ACCG History:

The Art Chatter Critique Group was founded in 2004 by Tami Merrick and Lynne Rutzky. Most members of the group have studied at The Glassell School of Art, MFAH. Membership is by invitation and limited in size to maintain the individual critique format. In addition to the ongoing self-examination, the group also invites outside critique from outstanding members of the Greater Houston art scene. Guest critics have included Terri Sultan, Director of the Blaffer Gallery, University of Houston, Clint Willour, Curator and Interim Executive Director, Galveston Arts Center, and artist Christian Eckert.

The Jung Center, "Intersections" Group Exhibition

January 4 - Jan 30, 2008:

Jung Center Group Art Exhibition - "Intersections" by Art Chatter
5200 Montrose, 77006, in the Museum District, next door to CAM (Contemporary Arts Museum Houston)

Artists' Reception: Friday, January 11th , 5:30-8:30 p.m.
Artists’ Gallery Talk opening night: Friday, January 11th 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Intersections tells the story of a diverse group of artists whose private practices converge into common points through their interaction and cooperation. Exploring the visual arts together binds the group and leads them in new directions; the viewers are invited to discover the results.

The Art Chatter Critique Group will also include an active dialogue about the art works with viewers during the opening reception.

ACCG Members:

Andis Applewhite, Carol McKee, Catherine Colangelo, Deborah Morris, Donna Durbin, Janet Wayte, Jeanette Chinelli, Linda Darke Swaynos, Lisa Marie Godfrey, Lynne Rutzky, Mary Magsamen, Maureen McNamara, Michael Arcieri, Mojan Vadie, Nicola Parente, Raymond Saucillo, Renate Jones, Tami Merrick, John Moschioni, Donna Perkins, William Miller

SCROLL DOWN TO VIEW SAMPLE WORKS BY MEMBER ARTIST,
CLICK ON THEIR NAME TO BE DIRECTED TO THEIR WEBSITES....

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Andis Applewhite

Medium: Serigraph Prints on Paper...
My art explores the relational, emotional and psychic aspects of human nature and reflects our conflicts with the tensions and energies that shape our lives. These underlying conflicts give rise to further questioning and probing; on the choices we make, their consequences, the enlightenment or confusion that result. I have been working in this medium for the past 18 years. Serigraph printmaking is an indirect method that, conversely, allows me to be spontaneous and experimental. My printing technique includes a variety of textures and strokes that push the idea of silkscreen printing from a hard edge flat look to a painterly and gestural style. I paint my images directly on the back of the screen with a water-soluble liquid and let it dry. Then, using solvent based inks, I press the ink through the screen with a squeegee and print to paper, one color at a time. This process is repeated again and again, making changes to the screen and adding other images between iterations.

Carol McKee

"I was born in Yorkshire in the North of England. From the beginning my first love was art. I was fortunate enough to study in Cornwall, England. Later we moved to Alaska, where I studied at the University of Anchorage Alaska, then onto Houston and the Glassell School of Art.

My aim is to bring to my work my spiritual love of nature, borrowing its colors and moods. Color has always been an important factor in my life - any scenario, I see the color first and the object second.

I use color to bring atmosphere to the composition of my paintings, allowing the viewer to feel the 'mood'. The non-representational nature of the paintings allows the viewer to inhabit his/her own place and time, motivated only by the juxtaposition of color."

Catherine Colangelo

In my current body of work, I am making the work even more about time. I’m very interested in bloggers and how the seeming minutiae of a person’s day-to-day life can somehow be interesting. I am working on a project where I complete one 4” x 6” drawing in a day for 90 days (not necessarily all the days will be consecutive!). The 4” x 6” size is selected because it is the same size as a snapshot. Each drawing is an impression of the day, a mood shot. Some will be simple and some will be more labored, but each one must be completed on that day. The completed 90 drawings will be installed together as a large group and the many pieces together will become a whole that represents a visual record of one person’s life (moods, artistic inclinations, etc.) for a period of 90 days.

Deborah Morris

Donna Durbin

Touch is an essential connection to life. My art evolves intuitively through a manipulation of surface, color, texture and form. Tapestry weaves an unconscious thread to the human spirit. These abstract mixed media tapestries inspire the senses to recall a primal source of beauty. My artwork is composed of recycled textiles, used clothing, and scrap paper stitched into collages and mixed media tapestries. My intention is to heighten the sense of touch through the eyes. Touch represents two dimensions, the physical, through the fingertips, and the spiritual or emotional connection through the heart and soul.

Donna Perkins

Working from a model, and drawing at a very fast pace I cover the paper with lines derived from the figure. I treat these lines in an abstract manner. While no figure is depicted, there is a nuance of human form. These works are created with charcoal, graphite, various acrylic mediums and gesso. I am concerned with gesture, with surface, with obscuring and revealing prior images. It’s as if the painting is a snapshot of energy, my energy, the evidence of a moment in time.

Janet Wayte

I am a process oriented artist who engages in art as I would in a conversation. Working in mixed media allows me to express myself in a myriad of voices. The process is what is important. Not only am I influenced by my catalog of memories and images but by the day to day realities that affect me. Growing up in Chicago exposed me to the industrial and architectural beauty of shapes and textures. By having the fortunate opportunity to travel and work in many countries including the third world provided yet another set of images. For this reason some of my work will expose an industrial urban structure while other work will portray a primitive or organic imagery.

Jeanette Chinelli

My work consists of strong color and the presence of a spherical reference. The shape is what I have left after reducing the elements to the simplest form and trying to create minimal austerity. It represents the essence of life, the new, the birth, the inception, the balance between abstraction and figuration.

John Moschioni

Linda Darke Swaynos

Lisa Marie Godfree

Lisa Marie Godfrey received a Certificate of Achievement in Works on Paper from the Glassell School of Art in 2007.

Various elements such as wall paintings, small cardboard sculptures, painted found objects, and zines often accompany her works on paper to create narrative installations. She's interested in Yellowstone National Park, acid rain, mammatus clouds, the bermuda triangle, air castles, geysers, penmanship, indian paint pots, crystals, twinkle stars, dreams, saws, ink, intestines, and you.

Lynne Rutzky

I am a visual artist and research scientist whose work focuses on the intersection of my professional life as depicted by biomedical images; my personal life as symbolized by the animals sharing my home and their toys; and my subconscious as revealed through a repetitive mark making process. In my work, images from these sources are synthesized and layered. Some images are developed by establishing game rules to connect the dots and to create spatial, linear patterns, or figurative images. I explore everyday life issues of chaos and control by superimposing decorative grids over randomly generated fields of doodle-dots. In the series After 9/11: Pen and Ink Drawings (image above), a repetitive meditative dot making process was used to create whimsical to grotesque imagery.

Mary Magsamen

Collaborative work with Stephan Hillerbrand. We work collaboratively with video, photography and installation. Exploring ideas about relationships and perception, our daily interactions with each other influence our work the most. We are interested in taking everyday items such as coffee, bubblegum and cheese puffs and making them larger-than-life through abstraction and manipulation of time and space.

By re-contextualizing everyday items through abstraction and play, we hope to create a cinematic experience for the viewer. We want to show people the world differently not because of new tricks, tools or softwares, but because they are seeing something familiar in an unfamiliar way. It could be argued that the beauty of the Edward Weston’s bell pepper photograph was not that this “new” medium of photography was able to capture it, but that as an artist he showed that there was beauty and elegance in something as mundane as a bell pepper.

Maureen McNamara

Maureen McNamara is a multi-media artist working in Houston. Maureen worked for Landmark Theatres for 22 years. Former Director of Operations-Central for Landmark, Maureen was responsible for half of the company’s 72 locations, and for new Business Development—responsible for opening theatres in all new markets across the country. Maureen developed nine twenty-minute professional quality video projects with the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) for theatre owners across the country. Maureen holds a BA in Studio Art from University of St. Thomas.

In addition to her work on Hot Town, Cool City, Maureen is now on the film committee for the MFA-H, is the VP on the board of a local nonprofit theatre group, is the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, paints, and works with her Architect husband on development projects.

Michael Arcieri

For the last eighteen years accomplished painter Michael Arcieri has worked in the exacting and precise style of photo-realism oil painting and has explored and expanded the idea of contemporary still-life painting. Origami, tarot cards and orchids are just a few of the objects of
contemplation portrayed in his quiet meditative paintings that almost command a reflective moment. Arcieri's style was a perfect match for a handful of galleries across the country specializing in photorealism painting such as Van de Griff Gallery, Santa Fe, NM., Still-Zinsel
Contemporary Fine Art, New Orleans, LA., Klaudia Marr Gallery, Santa Fe, NM., Neiman Hayden Fine Art, Scottsdale, AZ., and Principle Gallery, Alexandria, VA.

Having mastered the genre of representational realism, Arcieri was awarded the Maryland State Arts Council Grant - Individual Artist Award in 2003. During this time Arcieri began compiling reference and recording imagery that compelled and fascinated him outside of the realm he was working in to try and form a more complex vocabulary to communicate within in his paintings. Like true Artists in the past having proven themselves highly skilled and adept in the fundamentals of realism painting, Arcieri seems to think it is time to use the tools he's perfected over the course of many years to employ a language that engages and demands the viewers participation. Pulling imagery from the far corners of his mind he creates a backdrop of Greek and Roman mythology then proceeds to integrate world wars, world leaders, tyrants and dictators with the undeniable truth of modern culture to arrive at an end result that stands alone in the world of post-modern art. These paintings address the many facets of control,
persuasion and influence human beings have on one another throughout recorded history.

Mojan Vadie

Nicola Parente

Nicola Parente creates expressive abstract paintings from his studio in Houston, Texas. Born in Mola di Bari, Italy, Parente draws from his rich Italian heritage and a deep well of cross-cultural experiences to bring his art to life. Working in a variety of media and formats, Parente always seeks to engage the viewer in dialogue regarding the universal phenomenon of human encounter.

Parente’s new series, The Edge of Urban Time, examines human encounter with the urban environment. His paintings capture the fluidity and static elements of the urban matrix, referencing architectonic images, reflections, and rhythms of its landscape.

Raymond Saucillo

There is for me an inherent beauty in structure, an inherent joy in creation. I've been blessed with a strong sense of wonder and it was this enthusiasm since childhood that led me to the field of architecture as an adult. Unfulfilled at the drafting table I later took up woodworking to satisfy my need to build. My focus is on the warmth and beauty of the wood and how two pieces come together to make the whole. I firmly believe the joint is the beginning of ornament as Louis Kahn would say.

Renate Jones

I am exploring the intersection of chaotic pattern, abstract expressionism, and process art. I work in series and each series is predicated on a different type of naturally occurring chaotic pattern, such as hurricane routes, rain patterns, or crumple patterns. I develop a system around each phenomenon that dictates the significant visual elements of the piece.

I was inspired to begin this body of work when I read an article about Jackson Pollock's drip paintings where a physicist had analyzed a type of underlying chaotic pattern in Pollock's works - referred to as fractal geometry. I was fascinated with the concept of this almost hidden but seemingly universal chaotic structure and a scientific theory, called chaos theory, talking about the interconnectedness of things. Fractal geometry is sometimes referred to as "the fingerprint of nature" which describes the roughness of our world. It appears everywhere from our own bodies to the workings of the cosmos. "The insights of chaos and complexity can be found in most non-Western cultures. Humility before nature, richness and diversity of life, generation of complexity from simplicity, the need to understand the whole to understand a part..." (Introducing Chaos. Ziauddin Sardar, Iwona Abrams, Icon Books, UK, 2004)

Within this framework, I have something to describe and share about what I believe are universal concerns: beauty, time, impermanence, imperfection, uncertainty, hope, and the interconnectedness of things. I feel emotionally and artistically "related" to Jackson Pollock, as a kind of "father", and Eva Hesse, as a kind of "mother", with much of the emotional and physical pathology that implies. When faced with overwhelming situations, I find it comforting to know that there is a kind of beauty, even if it is a secret beauty that you have to go searching for, in this broken roughness of our lives. I hope my pieces do the same for other people and that they might see any beauty they find there as a reflection of themselves.

Tami Merrick

I grew up in the midwest and moved to Houston in 1982. I renovated and currently work out of my studio in the First Ward. Color and color juxtaposition have always been evident in all my work. In later studies, I focused on developing my own process and color field. In 1999, I created a series of works on vellum/mylar using objects in lieu of brushes, and liquid mono-printing techniques. These experiments generated an interest in transparency of mediums including ink studies on mylar. Recent works juxtapose opaque elements and transparency to create a dichotomy on the canvas. I am also working with acrylics to flatten the surface and experimenting with creating work via word associations which have dual sensory meanings.

William H. Miller

I create pictures in an effort to fulfill a desire to create and to explore my own sense of self. I love observation, and through my images try to show others how fulfilling it can be. Through seeing, observing, capturing, and then manipulating I create in my way "found art". Our observations are who we are. We are creatures of our memories.

I use the computer as a tool to create images using the motification of words and images. The combination of digital creations with the act of painting and drawing, allow me to explore the physical side of art creation with the non-physical cerebral creation of art (a.k.a digital art). This is my struggle and this is my playground – Painting versus Digital Art and the space in between.