapes of The Flood. Unfortunately, if you enter through the Project Room door (per signs on the front gate), you have to sort through lots of older Bates work (nice, of course, even gorgeous and distinctive, but Off Topic and confusing. The Storm show itself is like a museum show, elegant and contemplative. Not maudlin at all, although many of the people shown have red eyes as if they'd been crying.

Juan J. Hernandez - Within & Without: Frog Heart -
oil on canvas at the Bath House's Corazon show [info below]

This piece by this artist is why I went to this show — and in fact came back a few days later to see it again. It's not as high-contrast as it appears (happens when giant images are compressed). Juan J. Hernandez is an amazing painter, and not understanding exactly what he's getting at does not diminish his talent. It's in there, I'll dig it out, watching more. For more Juan J. Hernandez images, check out The Virgin Page and about four clicks down my first ThEdblog. If I were still doing an Artists Worth Watching, Juan would already be in it. I watch his work often as I can. But I'm struglling the concept here. Heart at its core, it is the annual Valentine show. Hearts too easy a target usually. This small, can't-miss-it despite tiny size, vivid heart red, the center of radiating energy — wires, tools — Compasses? Obvious symbol I've never before seen. The frog's ripped open metalic innards and radiating rods surrounding reminds of 70s comix genius Rick Griffin updated 40 years and gone biological. -JRC

members The 14th Annual El Corazon Art Exhibition with work by Mirtha Aertker, Rita Barnard, Nancy Bass, Kimberly Renelle Bradshaw, Betty Bucher, Kristine Byars, Tony de Carlo, Jose Chabolla, III, Roy Cirigliana, Christen Dare, Nelson Diaz, Dan Dudley, Brad Foster, Merry Fuhrer, Angela Gallia, Genaro Hernandez, Juan J. Hernandez [See top of this page.], Stefani Hernandez, Johanna Hulsey, J. Lynn Kelly, Kathy Kromer, Lisa Lindholm, Santiago Lopez, III, Tim McMeans, Sandra A. Moreno, Barbara Mulley, Larry Pile, Kelly Rathbone, Shayne W. Ridenour, Kate Schatz, Raul Servin, Terry K. Smith, T. Stone, Diane Torres , Utopia and Julie Zarate and Of The Heart with by Loli Kantor, Gabriela Kolcavová, Elizabeth Mellot-Carreón and Angilee Dawn Wilkerson opens at the Bath House Cultural Center through March 1, 2008