Slipstream

Curated works by Susie Kalil
May 28-August 6, 2016
Opening reception Saturday, May 28, 6:30 pm
Artists will be in attendance

Kirk Hopper Fine Art is excited to announce our upcoming group exhibition, Slipstream. Curator Susie Kalil has assembled artists who use drawing in the most direct and confrontational manner. The exhibition will feature works from Jorge Alegría, Lois Dodd, Bill Haveron, Mary Jenewein, Angelbert Metoyer, Lynn Randolph, Noriko Shinohara, James Surls, Emmi Whitehorse and Roger Winter. A special coda to the exhibiton is the inclusion of two important drawings by Alexandre Hogue (1898-1994).

Bill Haveron, Why Don't You Wear This Dress Anymore?, 2016, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 48" x 72"

Slipstream crosses conventional genre boundaries between fantasy, the surreal, even literary fiction—worlds within worlds, and the strangeness of living in the 21st century. Kalil states, "we are inundated by techno gimmickry, but these artists use the most direct means possible—pencil, charcoal, and ink on paper—as a conduit for innermost beliefs, obsessions and visions. It will be an opportunity to push viewers out of their comfort zones, shift contexts and reaffirm fierce, draw-no-quarter instincts."

Simply, Slipstream is not just another works on paper show—it's focused on full throttle drawing, an aim to return viewers to an encounter realized physically as well aesthetically and intellectually—a gut level transaction that's a far cry from the constitutional laziness that pulls the art establishment towards blandness and hype. These drawings defy branding, commercial marketing or the mainstream, but come from an obesessive need to bare one's soul, or tell a story, or serve as connective tissues for issues of spirituality, life and death, cultural malaise and environmental fragility. Drawings that emit courage—because nobody is asking the tough questions.

Susie Kalil is a former Core Fellow in Critical Studies at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Kalil co-curated (with Barbara Rose) the landmark exhibtion Fresh Paint: The Houston School and curated The Texas Landscape: 1900-1986. Most recently, she has authored and curated the award winning monograph and retrospective, Alexandre Hogue: American Visionary, as well as Dorothy Hood: The Color of Being, among other publications and exhibitions. Kalil is also a frequent contributor to publications including Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Cite, and Sculpture, she previously served as managing editor of the journal Artlies and Houston Center for Photography's Spot Magazine.