An installation by Natasha Bowdoin and selected works by Anthony Sonnenberg

September 19– November 21

Located at Total Plaza in Houston, Texas.

What does it mean to grow wild…to grow without restraint, to grow with abandon, to grow with no limitations, to possibly grow excessively? It is in the tantalizing unstructured surprises that we, in fact, encounter the pattern of nature, its redundancy enmeshed with continual change. We enter Natasha Bowdoin’s exuberant garden with the happiness of an uncomplicated child. And it is in the midst of accumulated layers of color and form that we discover both growth and decay. The spirit of the natural world articulatesin a new and often surprising grammar telling its very own tale. Incorporating a variety of literary sources, Bowdoin reflects, “My paper sculptures and installations interweave, overlay and merge these transcriptions with organic and geometric patterns to present a new experience of the written word, celebrating language and story as more of a primordial event than a codified system. My translation is a visual process, seeking to make a piece that is somehow permeable, liberated from language’s structural expectations.” Her work is a visual manifestation of verse, not the illustration of the word. Bowdoin received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA in 2007 and a BA in Classics and Studio Art from Brandeis University, Waltham, MA in 2003. Born and raised in Maine, she now lives and works in Houston, TX where she is an Assistant Professor in Drawing and Painting at Rice University.

Anthony Sonnenberg, through the dramatic and elaborate ornamentation of his ceramic works, critiques what he observes as the cycle of denial and decadence, of restraint and uncontrolled exuberance inherent in his life experiences. “Decadence”, he believes, “is a by-product of our attempt to cope with the fear of uncertainty. We build screens of over-abundance and hide behind fantasies to try and forget our seemingly cruel and unavoidable fate. A fate, which, more often than not, is self-imposed.” Sonnenberg’s works embody a contagious organic energy constantly tantalizing and providing opportunity for discovery and new interpretation. The drama and tension inherent in his works is soothed by the overlay of flowers, pearls, plants, animals, and figures all disguised to some extent by the independent nature of dripping clay before it is frozen in place by the extraordinary heat of the kiln. Sonnenberg was enrolled in the University of Texas Study Abroad Program in Castilion Fiorentino, Italy in 2007. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Washington, Seattle in 2012, and his BA Art Studio with an emphasis in Italian and Art History from the University of Texas Austin in 2009. Anthony Sonnenberg lives in Houston, TX and currently is an Adjunct Professor at Lone Star College.

Curated by Sally Reynolds

In cooperation with the artists, Art Palace Gallery Houston, and Tally Dunn Gallery Dallas

Photographs by Dawn Baxter