The Art Chatter Critique Group

About Art Chatter Houston

2011-09-30T09:36:00.002-05:00

Is a Houston collective of established mid-career visual artists who defy the stereotype of the lone artist in isolated studio practice. This community provides its members a supportive forum for the exchange of ideas, information, and critical responses. Members produce individual work in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, print making, and fabric arts and utilize multiple art strategies, including abstraction, surrealism, and incorporation of text.

ACCG History:

2011-09-02T12:41:00.002-05:00

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 Sally Sprout, director of exhibition at Williams Tower Gallery, Toby Kamps curator for the Menil Collection, Sarah Kelner of Kellner Consulting, Michelle White, Assistant Curator for the Menil Collection, Terri Sultan, Director of Parrish Art Museum, Clint Willour, Curator and Interim Executive Director, Galveston Arts Center, and artist Christian Eckert.

ACCG Members:

2011-09-01T17:22:00.003-05:00

Andis Applewhite, Trudy Askew, Carol McKee, Kay Sarver, Laura Feld, Donna E Perkins, Jeanette Chinelli, John Moschioni, Lynne Rutzky, Nicola Parente, Raymond Saucillo, Renate Lucia, Tami Merrick, Scott Woddard

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

Thank you for visiting our blog site!

Art Chatter Group Exhibition - Saturday May 22 - 2010

2010-05-07T19:51:00.000-05:00

Please join Art Chatter for a group exhibition "Articulation" 2010. Featuring artwork by Tami Merrick, Donna E. Perkins, Lynne Rutzky, Nicola Parente, Carol McKee, Scott Woodard, Andis Applewhite, Laura Feld, Joe Aker, Raymond Saucillo and Jeanette Chinelli.

We hope to see you there!

When: Saturday May 22, 2010
Time: 5:00 - 8:00 pm with Artist Talk starting at 5:30
Where: Audley Society
3231 Audley Street, 2nd Floor
Houston, TX 77098

Open to the Public and Free of charge.

You may RSVP via Facebook:

The Jung Center, "Intersections" Group Exhibition

2008-03-01T12:20:00.000-06:00

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.

Andis Applewhite

2008-02-18T17:24:00.002-06:00

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.

Trudy Askew

2008-02-18T12:12:00.000-06:00

Painting is mylanguage. As a painter, I aminterested in the emotional impact of larger-than-life images. I portray mysterious subjects using bold color, or a starkblack and white palette.

The psychologicalintersection between reality and imagination is my theme. I accentuate inscrutability andcontradiction, and challenge the viewer to resolve the ambiguities of truth andmeaning.

Pretense is a series of paintingsthat investigates the disguises and deceptions we employ to create our personalidentities. Is the “brave face” weput to the world nothing more than a fragile mask which conceals and protectsour true persona?

Carol McKee

2008-02-18T12:11:00.005-06:00

"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."

Laura Feld

2008-02-17T11:43:00.007-06:00

The common thread in my work is an awareness of the flat shapes that make up how we see the world, especially the interplay of positive and negative forms. These paintings reflect my fascination with silhouettes and with the symbiotic relationship of people and trees.

Donna E. Perkins

2008-02-14T17:51:00.003-06:00

I steal lines and choreograph them into abstractions.

I take my lines from the human form: from a model, from dancers dancing or from photographs of people I know.

The graphite lines of my drawings are smeared with layers of acrylic in a play of texture and surface. Much is hidden, or almost hidden, in layers of translucency.

Pages of discarded books are embedded in some paintings. I have a reverence for books. I’ve believed that owning books was akin to the possession of knowledge. I’m fascinated by printed words being discarded, becoming irrelevant. Books are becoming an outdated form of communication. Many of the books I’ve used were printed about the same time I was born. I’m thinking about my own relevance and permanence.

While I’ve spent the past few years working in black, white and grays, I’m now experimenting with staining the canvas with bright color before I begin my drawings.

Jeanette Chinelli

2008-02-13T11:54:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-12T17:56:00.000-06:00

Lynne Rutzky

2008-02-09T18:05:00.003-06:00

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.

Nicola Parente

2008-02-04T15:07:00.002-06:00

Inspired by changes in metropolitan communities, Parente’s art defines the intersections of daily urban life and timeless multi-cultural celebration. His paintings capture the fluidity and static elements of the urban matrix, referencing the architectonic images, reflections, and rhythms of its landscape. Mr. Parente completed his undergraduate studies at King’s College and his masters from the University of St. Thomas. Currently, Art League Houston is featuring two collaborative site specific installation, Natural Recyclers and Wasted Resolve, by Parente and Divya Murthy. Earlier in 2009, Parente’s work was exhibited in an exhibition entitled Transparent/Translucent, curated by Wade Wilson, at the Museum Gallery, University of Texas, in San Antonio. In 2008, Parente collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater in designing and creating the set for the World Premier Production of Terminus. Parente is represented in Houston by Gremillion &Co. Fine Art. His works can be seen in public and private collections in the US and abroad.

Raymond Saucillo

2008-02-04T12:18:00.001-06:00

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 Lucia

2008-02-03T18:29:00.003-06:00

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

2008-02-02T18:33:00.002-06:00

I grew up in the midwest and moved to Houston. I renovated and currently work out of my home/studio in the First Ward. Color and color juxtaposition are always evident in all my art series. I am primarily a process and color field painter working with a variety of mediums including acrylic, oil, mylar and ink. I created my own staining process with transparent inks on canvas and Mylar that I juxtapose with opaque surfaces. My most recent series includes extensive hard edged masking of both flat and glossy color field surfaces. My recent paintings reference the world of contemporary quilt design and fabric art. Exploring random geometric patterns I select colors to create a depth of field on flat surfaces.

Scott Woodard

2008-01-31T20:17:00.001-06:00

With solid but subtle intention I want my paintings to be about experience. The experience of the creator. The experience of the viewer. I want the onlooker to have a sense of the serene life I seek. I want my work to convey the sense of connection to a peaceful existence.

As these are primarily inner landscapes, I want the viewer to have that same experience: to pull order and balance from the quiet of simplicity. The veil of illusion keeps us moving as sleepwalkers. I want to see past the veil and have a more solid connection to the divine.

Kay Sarver

2008-01-17T11:00:00.000-06:00

I have followed a natural desire in the theme of my work, which began after a trip down into Mexico nearly 12 years ago. I saw something different in the faces of the people I encountered, aside from their obvious indigenous heritage. My paintings developed from these first impressions into a movement of artwork connecting legends and traditions with modern-day struggles.

Working predominately with oils on wood, the intention is to create a mood or feeling about the subject that helps to expand the general perception of these people, their beliefs and their currant existence.

The attraction to indigenous people from south of the border, and moreover, the pressing need to paint them was not fully evident to me until recently. Even though I felt deeply engaged with many issues that these people face in their daily lives, it became clear to me that my interest had derived from something much more personal. By way of these native cultures, I began to learn about the deeper connection to life and Spirit and my inherent longing to fully comprehend and embrace this state of being.