Sound
to show a 'tilted Texas'
By KIRSTEN CROW
LAREDO MORNING TIMES
Published: Friday, March 27, 2009 3:57 AM CDT
In the tradition of Sound Art Space, 206 W. Ryan St., the warehouse-turned-gallery is once again opening its doors Saturday to a nontraditional show: "Tu Amor Es Un Bumpy Road."Featuring Ricky
Armendariz, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and George Zupp, an artist with a near-legendary status from San Marcos, the show is "Tex-Mex art turned on its side," according to curator Jorge Luis Lopez.
He described the work of Zupp - also popularly known as "Chicken George" - as using somewhat traditional ranch scenes but incorporating some dark, strange elements "like Edvard Munch, but from Texas," while Armendariz is "really bright.
His colors are so shiny and lacquered."
"I like the contrast," Lopez said.
"It's almost like a skew of Texas."
The show is set to be a one-night-only event.
Open to the public and with free admission, the exhibition begins at 9 p.m. Saturday.
By KIRSTEN CROW
LAREDO MORNING TIMES
Published: Friday, March 27, 2009 3:57 AM CDT
In the tradition of Sound Art Space, 206 W. Ryan St., the warehouse-turned-gallery is once again opening its doors Saturday to a nontraditional show: "Tu Amor Es Un Bumpy Road."Featuring Ricky
Armendariz, a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and George Zupp, an artist with a near-legendary status from San Marcos, the show is "Tex-Mex art turned on its side," according to curator Jorge Luis Lopez.
He described the work of Zupp - also popularly known as "Chicken George" - as using somewhat traditional ranch scenes but incorporating some dark, strange elements "like Edvard Munch, but from Texas," while Armendariz is "really bright.
His colors are so shiny and lacquered."
"I like the contrast," Lopez said.
"It's almost like a skew of Texas."
The show is set to be a one-night-only event.
Open to the public and with free admission, the exhibition begins at 9 p.m. Saturday.
++++++++++
In a
warehouse in Laredo Texas, Sound Art Space exists. Two artists from San
Antonio and San Marcos traveled to display a body of work that touches
on the Border, romance, and paranoia.
"Tu amor es un bumpy road"
" I would characterize the paintings for the show, , both of us, as inspired Tex/Mex , something suggested as "Murder ballets sung by a drunken cholo wondering the border after a car crash". Looking at our work together as a whole, there are about twelve pieces in the show, our work fits good together. Artists as verse pitchers or coded messages. Ricky's view comes from looking in to the sky and i view it looking at the ground, or at least that is the vantage point of the viewer. When I asked Ricky if he wanted to do this show, knowing it would be allot of work, it couldn't be just any artist who would want to do this sort of show. It had to be somebody who has spent time on the Border and liked the atmosphere it possesses. Ricky, grew up in El Paso, and I in Houston. But, both of us have this romance for west Texas and Mexico, as this place draw upon for inspiration. The body of work i presented cuts images from a running rooster to a drinking Freddy Krueger, a shirtless pissed off guy. To whom all could have been fitted into the Border's setting. Lost twilighted roadside crashes, sand dust, a movie sets called "Crow Town", scorned love and smoky carnival nights. Its all very male and as an artist i feel fitting for the territory it rests in, its owes nothing to nobody outside the Border. For my work and maybe some of Rickys we both like popular culture. For me this being movie or song inspired paintings. All the paintings i made have at least one common movie reference. "The Streets of Laredo" or "Apocalicto" could be spotted as a source along with the "Nightmare on Elm street". Why movies? romantics like to reenact things or rescue things from being forgotten, its the old man that would talk about old flames or fights. Movies and songs have been embedded into our perspective and shape what the West could have been, this in regards to art. As the West (in this case the Border) dwindles down or changes the desire to raise the flag and establish a tradition is created in art. Now whether its a worth while subject is irrelevant as long as its made(Paintings), that's all that counts and the thing just doesn't up and die but, reinvent itself.
George Zupp-FEB-2009
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Just some thoughts on “ Tu amor es un bumpy road”…
The title of this exhibition comes from a hook to a song I wrote. In addition to making large painted and carved “conceptual landscapes”, I write lyrics and hooks for Tejano and country-western music that serve as inspiration for my art work.
I’m very interested in fools for love, heartbroken love ballads, and cheating hearts, the kind of songs where your 57 Chevy leaves you stranded in the rain as you’re making your getaway from your crazy ruca. These are not new themes; this sort of stuff has been happening for years in many creative art fields from Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Charles Bukowski, Hank Williams Sr., to Wayne Hancock…
I was born and raised in El Paso, Tejas. This life experience comes on strong in my work. Big skies and profound sunset have been the basis of my attempt at rejuvenating the genre of “landscape painting”.
The Piece “Tiburon Love” is a nod to term “land shark” and my 57 Chevy, custom car “kulture”, and lots of long and dusty roads I’ve driven in Tejas.
“Soy un bad man” features a Mopar peeling out on a background of a violent crimson sunset.
“Agua Fairy” has an image of a contemporary curandera riding a moped dispensing lifesaving agua to those who cross the border.
“Tried by the desert sun, I’m left with scales for skin” shows an immigration agent with binoculars and an Apache helicopter.
“In the desert morning, I am thankful to still be wearing my pants” shows a menacing Apache helicopter hovering in a fiery sunrise framed by ornate foliage lifted from a typical tooling design. The title is carved over and over again in this framing.
El futuro es sin fronteras.
Ricky Armendariz.
+_+_+_+_+_+__+
Back
Main
Next show is ?, --
 El futuro es sin fronteras. |
 "Crow Town" |
 "No Matter How many nightmare you make you cann't put her back together again" |
 “Soy un bad man” |
 “Agua Fairy” |
 "Its along road that has no end" |
 "Aftermath of a Dust Devil" |
 "Tried by the desert sun, I’m left with scales for skin” |
 “In the desert morning, I am thankful to still be wearing my pants” |
 Each of these drawing went with on of the paintings i made. |
"Tu amor es un bumpy road"
" I would characterize the paintings for the show, , both of us, as inspired Tex/Mex , something suggested as "Murder ballets sung by a drunken cholo wondering the border after a car crash". Looking at our work together as a whole, there are about twelve pieces in the show, our work fits good together. Artists as verse pitchers or coded messages. Ricky's view comes from looking in to the sky and i view it looking at the ground, or at least that is the vantage point of the viewer. When I asked Ricky if he wanted to do this show, knowing it would be allot of work, it couldn't be just any artist who would want to do this sort of show. It had to be somebody who has spent time on the Border and liked the atmosphere it possesses. Ricky, grew up in El Paso, and I in Houston. But, both of us have this romance for west Texas and Mexico, as this place draw upon for inspiration. The body of work i presented cuts images from a running rooster to a drinking Freddy Krueger, a shirtless pissed off guy. To whom all could have been fitted into the Border's setting. Lost twilighted roadside crashes, sand dust, a movie sets called "Crow Town", scorned love and smoky carnival nights. Its all very male and as an artist i feel fitting for the territory it rests in, its owes nothing to nobody outside the Border. For my work and maybe some of Rickys we both like popular culture. For me this being movie or song inspired paintings. All the paintings i made have at least one common movie reference. "The Streets of Laredo" or "Apocalicto" could be spotted as a source along with the "Nightmare on Elm street". Why movies? romantics like to reenact things or rescue things from being forgotten, its the old man that would talk about old flames or fights. Movies and songs have been embedded into our perspective and shape what the West could have been, this in regards to art. As the West (in this case the Border) dwindles down or changes the desire to raise the flag and establish a tradition is created in art. Now whether its a worth while subject is irrelevant as long as its made(Paintings), that's all that counts and the thing just doesn't up and die but, reinvent itself.
George Zupp-FEB-2009
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Just some thoughts on “ Tu amor es un bumpy road”…
The title of this exhibition comes from a hook to a song I wrote. In addition to making large painted and carved “conceptual landscapes”, I write lyrics and hooks for Tejano and country-western music that serve as inspiration for my art work.
I’m very interested in fools for love, heartbroken love ballads, and cheating hearts, the kind of songs where your 57 Chevy leaves you stranded in the rain as you’re making your getaway from your crazy ruca. These are not new themes; this sort of stuff has been happening for years in many creative art fields from Louis-Ferdinand Céline to Charles Bukowski, Hank Williams Sr., to Wayne Hancock…
I was born and raised in El Paso, Tejas. This life experience comes on strong in my work. Big skies and profound sunset have been the basis of my attempt at rejuvenating the genre of “landscape painting”.
The Piece “Tiburon Love” is a nod to term “land shark” and my 57 Chevy, custom car “kulture”, and lots of long and dusty roads I’ve driven in Tejas.
“Soy un bad man” features a Mopar peeling out on a background of a violent crimson sunset.
“Agua Fairy” has an image of a contemporary curandera riding a moped dispensing lifesaving agua to those who cross the border.
“Tried by the desert sun, I’m left with scales for skin” shows an immigration agent with binoculars and an Apache helicopter.
“In the desert morning, I am thankful to still be wearing my pants” shows a menacing Apache helicopter hovering in a fiery sunrise framed by ornate foliage lifted from a typical tooling design. The title is carved over and over again in this framing.
El futuro es sin fronteras.
Ricky Armendariz.
+_+_+_+_+_+__+
Back
Main
Next show is ?, --