Monday, October 29, 2007

Ramiro Paz at the Salón del Art House




Ramiro Paz
Artist’s statement

The Journey
I see art, like my life, as a recorrido perenne- -a perennial journey- -a continuous stream of stages through which one passes on the way to a final destination. At a given time, the stage seems to be an isolated event as with the art that I find myself producing. As with the progression of days one to the next, movement from one stage to another in my art goes unnoticed until I pause to look back and seek the patterns. What I see represents the progression of my art as subtle as my very existence.
As I step back to reflect on the stages of my journey, I can connect the changes in my art with the changes in my life. I see meaningful expression of my being. I can define myself through my art. I can tell my life story with my pottery, painting, and sculptures.
Almost four decades ago my perennial journey commenced. It has evolved into a conglomerate of experiences. The last two decades have found me artistically tracing the metamorphosis of my life through ceramics and painting. The pottery that I began to create, as a student, reflects the emergence of a passion for art. My concentration in ceramics echoes my desire to perfect a form of art and acquire expertise. Throwing, coiling, pinching, varnishing, glazing, and firing allowed me to connect with my culture. My art took the shape of masks, “trompos”, tequila bottles and other vessels that represent my Mexican heritage. Painting bestowed me a new experience as did life during the latter stage. My life evolved into the new endeavor of teaching, both, representing novel ideas for me and my students.
As time finds me at the present, I realize that the first two decades of my journey went without artistic representation. Hence, the tale of my childhood emerges through my sculptures and ceramics.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

“Conversations with Carl and Wilma”

PRESS RELEASE

Art House
1009 Laurel Ave.
McAllen, Texas 78501
(956) 688-6461, (956) 490-5507
arthouse1009@sbcglobal.net
www.mcallenartwalk.com

Re: Art Exhibit, “Conversations with Carl and Wilma”.
October 5, 2007- November 31, 2007

The Art House of McAllen, TX is proud to present, “Conversations with Carl and Wilma”, an exhibit featuring selected works from the personal collection of artists’ Wilma Langhamer and her late husband Carl Mohner. The exhibit will explore the passion, dedication, and love that these two artists had for each other, and for their art. “Conversations with Carl and Wilma” opens Friday, October 5, 2007 at 6pm during McAllen’s monthly Art Walk and will be on view till November 31, 2007.

Carl Mohner was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921. Mohner, a WWII veteran, was a prolific and award winning artist, and also a successful and famous international actor who appeared in over 60 major motion picture films from the early 1950’s to 1976. Some of the movies he starred in include, “The Last Bridge”, “Rififi”, “Sink the Bismark”, “Cleopatra”, and “The Kitchen”. Mohner was also awarded the coveted Cannes Film Festival’s Golden Palm Award three times. Regardless, Mohner once made the comment that acting was his profession, art was his life. Two of his films, “Rififi” and “The Kitchen” will be featured on an outdoor projector at the Art House this Friday during Art Walk.
In looking at Mohner’s art, one will notice the simplicity and child-like innocence in his paintings. His art is playful, yet seems to carry a sense of power and strength. Perhaps this is because Mohner put his heart and soul into every painting he created, and in this light, his art reflects feeling and expression from within. It is also interesting to note that Mohner worked spontaneously without sketches and let his subconscious lead him in creating his art. Mohner was also personally attached to each work of art he made as the subject matter for his paintings encompassed reflections of his own life experiences, as well as current events. He was influenced by impressionism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, collage and figurative expressionism, and his art has been said to resemble that of Joan Miro and Paul Klee. His personal favorite artist however was Pablo Picasso whom he felt an emotional and spiritual connection with. In 1988 Carl was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, however this did not stop him from making art, he continued to paint and create art with the love and support of his wife Wilma Langhamer. He painted until the day he passed on January 14, 2005 in McAllen.
Carl Mohner’s art is in the collections of Paul Getty Jr., Robert and Mike Pollock, Executive Producers of the TV Series Dynasty, The Smithsonian Institution, the International Museum of Art and Science, and the Albertina Graphic Museum in Vienna, Austria.
Mohner worked in various mediums such as acrylic, oil, crayon, ink, oil marker, pencil, pen and objects. The tools he used to create his art included brush, plum of feather, stick of wood, his fingers, and ink droppers.

Wilma Langhamer, born in karlsbad, Germany, started painting at the age of 15. Before devoting herself full-time to painting and following her dreams as an artist, Wilma had a career as a fashion designer and a medical nurse in Germany. For Langhamer, painting and creating art is a form of meditation through which time seems to lose its importance. In her paintings she is known to intertwine the imaginary with the real. Flowers, castles, hot air balloons, and landscapes floating in air or appearing on clouds seem to dominate her canvases. Many of her paintings depict real buildings and landscapes, but Langhamer alters and changes them, adding her own artistic twist and perspective to create an air of fantasy. Langhamer is influenced by medieval and renaissance art as well as Botticelli and the Florentine school. Her art was coined by her husband Carl as “Romantic Realism”, a term he came up with to define her style of painting. Carl was not only her husband, but her art advisor, critic and promoter. With all his contacts from the film industry, he helped Wilma’s art gain popularity and develop a fan base. Her art has been on the cover of notable publications such as Reader’s Digest in the U.S., Germany and Japan. As well as the cover’s of Southwest Art, Houston Symphony Magazine, and the 1984 Neiman Marcus Christmas catalogue. She has also done commissions for BMW Headquarters, Rolls Royce, UNICEF, and the White House where she painted an Easter Egg for the White House Easter Egg Roll, as well as a painting for the White House National Christmas Pageant of Peace. Her Easter Egg is now part of the Smithsonian Institution Easter Egg Collection. Along with this, her art has appeared in various international magazines and has been reprinted as posters, art prints, books, calendars, and greeting cards. Recently one of Langhamer’s paintings was chosen by Rosalynn Carter to be the 2006 Christmas greeting card for The Carter Center and was sent to 4 million people. In February 2007 Langhamer donated a painting to The Carter Center which was auctioned off for charity at $16,000. Lately Langhamer’s art has taken on the themes of love and music, reflecting on the joy, vibrance and peace of mind that these two themes inspire.
Langhamer mainly paints with oil on canvas and oil on Ambersand hardboard.

In 1974, Carl and Wilma met in a hospital in Munich where Wilma was volunteering as a student nurse and Carl was recovering from an appendix surgery. It was here during his convalescence that the couple fell in love. Carl and Wilma married in 1978 and shortly after their marriage, they moved their lives from Europe to South Texas’s subtropical Rio Grande Valley in 1979. In a Sharyland, Texas ranch house, surrounded by pets and peacocks, Carl and Wilma started their new lives and devoted themselves to creating art, and forming their Orange Hill Studio, Inc.
Although Wilma’s art is very different from Carl’s in both technique and form, both artists evoke a whimsical aesthetic and sense of nostalgia in their art. Also, both Wilma and Carl’s art have an enlightening and refreshing quality. The Art House exhibit, “Conversations with Carl and Wilma” will leave you with no doubt that Wilma and Carl inspired one another both as husband & wife, and artist & artist. Art House Gallery Director Mayra Brown has selected a collection of works that depict their partnership and the exchange of ideas that they shared with one another. This exhibit tells a story of a beautiful couple and partnership that blossomed with love through art.

Monday, September 17, 2007

September Exhibit 2007



NEW FRONTIERS: AN EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY FIBER
ART

Exhibition dates: September 7-29, 2007

In its first exhibition of the season, The Art House
will feature fiber artists from across the United
States and one from Australia. Put aside any
preconceived notions you might have about what fiber
art is, because contemporary fiber art is definitely
NOT the doilies, afghans and sock dolls your
grandmothers made. Contemporary fiber art is a genre
of art that utilizes many traditional techniques such
as sewing, weaving, knitting, crocheting, and printing
on fabric, but it often incorporates many of the
techniques traditionally associated with fine art such
as painting and sculpture. Fiber artists use
traditional fibrous materials such as thread, yarn,
reed, paper, fabric, etc. in new and unexpected ways
or non fibrous materials, such as wire or plastic, are
used with a traditional technique. Many contemporary
fiber exhibitions have expanded the definition of
fiber art to include artwork that has a “fiber”
sensibility. Whatever techniques and materials are
used, the end results fit squarely within the realm of
fine art.

The title of the exhibition, New Frontiers, relates to
the Rio Grande Valley’s status as a frontier and a
place where people come to explore new possibilities
and opportunities to the frontier that fiber artists
crossed in their attempt to develop the medium and to
gain acceptance in the art world.

During the 1960s, materials and techniques that had
been primarily associated with craft and utilitarian
objects started being utilized by people trained in
the fine arts. In the same way that the
impressionists transformed art from strict
representation, fiber artists transformed the
minimalist tradition of modern art. Shape, volume,
repetition and texture were prominent features of this
new art. Freedom to experiment has remained a key
concept in fiber art, and contemporary fiber artists
continue this tradition of utilizing materials and
techniques in new and different ways. Patricia
Tinajero’s Flap-jacks is an example of combining
non-traditional materials (plastic bags and wire) with
a traditional technique (crochet).

Fiber artists are not limited to fiber art techniques,
they may employ any other medium such as drawing,
painting computer graphics, etc. Clare Verstegen’s
specialty is screen printing on fabric, but she will
often draw on the surface after she has printed it,
and the pieces in this exhibition have been etched.
Marjorie Durko Puryear took a found object (a hankie)
and printed it with a digital printer and embellished
it with thread and beads.

The exhibition was juried by the curator of the
exhibition, Linda Lewis, UTPA art professor, Reynaldo
Santiago, and the Director of the Art House, Mayra
Brown.

The curator of the exhibition, Linda Lewis, moved to
the valley in 2005. She received an MFA with a
concentration in fiber art from Arizona State
University. During the course of her study, she
received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the
Danish Design School in Copenhagen, Denmark. In
addition, she received the graduate school's highest
award, the Nathan Cummings Foundation Summer Travel
Fellowship. This award allowed her to travel to any
destination in the world. Her trip included Croatia,
Romania and Turkey. She has an extensive exhibition
record that includes national and international
exhibitions. She has had solo exhibitions at the
University of Arizona and Appalachian State
University, Boone, NC, and had artwork in “Lace for
Fashion,” a juried exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum
in Sydney, Australia and The 5th International Textile
Competition '97 in Kyoto, Japan. Lewis has had
articles and reviews published in the Surface Design
Journal, Fiberarts and American Craft. An exhibition
she curated, “In Stitches: Humor in Contemporary Fiber
Art,” was exhibited in a variety of venues throughout
Arizona and in Texas.

Lewis has several of her own artworks in this
exhibition. Conceptually, her artwork is about the
history of knowledge and its transformation over time.
Lewis states that she normally has a very serious
approach to her artwork, but she pokes fun at herself
in her Bodies of Knowledge. The “bodies” are human
forms The “skin” of the bodies is a lacy see-through
fabric that has been constructed by sewing handwritten
notes and xerox copies of articles from classes she
took while in school. Numbers on the chests of the
bodies are the course numbers of those classes.
Having attended school most of her adult life, Lewis
feels that she is losing most of what she learned.
Piles of confetti lie in heaps on the floor beneath
the bodies to represent this process of
disintegration.

Many of the artists in New Frontiers have already
distinguished themselves in the field. Quite a few
are professors who are imparting their knowledge and
skills to develop the fiber artists of tomorrow.
There are several artists who are in graduate programs
or who have recently graduated. Amy Long was featured
in Fiberarts magazine’s Nov/Dec 2006 issue as an
“artist to watch” in their sampling of notable student
work.