Madre Tierra: San Antonio

From representational paintings, surrealistic works on paper, photographs, silkscreens, and intimate mixed-media abstractions, Madre Tierra will take viewers on a journey through visual styles and thematic experiences of the landscape. Featuring Nate Cassie, Alejandro Diaz, Andrés Ferrandis, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Matt Kleberg, Leigh Anne Lester, Constance Lowe, Katie Pell, Chuck Ramirez, Daniel Rios Rodriguez, Frank Romero, Eric Santoscoy-McKillip, Ethel Shipton, and Einar and Jamex de la Torre, the exhibition will be on view until September 7th, 2024, at our San Antonio gallery. 

Working in multiple mediums, Nate Cassie explores the natural world, seeking to capture moments of liminality while discovering ways to physically transcribe a view's ethereal and emotional qualities through layers of encaustic wax. Coming Down the Mountain exemplifies the importance of color choice in abstraction. The simple yet vibrant palette, coupled with the broad expanses of shapes and mottled texture, challenge the viewer's perspective and imagine the details of this landscape. 

Portales is a meditation on passageways, both physical and metaphorical. It prompts reflection on how barriers can be traversed, transformed, and ultimately transcended. In each print, viewers are invited to peer through these fragile openings and perhaps glimpse our interconnectedness.

Blown glass sculptures, shrunken heads, palm trees, grapes, colonial soldiers, organic shapes, gold chains, and pendants make up the ‘scenery’ of this sculptural work by Einar and Jamex de la Torre. The de la Torre brothers use their blended skills to combine cultures and carefully chosen objects with humor, vibrant color choices, and exaggerated expressions. The artists label the work as “multi-layered Baroque,” with influences ranging from religious iconography to German expressionism while paying homage to Mexican vernacular arts and pre-Columbian art.

“Another big theme is the potential aura that art can have, that mysterious electric charge, and the fragility or limitations of that charge. Making paintings feels like alchemy, attempting to elevate the mundane. I’m interested in that as subject matter, this marriage of high and low, like the mechanic shop with an overly ornamental facade or the fish market with the elaborately arched gate”- Matt Kleberg

Ethel Shipton's artistic practice is rooted in observing everyday situations and considering the linguistic conditionality and narrative created through present text.  In this context, viewers of the artwork could have completely different reflections based on personal experiences and backgrounds. Similarly, Chuck Ramirez’s Words Series explores the relationship between text and its impact on the viewer’s interpretation of an image. In this series, text is superimposed on top of an image that either describes the image, highlights a specific detail, or creates a new meaning. Ramirez challenges viewers to look beyond their first impression through this diametric relationship of text and imagery. 

 “In my text-based series, words get attached to paintings as part of the creative process. In some of my pieces, words integrate as an ensemble, like subtitles on a film, in order to better comprehend and understand the artwork as a whole hybrid piece.” -  Andrés Ferrandis

In Border Platicas with Flowers Listening, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood uses acrylic paint and a permanent marker on an unstretched canvas to illustrate a Mesoamerican-styled narrative that connects two similar figures by a circular trail of footsteps overlayed by opaque imagery of flowers and barbed wire. “Border platicas” roughly translates to “border talks” and suggests the figures represent people or leaders of different places conversing across the barbed division.

Leigh Anne Lester's work investigates the birth of genetic modification and its after-effects. In her work, she uses meticulous layering and collaging to mimic the distorting effect of genetic modification. Overlapping and fusing the detailed foliage with more bold, abstracted forms, "[her] personal interpretation of genetic modification paired with masterful draftsmanship and the incorporation of other media has brought a 21st-century aesthetic to the long-established botanical drawing tradition." - Patricia Ruiz-Healy, Ph.D.