Urban Sea from the Permanent Collection

An urban area, or built-up area, is a place for humans to settle, to make a home, and to live amongst others. Out of this “sea of humanity” we co-exist and create a culture and a social fabric. The artists within this exhibition depict what is in their life experience by exaggerating and emphasizing the energy of these various places and conditions.  The viewer is provided a way to see color and form, in ways that express visual statements, expanding on our shared human experience. At times, the work is more abstract and presents ideas primarily about how a work of art is made- with a large brushstroke, and a field of blue-gray representing a large expanse of water as seen in New York-based artist Margaret Evangeline’s Watermark, 2018. When we look through architect Philip Johnson’s windows, onto Corpus Christi Bay, the effect is not unlike Evangeline’s gesture of mark-making akin to some of the bobbing of the water seen in certain weather conditions.

Dorothy Hood, (American b. 1918-2000) The Houston-based modern artist whose large paintings are seen in the upper areas of the Singer Gallery was living in Houston during the lunar landing of Apollo 11. Her works take us to the edge of a precipice and allow us to contemplate the vast void of space perceivable within her large surface areas of shifting color, textures, and shapes. She once said that (artists) are looking at the outside of things doing representational and the inside of things doing abstract.

Michael Collins, Courtyard of Bound Trees, 2004 was painted after a visit the artist made to ground-zero in New York City following the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. The artist was struck by the trees that were wrapped and tied in order to allow vehicles to move through the area during the excavation. The trees appeared to him to emulate cocoons and became not only a vestige of the humanity lost but also symbol in its a protective measure, divining hope for the future.

The collection of art presented here are examples of artists working during the 20^th and 21^st century creating art about the times in which they live. Their work is a document expressing the emotion, the beauty, and the impact we, as humans exist in, perceiving the world around us.

-D. Fullerton, Curator of Exhibitions