The Gallery at UTA is pleased to present concurrent exhibitions showcasing artists Debra Barrera (Houston) and Angela Kallus (Fort Worth) on view at the University of Texas at Arlington from October 15 through November 17.
Debra Barrera utilizes a wide variety of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography and sculpture, to examine issues and subject matter as varied as her techniques. Consumerism, technology, identity and culture, male/female idealizations, and reimagining the art historical canon are all themes she addresses through her varied art making processes. As she states, “Often I use both formal (hyper detailed drawing) and informal (found object/ephemeral sculpture) … to create layers of spatial, historical, and conceptual information for a viewer that can be guardedly deceptive and willingly vulnerable at once.”
Debra was born in Corpus Christi and currently lives and works in Houston, Texas. She received Bachelor’s degrees in both Studio Art and English from the University of Texas at Austin, and an MFA in painting from the University of Houston. Her work has been included in many exhibitions, including solo exhibitions in Houston at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Moody Gallery, and the Blaffer Art Museum, and at Interim Gallery in Oakland, CA. She recently completed a residency and installation for Rice University which is now included in its permanent collection. Her work can also be found in other public collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas.
Angela Kallus’s acrylic paintings of ‘roses’ and drawings of old mass-market paperback booklets at first glance read as meticulously crafted lessons in form. A second look suggests a variety of conceptual possibilities and potential narratives, which the artist intentionally leaves up to the viewer’s imagination and interpretation. She states that she believes, “it is not only the purview but the responsibility (and hopefully the pleasure) of the viewer to determine the “signified” of my signifiers: the ‘roses,’ the books, the words, the images, etc… it’s all right there in front of you…”
Angela was born in Dallas and currently resides in Fort Worth, Texas. She teaches drawing at the University of Texas at Arlington where she earned her BFA in 1998. In 2003, she earned her MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Since then, her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in California, Nevada and Texas, and in group exhibitions throughout the country, including Las Vegas Diaspora curated by Dave Hickey, which traveled from the Las Vegas Art Museum to the Laguna Art Museum. She was an artist-in-residence at the LUX Art Institute in Encinitas, California in 2016, and was a finalist for the Hunting Art Prize in 2013, 2014 and 2016. She is represented by Peter Mendenhall Gallery in Los Angeles, CA and her work is included in many private collections and public collections such as the Las Vegas Art Museum, the Marjorie Barrick Museum, the Smith Center of the Performing Arts, and the City of Las Vegas.
In association with the exhibition, the artists will discuss their work in an hour-long gallery talk on Thursday, October 18 beginning at 12:30 pm in The Gallery at UTA. There will be a reception on Friday, October 19 from 5:30 to 8 pm with brief remarks by both artists beginning at 6:30 pm. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.
Gallery hours are 10 am until 5 pm Monday through Friday and noon until 5 pm on Saturday. The Gallery is located in the Fine Art Building, room 169, at 502 S. Cooper Street, Arlington, TX. For more information, contact Benito Huerta or Patricia Healy (817) 272-5658 or www.uta.edu/gallery.
The 2018- 2019 exhibition schedule is made possible by the generous support of Arlington Camera, Art & Art History Department and Students, Hilton Arlington, and Nerwin & Martin.
Image captions:
Debra Barrera, Quintanilla, Rosa, 2018, archival pigment print
Angela Kallus, American Beauty (detail), 2016, acrylic on canvas over panel
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