My paintings are about people, whether fully depicted, abstracted into the implied face of a machine, or the fragmented scrap of a photo. They are the minds eye of relationships between people and their environment, visual time and space. Working with the nude, I take a layered approach. First and foremost it is a monument to the non-hero. No uniforms or medals, no pearls or fancy dress – just life. On another level it is about relationships. The relationship of artist to model, the model to the box of the canvas, and life to life. The formal elements of composition reinforce the birth to infinity relationship of humanity and boxes. The box of a room or the box of a coffin, how much space the figure element takes up or where it is placed, all important tools for creating an emotional connection to the figure. For me, realism cannot be a scale-model recreation of a visual world but rather a tool of thought and observation, a way of exploring mortality, displaced associations, relationships and the magic of humanity.

Searching for a muse, I instead found myself basking in the glow of an obnoxiously bright liquor store sign in Dallas, which led me to the realization that these dinosaurs of the art world were close to extinction. The days of runway light neon signs to attract your attention are long but forgotten with the now graphic driven monstrosities of today. Viewers receive a glimpse of the glory days, in this series that captures the essence of the seedy motels and smoke filled rooms, that once laid fame to these signs.

My recent work focuses on the use of cloudscape and landscape as personal icon. I am especially interested in examining the iconic possibilities for the space between earth and sky, between the physical and the ethereal. I have also often used portraiture and still life genre as vehicles for the same interest in personal icon. As an instructor of Figure Drawing, the significance of the Golden Mean and the presence of the proportional relationship of 1:1.618 found in the human form and in the history of art is of interest to me, and I reference that through composition as well as the actual presence of gold leaf. My primary reference images are taken from my own digital snapshots.

Norwood Flynn Gallery is excited to have the opportunity to exhibit a collection of watercolors and small oil paintings by Michael Roque Collins, Director of the School of Art, Artist in Residence and Associate Professor in Art, at Houston Baptist Univeristy. He is also an internationally collected professional artist and has been represented in the past by Gerald Peters Gallery in Dallas, and currently by LewAllen Contempory in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Mr. Collins paintings are represented in permanent collections of over fifteen museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, El Paso Museum of Fine Art, Art Museum of South Texas, San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas A & M Univerrsity Wyne Stark Museum, College Station, Texas and bot the Lowe and Bass Museum Collections in Miami, Florida and numerson private collections the world over.

A renewed appreciation of the natural environment has led me to explore the landscape as a subject for painting. The undulating shapes and contours in nature are echoed in the human form, and make up the step from landscape to representation of the figure, specifically the nude, a logical one.

I paint by layering colors, one over another, to achieve a representation of light defining form. Since I see light as an additive element, i.e. a form is totally in shadow and basically formless until light delineates its form, I begin with a dark underpainting and define the form by applying layers using lighter tonal values until I reach the desired chiaroscuro effect. The fast drying qualities of the acrylic medium best facilitates this color blending technique.

“Looking at a sonogram image can be like looking through a perforated screen. The image of a child may become perfectly clear in a moment, then lost in static in the next. In response to these images I began a series of prints and drawings that explore this concept of thinking about the unknown while looking at coded or veiled information. In all of these images there is an interest in the absurd, the unnoticed, the unfathomable, and an unconscious wisdom.

This body of work is a re-investment in the process of drawing as thinking. With each of these images I try to generate questions instead of making statements. I try to work in a state that oscillates between resolving clarity of form and ambiguity of meaning.

While these images are specifically compelling to my personal experience and relationships, they also aim to be a curious space to provoke the precarious quality of looking into a place where questions are born.

Thomas Evans is a native Texan who has lived about 25 miles west of Austin since 1978. His life long interest in nature is the inspiration for his paintings and his home and studio are near upper Lake Austin and surrounded by the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve.

His work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Austin, Santa Fe, San Antonio, and in the New Mexico Museum of Fine Art. His work is in many corporate and private collections and he has completed numerous commissions including the painting of Enchanted Rock, “Hill of the Medicine Man,” which now hangs above the east ticket counter at Austin Bergstrom International Airport.

This series explores the idea of secret spaces - mundane scenes filtered through the eyes of childhood imagination.

I found these images in my ramblings around Austin, Texas. I translated the photographic reference into paintings that hint at magical gateways and hiding places. The scenes combine foliage with simple manmade objects, the types of things you'd find in your own backyard.

The works are acrylic on board. I paint in thin layers and use my fingers to create texture and pattern within the larger shapes. The paint has the translucency of watercolor and the palette is bright, reminiscent of stained glass windows.

The ideas I explore are a continuing visual dialog about personal memory, longing and our emotional associations with the natural world During the past ten years my work has been conceived by the intermingling of various materials, techniques and concepts. The major portion of my studio practice is done on two-dimensional surfaces such as paper or wood panel on which I combine painting, printmaking and drawing processes. I use several techniques and materials on a single surface to imply a symbolic parallel to how memories are often multilayered. I approach image making as a metaphor for daily experience and memories as well as a yearning for a spiritual and ecological center. The time I spend in my studio in Austin inspires in my work a deeper connection to place and nature.

Contemplate: to view or consider with continued attention.

Memory: the time within which past events are remembered.

It starts with an instinctive reaction to visual images, turning the unconscious to conscious.

It is a physical, hands on investigation of process and materials.

It is leaving the memory of old images and the history of surface.

It is the visceral nature of the stone and plate.

It is simplicity and complexity.

It is obsessive and compulsive.

It is place, memory, identity and faith.

“Paint, for artist Gregory Horndeski, reveals in his work a path toward light and space. The nuances of thickly applied, colorful paint, as it swirls around a canvas, capture the spirit of his oeuvre while leading Horndeski’s audience toward that inner place where his angels and demons begin to reveal themselves……” by Wade Wilson, Art Critic from Catalogue for “Greg Horndeski, Works of Art from the Past Millennium,” at the Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX, September 7, 2000

Horndeski began painting in earnest in 1981, using oil paints and brushes. In 1982, he gave up the brush for painting knives, using a brush only for details. He changed from oils to acrylics in 1983, thereafter beginning the development of his unique, instantly recognizable, representational and expressionistic style of knife painting.

Gregory’s work has always been very humanistic, with his main motivation being, in his own words, “to portray the absurd universe in which we exist.” This is similar to what motivated him as an applied mathematician. But, as a painter, he can “address issues of a non-mathematical nature, such as the greatest absurdity of all—death, and how we deal with it.” He hopes “to help people to have a greater appreciation of how incredible life and existence are, and never to forget that they only have a finite amount of time to enjoy it…..”

The work of Gregory Horndeski has been shown in galleries throughout the world, including New York, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. His work is in several museum collections, including Houston Museum of Fine Art and the Dallas Museum of Art. Pieces are also among Corporate Collections, including the Belo Collection of the Dallas Morning News and GTE Corporate Headquarters, Las Colinas, Texas.

Gregory Hordenski currently lives and paints in his studio in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about painting was “Paint what you love!” I try to do just that - paint the trees, branches, leaves, blossoms, and birds that surround my own home and make it my favorite spot. I’m not interested in painting them exactly as they appear in nature, nor do I want to simplify them to the point of total abstraction. My intent, rather, is to find a happy intersection between nature, paint, and the workings of my own mind.

I tend to see the organic elements I paint as patterns of color, light, and texture - intricate quilts whose myriad pieces of fabric are all in constant flux as day turns to night and one season follows another. My compositions evolve over time, sometimes long periods of time. Each painting develops a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, with each new piece shaped and colored by my brush. Of course, I try lots of pieces that don’t fit and have to be replaced.

When someone buys a painting from me, I feel special delight because it indicates to me that he or she sees something in this world in much the same way I do. We must have connected on a rather intimate level, even if we’re unacquainted. I paint to please myself, of course, but it is nice when others are pleased as well.

I approach painting with a simple philosophy: a successful piece of art is one that allows viewers to peek into my world of imagination and artistic aspirations. My exhibitions represent the theme of human life. My artworks combine trompe l’oiel and classical painting techniques with surreal settings of pears to express messages of revitalization and aspiration.

My pear paintings depict the abstract form of the human body. The pears are presented as characters rather than objects. Each individual pear has its own distinctive shape, yet all pears possess the same qualities and characteristics of milky smooth surfaces and off-white innards. Likewise, all human beings exhibit a genuine heart and soul on the inside, despite different outer appearances. I choose subjects that signify the realistic aspect of our lives and weave them into a surreal setting. I put them together in a way that mirrors the mysteries of intertwining human imaginations and physical manifestations. This theme has extended into consideration of human shortcomings, connection to reality, as well as issues of mortality and what is left behind.

Through my paintings, I wish to create an atmosphere of humor, fantasy, mystery, and elements of human conditions. Also, I transform everyday experiences into visual stimulation as a form of communication, to pose questions and seek answers. “Everything we see hides another thing; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.” - Rene’ Magritte

I work in crushed pigments, oils, acrylics and mixed media. The art is ethereal by nature. I create each piece by pulling layers back and forth; a little tug of war as I search for a Zen reality, a softened end point, a light.

The art is Diaphanous and Lyrical; allowing for spheres of meditation. Each piece mimics “motion standing in place”. My art pretends to be nothing other than it is: a position of time, place and sense of being. I often employ resin in order to create an altered and present reality. Resin pushes a successful painting to create a feel of stepping through a looking glass into a secret world.

As a painter, my objective is to manipulate space in order to create a visionary world that is sweeping and poetic. My work is the result of free invention and discoveries made through the process of painting. The subjects that I paint range from the very large and broadly imagined to the small and closely observed: dramatic skies with their dazzling light and capricious clouds, abandoned nests with scattered twigs, stones and marbles, feathers and leaves. Chairs. A fully eclipsed moon. The arrangement of these subjects has begun to feel symbolic, suggesting hidden meanings and secret allegories.

The subject of this current body of work is the light in nature. These recent works manifest the luminous light seen in the world and embellished by imagination. They do not simply copy the natural world in exactness, but contain colors and scenes of an inventive nature. The paintings glow with a light emanating from a specified area in the composition, such as a corner of the sky or section of the woods. The light is metaphor for hope and reveals the beauty and complexity of nature. The tree is a thematic structure that repeats in several works representing the archetypal cycles of life, death, and resurrection. These recent paintings battle to maintain clarity of natural form, while shedding specific contours towards the betterment of the imagined to reveal the transcendent and sublime.

Melissa is a current candidate for her Master of Fine Arts Degree with a major in Painting and a minor in drawing and Printmaking in December 2012 from Houston Baptist University, In Houston, Texas. This is her debut in the professional world of art and we welcome her!

Most of what I make falls into the category of eccentricity, because I have never admitted a clear distinction between making images and living. If in my work I have managed to disguise a participation in my circumstances, I still cannot deny the eccentricity in what I make, since I make images precisely because I am only half there, if at all, in a rational world. I work by default and dislocation, and since I work out of an interstice, that place and time between what we know, I always try and invite others to discover one of their own, to see themselves inside the figures and circumstances of my pictures. I hope that when that line is crossed, they see through my eyes my manias and fears that reside in them as well, and that they understand the frail and tenuous nature of ourselves and the ironic and often ridiculous situations that we bring on ourselves. Regardless of you or me, the monster is the same.

The primary subjects of my paintings are 21st century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The essence of our way of life can be seen in our neverending attempt to subdue our environment. It is not my intention to either glorify or condemn this objective, but to invite contemplation and leave judgement up to the viewer. I'm always looking for places where the man-made environment inundates the natural. I paint this in a way where subtle abstraction dissociates elements from the environment, creating an oscillating view of the natural and the fabricated. The paintings are meant to be ambiguous - they can be seen as an indictment of human waste and contemporary alienation, or, simultaneously, they can be understood as silent tributes to the fundamental tools of our society that we all too often ignore. One might ask why I paint these things rather than document them with photographs -- I believe painting, because of its deliberateness, serves purposes that photography can-not. My paintings take a long time to produce and in this way they parallel and underscore the deliberate-ness with which our machinery is built into the land-scape. Thay are a culmination rather than a moment-- a "long look" at our technology and legacy.

My art is an ongoing search for the site of intersection between matter and memory. My projects always begin with narratives surrounding unique photographs and objects. Using a variety of materials and media, I create visual archives whose elements function as artifacts, indices, and aides-memoires. My visual archives both help us to remember and allow us to forget.

Fascinated with European art history and painting, Sallie McIlheran came to Vienna, Austria after finishing her college degree at Sweet Briar College, Virginia. She applied for the entrance examinations and was accepted to the University of Vienna where she spent five years, until she earned her Masters of Fine Art, for painting and graphic art. She was able to study in the Master Class of Prof. Wolfgang Hutter, one of the leading members of the Austrian School of Fantastic Realism. During these years in Vienna, she learned various techniques of painting. The most important one for her, the “Alt-Meister Technik”, using a gradual buildup of white egg tempera, underpainting and layers of oil, has influenced her style of painting. Precision of line and detail as well as consideration of color are of fundamental importance. Since 1991, Sallie McIlheran works primarily on her artwork for exhibitions and participates regularly in diverse art competitions. Aside from this, she works freelance for various publishing houses, among others Breitschof in Vienna and Frieling Publishing House in Berlin as well as working on portrait commissions. Starting in 2001, she holds classes in painting and drawing for adults at the Volkshoch-schule in Friesing.

The clay figurines created by sculptor Julie McNair carry both a whimsical and serious message. They are intended to address the essence of the human spirit. As Julie herself notes, “My pieces are quite personal and work as a gateway for my own growth, and they may speak to others in a completely different way. Most of the subject matter pertains to the transformation of the human spirit and one’s internal reality.” Rather than have her audience dwell upon the possible serious side of any one piece, she would prefer that viewers try to feel the emotional intent. “..Laughing at myself is part of my inspiration.” Her combination of animal and human spirits in many of her works is deliberate because she believes that animal identification can often explain a particular human condition. As a young girl, Julie watched her grandmother restring and make new clothing for antique dolls, and today she says, “One day while preparing for a Colorado Clay 2004, I looked up and realized I was making dolls. I grew up surrounded by dolls I could not play with and now I was making them myself.”
(from “Expressing the Human Spirit” by Dr. Lew Detch, Artbook of the New West, 2007

Julie McNair studied sculpture at North Texas State University where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She then went on to continue her studies earning a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Wyoming. She presently serves as the Program Director for the Ah Haa School of Art in Telluride, Colorado. Her work has been exhibited at numerous galleries across the western United States, and it has met with praise from collectors.

Jared is a Texas-born documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. Work from the show "Leaves of Grass," showing at Norwood Flynn Gallery in February 2010, premiered at FCB Gallery in New York in November 2009.

"When two elephants fight, it is only the grass that suffers." - African Proverb

This show is part of an intimate portrait of Afghanistan, a country looked at, but rarely seen. Jared Moossy is an award-winning professional photographer whose works have appeared in numerous publications, including Time Magazine, Newsweek, The London Times, and Conde Nast Traveler. We are pleased to be able to showcase Jared's work for Dallas viewers.

In my latest pieces I have tried to create a visual soup of everything that I like. The reason I compare my work to soup is because I want every visual ingredient to work by itself but also compliment the other ingredients as well as the whole piece. I decided to make the imagery I use in these newer works to be less recognizable. The reason for this is I want my influences to be less obvious. I have chosen screen printing as my main medium is because I can never predict one hundred percent what the piece is going to look like in the end. Since certain colors react differently on top of other colors it often takes me on a different path than I had anticipated. That is why I never plan what the final piece is going to look like. I just try to get into a nice printing rhythm and really trust my instincts while I am working. It has been a very challenging and rewarding way of creating my artwork.

Like many artists, my work has evolved over the years. My art career started by creating found object sculptures, kinetic art, site specific pieces and eventually large installations using natural materials such as dirt, rocks and wood. By working with these natural materials I found myself exploring the world of clay.

The transition to clay turned out to be an exciting progression for me because of the discoveries I made by exploring the essence of the raw material and how powerful its pure form can be. Even though I made this transition, my thought process and philosophical ideas about creating art have stayed true to themselves.

My thought process and philosophical ideas have always been related to the concept of how our society coexists with the natural world. Through my work I have been trying to understand what our relationship should be with the environment and to realize how truly fragile our surroundings are. They should not be taken for granted, and we have an incredible responsibility to take care and protect what has been given to us.

Another aspect of my work that I have really enjoyed exploring is the sheer physicality of the process. My work has always consisted of using my hands to build, stack or balance, and using the hand-built process with these sculptures allows for the opportunity to see what can be brought out of this raw material. This process then becomes incredibly challenging and satisfying.

The act of creating or the conception of an idea that is then turned into an object or painting or drawing is the most rewarding experience an individual can have. The process is part of the creation and with each attempt, something is discovered and therefore, strips away another layer so that a deeper understanding of the material is reached. And hopefully we will learn something else about ourselves and how we relate to this amazing world in which we live.

I am interested in painting as it helps me remember. Remembering a sense of place or a feeling of color is possible when I paint, not in a literal way as in realism or photography, but rather in expressive painting, using tones and masses of paint to evoke the memories of a place. As I paint, the images evolve and recall places I know, like the Texas Coast or New Mexico or Vermont. Often, the painting will reveal a feeling that I experienced at a certain moment as I stood on the beach or walked through a field. Painting becomes, for me, a way of remembering.

The paintings in Landscapes were completed in 2006. Most of the pieces were worked in a series, painting one after another. They were painted entirely from memory and in my studio. The use of acrylic paint is new to me and I am pleased with the freshness of the color and brush strokes. The large oil paintings in this show were completed over an extended period of time and have the advantage of layers of paint and revision that is so like my own way of thinking about life.

“The sum of its parts”

One is what one does, or in some cases, thinks he does. Artist, inventor, and real estate developer-all of these professions are the sum of who I am. I feel that everything that I have done has contributed to my artistic endeavors. My innovative nature is reflected in my work, and I tend to be somewhat experimental. For me, a cutout stencil, a pasted collage, a shot of spray-paint, a smear of pigment: these begin the visual process in my work. I think back to Texas (U.T. Austin) and teachers like Vincent Mariani, Michael Frary, and William Lester, and try to recall the rules of composition and color, in order to resolve the work as I see it.

Since I bought my etching press in 2002, my art has taken a new direction. I find myself migrating from past abstractions to more representational work demonstrated in monotypes, linocuts, solar plate etchings and drypoint etchings, both intaglios and reliefs.

Just like every element is made of so many smaller particles, every person is a sum of so many different events, life changing experiences, accomplishments and failures.

“To me art is as essential as the senses of the body: as I smell, taste, and see, so too I draw, paint, and sculpt. A love for the outdoors has always fueled my work and memories of past travels often emerge on canvas.

I love beginning with a smoothly prepared canvas and watching the texture build in the ensuing days, as if the pigments themselves could take on body. Fiddling with a pencil on paper is a mere extension of my thought process, and I view drawing with the familiarity of a native tongue.

Joel, still a student, has already been collected in the U.S. and Europe and currently divides his time between Houston and Philadelphia. His works have been shown in Houston, London, Germany, and D.C.

J. Marie Valdez is a visual artist whose research is concentrated in the media of painting, printmaking and drawing. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in venues located in Massachusetts, Texas, England, France, Italy and Mexico. She has been a candidate for the Joan Mitchell Award and the Hunting Art Prize. Most recently her work has been focused on landscapes/cityscapes of Houston, Texas, exploring how architectural structures: contemporary/historical buildings, houses, highways, streets, refineries and factories, function in identifying our community. The compositions have a duplicitous nature, taking on investigations of space and simultaneously defining an identity of place. "Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplate truths than merely to contemplate." With Thomas Aquinas' quote in mind, the element of light in Ms. Valdez's artwork functions a metaphor and catalyst for spirituality. Through the exploration of the varied elements that create the illumination of light, coupled with contemplation provides a means for the viewer to move beyond the senses and into a spiritual/divine experience.

Currently an Assistant Professor in Art in the College of Art and Humanities at Houston Baptist University, Marie obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi, and her Master of Fine Arts-Painting at Boston University, in Boston, Massachusetts.

I am fascinated with the idea that although we are inundated with multitudes of experiences, it is only a select few that remain with visceral integrity. An event experienced by two people may be insignificant to one yet may become a lifelong memory to another.

My work examines snippets of memory, attending to each no matter how momentous or inconsequential. The title of each piece gives a verbal connection to the memory while hidden longitude and latitude numbers document the physical location.

Diane is a Flower Mound, Texas based artist whose work has been featured in New American Paintings. She has been twice named a finalist for the Hunting Art Prize. Her work is in numerous private and corporate collections including the Longview Museum. Norwood Flynn Gallery is excited to welcome her into our talented group of artists.

Photography is the most intriguing handcrafted process I can imagine. From just that very moment of visualizing the object until the final printed image, I am the one measuring, metering and making the decisions about the motive in front of my eyes and the camera. Results are calculated and thought out. The camera serves its purpose for me as the instrument which facilitates my visual ideas and concepts into a picture. Thus I am a convinced Hasselblad and Leica aficionado, as they best relay my exact visual intentions and are superior in technical directness and quality... both straightforward and excellent systems which have proven their timelessness. Traditional Film materials are also important to me and I have worked together for many years with a photo lab in Munich which is responsive to my wishes as a photographer and not pressing digital results from a programmed computer. I love my Bavarian homeland and endeavor to be an attester of her natural beauty and grandness without being overly sentimental.