02/25/12 – 03/31/12

Bill Haveron, Baptism by Fire
William Powhida, Seditions
Jeff Gibbons, Humming Music and Grinding Teeth

An opening reception with the artists will be held Saturday, February 25, 2012 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

on view through March 31

LARGE GALLERY
Bill Haveron
Baptism by Fire

The MAC is pleased to announce a retrospective exhibition of Bill Haveron’s artistic career in Texas. Haveron, a true Texas original, works out of his studio in Bryan, Texas where he was born and raised. Haveron’s artwork is influenced by his experiences as a young child growing up in rural Texas. Undertones of folk and popular culture create a visual language that conveys vignettes of good and evil, imaginary worlds and various mythological interpretations. Masterfully rendered, these works immediately invite the viewer to decipher reality from fiction. The retrospective exhibition at The MAC is in conjunction with Haveron’s solo exhibition of new works, Optic Nerve at Kirk Hopper Fine Art, opening February 18, 2012. For information regarding Optic Nerve please contact Kirk Hopper Fine Art.

Bill Haveron has a long history of exhibiting in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Solo exhibitions include Gerald Peters in Dallas, Texas and the Contemporary Art Center of Fort Worth in Fort Worth, Texas. Group exhibitions include the Museum of San Francisco in San Francisco, California and the Meadows Museum of Art in Dallas, Texas. Haveron has work in the permanent collections of museums such as the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, El Paso Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Austin and the de Young Art Museum in San Francisco, California. Bill Haveron is represented by Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas, Texas.

SQUARE GALLERY
William Powhida
Seditions

Seditions, an exhibition of work by Brooklyn artist William Powhida, will feature a combination of original and editioned pieces in the artist’s well-known trompe l’oeil style. Powhida uses a combination of graphite, gouache and colored pencil on panel or paper to create these illusionary images. For several years, Powhida worked as an art critic for the Brooklyn Rail while developing his own artistic practice. Powhida’s work, reflecting his critical background, concentrates on the politics of access and the powers that control the assignment of value in the contemporary art world. All roles are fair game from hot young artists and the market-setting collectors that buy them, to the branded dealers that sell the work and the critics paid to provide intellectual justification for price points. To soften what might appear a direct editorial voice, Powhida projects his commentary through the lens of an alter-ego, one with whom he shares a name (William Powhida). This alter-ego closely resembles any number of young art stars, though Powhida’s character happens to exhibit all of the worst traits imaginable in any coddled ‘genius’. The fictional Powhida expresses himself by documenting his manifold frustrations, frequently in lists, which Powhida the artist channels into his legendary drawings.

William Powhida (b. 1976) is an artist living and working in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Powhida earned his Bachelor of Fine Art in painting from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York and his Master of Fine Art in painting from Hunter College in New York, New York. Powhida has exhibited solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally with galleries such as Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles, California, Platform Gallery in Seattle, Washington and Marlborough Chelsea in New York, New York. Powhida is represented by Charlie James Gallery in Los Angeles and Postmasters Gallery in New York.

William Powhida interview with A+C Magazine

New Works Space
Jeff Gibbons
Humming Music and Grinding Teeth

Humming Music and Grinding Teeth, an exhibition by local DFW artist Jeff Gibbons, will consist of an installation in the New Works Space and a video to be screened in one of The MAC’s theater spaces. The exhibition focuses on an individual’s life long search for identity. Gibbons is interested in the many layers of self-identity, how it is formed and how it is, or is not, understood by the individual. Gibbons states, “This search for identity, along with our wanted understanding of truth, puts us into a constantly changing mental transience where we chase ourselves into death, never turning to shake our own hand and say, “Nice to meet you.” It is in this way that we are alone, even to ourselves.” This concept manifests into a visual exhibition of various objects that serve as metaphors for the passage of time. The video component is a psychological exploration into memory and states of being within the banality or action of day to day life.

Jeff Gibbons is an artist living and working in Arlington, Texas. Gibbons completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics at the University of Tampa, Tampa, Florida. Gibbons is currently enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program at The University of Texas Arlington, Arlington, Texas. Gibbons has recently participated in a number of group exhibitions including “Art in the Metroplex” at TCU Gallery in Ft. Worth, Texas and “Wunderkammer” at Conduit Gallery in Dallas, Texas.

In conjunction with his exhibition, Jeff Gibbons will also be screening his film Humming Music and Grinding Teeth at several times during the run of the exhibition.