The Greatest Companions

Opening Saturday, September 27th, from 7:00 to 10:00 pm

Edra Soto

In, The Greatest Companions, artist Edra Soto explores sociological aspects of Latino culture and how it is perceived through the media. As the exploratory research subject of this painting and installation show, Soto chooses the Puerto Rican icon Iris Chacon. Ms. Chacon was a pioneer of the ‘vedette’ movement in Puerto Rico in the 1970’s. Her eponymous variety show ‘El Show de Iris Chacon’ was very popular, no doubt due in part to her alluring looks and provocative costumes. This didn’t prevent her from becoming a favorite family entertainer while simultaneously becoming a legendary diva that few other performers in Latin America have been able to emulate.


‘The Greatest Companions’ series of gouaches, reenactments, and self-embellished verbatim paintings from photos, are reflections of Soto’s memories of watching ‘El Show de Iris Chacon’. As a child, she was drawn to her raw, incomparable demeanor, her perceptibly untrained dance style, and her charismatic and charming persona. Channeling Ms. Chacon as her alter ego and setting the paintings in vintage scenarios inspired by her show, the series questions the fascination of Latino women with self-exposure and, how Latino culture is portrayed in the popular media: woman as protector and protected.

The show will also feature works of artists Maria Gaspar, Harold Mendez, Albert Stabler and, one of Soto’s high school senior art students, Ramiro Trejo.

It's Lonely on Top

Stina Kaczmaryn

Sat. August 30, 2008

It's Lonely on Top includes new ink drawings, watercolors, and collages on wood and paper by Stina Kaczmaryn. The imagery for this collection of pieces features whimsical dream-like spaces or figures contrasted with symbols of violence, wealth and power. Inspirations have been animals,defunct technologies,increasing polarization of our society, and a 1960's text about art int he Middle Ages.

Sneak Peview Dinner

Artist talk by Chef Efrain.

Two of a Kind

A Two Person Show
Sean Flournoy and Carole Smith
Saturday July 26th 2008

Carole F Smith’s new work consists of a series of hand cast mugs and bowls. Pop art nods to our parent’s tableware, applying a modern touch to familiar forms.
Cast and decorated editions by Smith each with an individual look. Beautiful and charming pieces of ceramics, that embrace and disturb.
This Scottish born artist lives and works in Houston, Texas.

Sean Flournoy’s new group of screen print editions include rock stars, sex vixens, imaginary bands and various icons. They are an homage to the classic 20th Century Playbill.
Flournoy’s graphic compositions are parodies and critiques of both capitalism and idealism. Vibrant and hard- edged photographic images characterize the work by this Texas born artist.

Vacation Memories

A two person show, huband and wife,
Tricia Moreau Sweeney
Kilian Sweeney

Friday July 4, 2008
7pm

When we travel for travel’s sake, we are usually headed for something we can call an unknown known. We are headed to something we know to have value but we do not know it in the personal sense. What are best to encounter are unknown unknowns. Things we aren’t expecting.

Here is our contribution to the collective album of vacation memories; a video and sound installation using digital imagery and audio gathered on a seven thousand mile journey from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.

( there will be BBQ!)

The Good Vibrations Tour 2008

Teresa O'Connor ( Houston TX)

Sat. Oct. 25, 2008
7pm

Best Companions

Edra Soto

Sat. Sept. 27, 2008

Soft High Way

Polly Perez

Polly will reperesent Mutherland at this years Version Fest's NFO EXPO
Sat.& Sun.
April 19 & 20,2008
1pm-3am
http://www.versionfest.org/

Viaduct Theatre
311 N Western



Hybrid creatures are reincarnated from discarded print media,clothing, and fabric reconfiguredand sewning to their next existance. Humans participate in consumerism we create another cycle of life parallel to what remains....inanimate objects. We consumed and become animated by our own hand.

C'mon Lil Sister

Vicki Fowler

Mon. April 21, 2008
7pm @ Mutherland

take it out
taking it all out
fist to fist
fist full of it all
To the Moon!
to create what has been a hole.

From the darkest part of a little girl's closet to the dream of the warmest lady's coat ever comes Fowler's performance and Installation.

Local Cartography

A project to map the neighborhood.

Winter 2008

Preseason

The Amazing Hancock Brothers ( Austin Tx.):

September 1 (Labor Day Opening)-30th, 2007
6-10pm
Possible print wk shop to be announced.

amazing hancock bros.
are where east meets south
texanese by birth
twins separated by 18 months
not quite irish
but half japanese and texan
they are the new breed of ink slingers,
printmakers,
poets,
performers.

images and texts are hardboiled, leaning toward the the neo-expressionist catalogue but they are not above doing a nice landscape from time to time for a finicky uncle at christmas.

http://www.hancockbrothers.com/

Randall Garrett (Dallas TX.): Bloom (in the Getto)

Aug. 11( opening reception)-26, 2007
6-10 pm

As a child growing up in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas I was interested in exploring nature through bluff climbing, artifacts of amateur archeaology and the mythology of Indaian lore. These early fascinations continue to be the foundation for my art making today.

The symbolic exploration of the basic cycles of birth, life, and death, and how they are expressed through various cultural signifiers constitute the subject of my work. Through various means, including perfromance, installation, video and digital photography, I explore these themes, focusing on the human body as expressive vehicle.

Making use of reconstituting iconographies from a variety of historical cultures, including Native American, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Paleolithic and Neolithic, I examine these archetypal thematic elements through the filter of my own subjective experience.

Through the inhabitation of various personas, including RXS ( a disco-era Dioysian character), the Prisoner ( a primal earth based character), and the Worker ( a simple laborer who sets in motion the deepley significant processes of creation/destruction), I perfrom, create two- and three - dimensional installations and perfromance artifacts, and extend them into digitally- enhanced photographic works.

Lauren Kelley (Houston Tx.):" Big Gurl"

July 28 (Opening night only) 2007
6pm-10pm

This short, stop animation video project represents an ongoing investigation that ultimately aims to expand the space allotted for critically exploring ideas about black girlhood/womanhood/being misunderstood and relationships created in/beyond " the hood."

Dane Johnson ( Seattle, WA):

June 30 ( opening)-July 21, 2007
6pm-10pm ( Artist talk 7pm)


Organizing
Story telling
Personal History
Political pop culture
Terrain…Urban/Natural
Language
Disconnected limbs/buildings
Bart Simpson
War
Organizing violence
Structures
Walls and barriers
Surrendering/Claiming (white flags)
Piles
Compiling
Passing comments/samples of language
Recognizing signage as my own.
Sharing

Christian Mc Clain ( Houston Tx.) :"Life recycled: The World of Tilsammen"

May 26 (opening)-June 23, 2007
6pm-10pm



Studies of black ink on wood & recycled paper.
This series focuses solely on the ideal of using only
recycled or discarded material, with no leftover waste.
The World of Tilsammen is a product of the unconscious
mind where a race of non gendered, nearly featureless
human like creatures exist in complete oneness with
their environment.

newpiece.mp3