May 2 - June 6, 2009


opening reception for the artists:
Saturday, May 2, 2009  5:30 - 8:30pm

Lance Letscher
faktura/tektonika

Well known Texas artist, Lance Letscher, is continually pushing his chosen material, paper, into increasingly dynamic and challenging collages. He mines his sources, old paper back book covers, hand written letters and various paper materials for color, graphics and found drawings to construct a patchwork of loose architectural impressions that stack, abstract and pull the viewer in and through the composition. By harmonizing color and shape, Letscher transforms discarded paper materials into substantive collages that evoke serenity, nostalgia and shared experience.

In March of 2009, The University of Texas Austin published Lance Letscher: Collage, the first full-length monograph on this important artist. It presents a catalog of 118 works dating from 2001 to 2008. The book will include an introduction by art critic, Charles Dee Mitchell and essay by Brooke Davis Anderson, director and curator of the the American Folk Art Museum in New York City.   

left: Lance Letscher,  Rooster on the Roof , 2009, collage on masonite, 36x26"

right: Lance Letscher , World Champion, 2009, collage on masonite, 26x18"

Stephen Lapthisophon
Slow

Slow is an exhibition about loss; the loss of time, history, traction and self.  The subject of loss will be approached through meditations on cooking, cuisine, food culture and language. Materials for the drawings will include chocolate, coffee, tea, saffron, salt, sugar and bacon fat. In addition the drawings, the show will feature an installation in tribute to Romanian artist, Daniel Spoerri and British cookery writer, Elizabeth David incorporating a table, chairs, cutlery and other implements for dining.

In 2008, Lapthisophon was awarded the Wynn Newhouse Award, a grant provided to artists of excellence who have disabilities. Upcoming exhibitions in 2009 include a solo show at C8 Art in Barcelona, Spain and Unit B Gallery in San Antonio, Texas.       

left: Stephen Laphisphon, Slow exhibition image

right: Stephen Laphisphon, Menu, 2008, ink on paper, 22x30"

PROJECT ROOM

Jennie Ottinger

Jennie Ottinger makes small-scale paintings and drawings based on images that she finds while scavenging through newspapers, encyclopedias, textbooks, and historical image bases. The drawings are archived and pulled as needed to combine into groups of several pieces that form a loose narrative. The end effect attempts to capture that moment immediately before or after a pivotal event, the tension in that fleeting period of silence and stillness. The unfinished quality lends to the uneasy stillness by making them seem interrupted, as if something sudden and significant occurred.

Jennie is a San Francisco based artist who has exhibited in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. She has a BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts, a BA in Art History from the University of the Pacific and received an MFA from Mills College in May of 2008.
The show at Conduit Gallery will be her first in Texas.

 

left: Jennie Ottinger, installation image

right: Jennie Ottinger, Surgery, 2008, oil on paper