Learn more about the Art of Navajo Sandpainting, its history, traditions and meaning.
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Staff Blog
Take a peek at this year’s winners of our Student Art Show, Talking Back!
Olivia Discon’s blog on her visit to the OJAC
Learn more about the history, meaning and influence of The Armory Show of 1913
Learn more about Artist and activist, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
Read more about Patrick Kelly’s musings about Art and “Art that people want to see.”
In recent gifts to the collection, the OJAC has been quite fortunate to receive two unique “cloud” works by Austin-based artist Brad Tucker. The first, titled Exposed Midriff, is a gift from Jaime and C. Sean Horton. The work is constructed of chocolate brown fabric stretched over an exposed cloud-shaped plywood frame. The second is a work on paper that includes a cluster of overlapping cloud rings on a cyan blue background. This work, titled Clouds, was received from The Carter/Wynne Family Collection, and also exhibited in the OJAC’s Paper Chase exhibition last summer.
I’ve always been a fan of Brad Tucker’s cloud works and was curious to learn about the origin of this recurring motif, so I asked the artist to share his thoughts. Tucker says he began making the cloud-shaped works shortly after he graduated from UNT in 1991. At the time, working at a sign shop in Irving, Texas, his job was bending strips of metal and tin into channel letters that would house neon lit, Plexiglas faces. To make curves, thin metal strips were wrapped around steel pipes; to make angles, he used a sheet-metal break. It was tedious work, but Tucker says there actually was a connection between the work he was doing at the sign shop and the shaped-canvas, object paintings he’d been making at UNT. One day, Tucker took an odd strip and repeated the pattern: curve-angle-curve-angle, and so on. When he joined the ends of the strip, the result was a cloud-shaped aluminum loop.
Happy with the results, Tucker then began transferring that shape to similarly formed painting supports. “Even though I employed self-determined rules for drawing the clouds (the humps all had to have the same paint can radius), they always came out looking like they didn’t take themselves too seriously.” Tucker says initially he was put off by descriptors such as “cartoon-like,” but has come to appreciate the term; and recognizes that the combination of sophistication and goofiness are what gives the work lasting appeal.
Over his career, the artist continues to return to the cloud motif to explore new facets of the form. He enjoys the fact that their rounded edges lend themselves to nontraditional hangings. The shapes foster unexpected modes of presentation as individual clouds give way to cluster groupings which then lead to new narratives.
Exposed Midriff, 2000. BRAD TUCKER. Fabric, latex paint, plywood. 21 x 23 x 1 in. Gift of Jaime and C. Sean Horton. 2022.007
Clouds, 2020. BRAD TUCKER. Graphite, watercolor, and cyanotype on paper. 16 x 13 x 1 in. Gift of the Carter/Wynne Family. 2022.010
Amy Kelly
Registrar
When I got to the top of the stairs, I was immediately drawn in by a bit of crumpled newspaper used to prop up a vintage wooden shelf in the windowsill. At that point, I knew this was going to be fun. Chris Powell’s Cell Series installation then now offers humor, contemplation, discovery, and all aspects of time.
Top 10 things (from my perspective) to seek out in Chris Powell’s Cell Series installation, then now:
Daily drawings of cones, Brahman bulls, and submarines revealed elsewhere in three-dimensional form.
Exposed layers of raw plywood resembling ancient sedimentary rock formations.
Provisional dirt dauber nests cast in porcelain.
Afternoon light passing through utilitarian vessels.
Immediacy of curling blue tape sharing shelf space with tiny ceramic animals.
Igneous rock given to the artist years ago by Reilly Nail, co-founder of the OJAC.
Glassine bags and carefully folded paper suggesting hidden treasures inside.
Childhood photos of the artist and his wife.
Discarded bottles given new life as terrariums.
A moment to consider longevity among dome and tomato trellis.
Don’t worry, I haven’t given away all the surprises. There are so many more compelling and thoughtful groupings in the installation. It was difficult to stop at ten. Give yourself time to consider the relationships between objects and the dialogues they share. I’d venture to bet that even if you visited Powell’s Cell Series installation every day from now through May 14, you’d never see its entirety.
Amy Kelly
Registrar
Installation view; then now
If you’re like me, you like to cozy up with some cocoa on these chilly evenings with a good book.
Here are my recommendations for you and your family this season!
Call or click below to purchase your copy, and browse our selections HERE in our online giftshop.
Tatum Green Calhoun, Administrative Assistant and Visitor Services Coordinator
Midcentury Modern Art in Texas
$47.00
Before Abstract Expressionism of New York City was canonized as American postwar modernism, the United States was filled with localized manifestations of modern art. One such place where considerable modernist activity occurred was Texas, where artists absorbed and interpreted the latest, most radical formal lessons from Mexico, the East Coast, and Europe, while still responding to the state's dramatic history and geography. This barely known chapter in the story of American art is the focus of Midcentury Modern Art in Texas.
Dragons of Romania: Books One through Five
$15.00
All five books of the popular Dragons of Romania series!
Written and Illustrated by OJAC Artists-in-Residence Dan Peeler and Charlie Rose