Reception: Friday, October 15, 6 – 8:30 PM
Gallery talk during reception beginning at 6:30 PM

While presenting strikingly different bodies of work, the eight artists in this exhibition are drawn together by their similar devotions to time-consuming art working practices. Curator Nicholas Wood highlights their distinctly focused processes by selecting artworks that physically and visually reflect very labor–intensive, accumulative, layered and even obsessive construction methods.

For all of these artists, repetition functions as the modus operandi for physical engagement with the individual artwork and plays a major role as a system of organizational practice. Many of their works represent multiple, layered moments of ingenious, labor–intensive improvisations that transform humble, readily available materials (everyday or art based) into compelling structural objects. These structures may reflect obsessively collected, crafted, and carefully placed components or they may reflect more open-ended dialogues between the artist and the intrinsic personalities of materials.

In all cases the viewer senses that their artworks are very personal, tactile vehicles which record the intimate relationship between these artists’ love of process, materials, and image and the objects they persistently build step by step, part by part into wonders that mark and celebrate labor and time.

The artists in OBJECTification, all from Texas, are Paul Booker, Rosemary Meza, Charlotte Smith, Ellen Frances Tuchman (Dallas); Lance Letscher, Lauren Levy (Austin); Hillevi Baar (Houston); and Fred Spaulding (South Padre Island.)

In association with the exhibition, two artists will give presentations about their work in room 148 in the Fine Arts Building adjacent to The Gallery. Fred Spaulding will present his work on Wednesday, October 27 at 12:00 noon and Ellen Frances Tuchman will speak on Thursday, November 11 at 12:30 PM.

All events are free and open to the public.

The Gallery at UTA is located on the north end, first floor of the Fine Arts Building, 502 S. Cooper St. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. For more information, contact Benito Huerta 817-272-3143 or Patricia Healy 817-272-5658.

The 2004-2005 exhibition schedule is made possible by the generous support of Arlington Camera, the Hanley Foundation, and the Hilton Arlington.

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April 29 – May 11, 2013