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Trauma and Response
On view: January 21 – February 19, 2021
The Department of Art and Art History at The University of Texas at San Antonio is pleased to announce Trauma and Response. This exhibtion features the work of Annabel Daou, Joachim West, El Franco Lee II, Heyd Fontenot, and Audrya Flores.
Annabel Daou’s work takes place at the intersection of writing, speech, and non-verbal modes of communication. Her paper- and tape-based constructions, sound pieces, and performances explore the language of power, intimacy and self-encounter. Among her interests is our intangible relationship to time and presence. Daou’s work is often constructed out of lightweight, seemingly ephemeral materials that both indicate and resist a sense of objecthood. Her performances and sound pieces frequently involve interactions with random strangers, and the process of asking questions and recording or transcribing the answers. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Daou lives and works in New York.
Joachim West, a first-generation American of Spanish-Jewish descent, was born in Connecticut in 1985 and currently resides in Galveston, Texas. Joachim earned an MFA in Producción Artística from La Universidad Politécnica de Valencia in Spain and a BA in Art & Performance from The University of Texas at Dallas. Joachim's work has at times captured the attention of the press both nationally and internationally. His work has been featured on CBS News, Yahoo News, Channel 5 News UK, Artnet, the Dallas Morning News, The Independent, D Magazine, The Dallas Observer, Arts & Culture and numerous other publications. Joachim's work has been displayed at the Meadows Museum of Art and at various other private and public art spaces nationally and internationally. Joachim's work was included in a tribute show to Lee Baxter Davis at the Meadows Museum of Art, an artist whose teaching has produced artists such as Trenton Doyle Hancock, Gary Panter, Robyn O’neil and Georganne Deen. Joachim has shown internationally and has been included in the Huntington Art Exhibition twice. He has been selected for solo shows, group and juried exhibitions in both the United States and outside of the United States, including exhibitions curated by Trenton Doyle Hancock, Wouter Van Loo, Benito Huerta, Aaron Parazette and Joan Davidow.
El Franco Lee, II is a resident and native son of Houston, Texas. During his formative years in the public and parochial schools of Houston, El Franco's artistic abilities were duly acknowledged by Houston Independent School District, the Archdiocese of Galveston Houston, Houston Livestock and Rodeo, and Glassell School of Art. El Franco’s solo and juried exhibitions have included, Gift of the Spirit (A partnership of JPMorgan Chase and Art League Houston); Project Row Houses - Houston, Texas; Angstrom Gallery - Dallas, Texas; Siebert Brandford Shank & Co., LLC Public Finance Summit – Napa Valley, California; Contemporary Arts Museum – Houston, Texas; Romo Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia; G Gallery – Houston, Texas; University of Houston Project Gallery; Blaffer Gallery – Houston, Texas; Yale University - Annual Art Barn Exhibit – Norfolk, Connecticut; Diverse Works Gallery Art Space – Houston, Texas. The future for El Franco will certainly encompass more of his “Urban Mannerist Pop Art” on a larger scale. You can also expect a recommence for his love of sculpting and comic book characters.
Heyd Fontenot, multimedia artist, is attracted to subjects possessed of discomforting or undefinable qualities. His drawn and painted portraits of unclothed subjects reveal the nuances of idiosyncratic expression and the delicacies of our humanness. Fontenot’s film and video work tends to narcotize and disorient. The artist renounces commonplace narrative conventions in an effort to destabilize, making way for individual epiphany and revelation. Borrowing themes and images from fraternal secret societies, rodeos, brothels, places of worship and interior design showrooms, Fontenot works with a rotating cast of actors and models to fabricate ceremonial dramas and consumer indoctrinations. The artist slyly undermines all that is good and holy about middle-class respectability to reveal mythical America as both oppressive and alluring. His on-going video project Flaming Critters follows the adventures of a fictitious social club who dabble in Luciferianism. Fontenot’s mid-career survey exhibition “The Very Queer Portraits of Heyd Fontenot,” traveled to the University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland), Rollins College (Winter Park, Florida), and Allegheny College (Meadville, Pennsylvania). He is represented by Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Texas; and is currently an artist-fellow at Tulsa Artists Fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Audrya Flores is a Tejana artist, educator, and mother from Brownsville, Texas who creates assemblage and installation work exploring themes of healing. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Education from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has exhibited at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Mexic-Arte Museum, Lady Base Gallery, Provenance Gallery, Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival, and Centro de Artes. Flores lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. Flores repurposes textiles and organic materials for her portraits and installation work. The mystical images in her work are influenced by dreams, spirituality, the occult, and her roots in the border town of Brownsville, Texas. Using the story-telling traditions of her family, she addresses trauma, mental health, and issues of identity. She explores and documents her own healing processes as a way to promote awareness and solidarity.
'Trauma and Response' featured in UTSA Today
'Trauma and Response' featured in Glasstire's Top Five: January 2021 as number 1.
