College Expo 2021 Virtual Exhibition
500X is proud to announce the College Expo 2021 and congratulations to all the selected artists! This year's juror is Valerie Gillespie, Owner of Pencil on Paper Gallery!!
Due to the delay from last week’s inclement weather, College Expo 2021 will run from February 27th to March 21st. The virtual reception was held on Saturday, February 27th at 5-7 pm where we announced the juror’s choice awards and solo show winner.
Juror’s choice awards are cash prizes in addition to one artist selected for a solo show in our Project Space during the 2021-2022 season! Congrats to Maria, Paul, and Hannah!
Juror Choice Award Artists:
Maria Haag - Solo show award winner
Paul Armstrong
Hannah Purvis
Accepted Artists:
Alia Shaban Maisie Varner
Karla Zamarripa Jesse Lay
Cesar Garay Arthur Mangum
Paul Armstrong Aaron Pozos
Hannah Purvis Shellye Tow
Aliyah Cydonia Emily Potts
Anna Galluzzi Dejion Duncan
Kiara Daniels Hanieh Mandanirad
Maria Haag David Silva
Natalie Lambert Annie Adams
Ken Portnoy
Victoria Gonzales
Destiny Ortiz
Beronica Gonzales
Leian Shaer
About this year's juror, Valerie Gillespie:
Dr. Valerie Bennett Gillespie was born in Austin, Texas and grew up in Dallas. She completed her undergraduate degree at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia where she majored in Studio Art with a concentration in Spanish. She attended the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela during her year abroad and completed her Master's degree in Studio Art at New York University. Valerie is currently the Director of Visual & Performing Arts at the Winston School in Dallas and recently received her doctorate in Educational Leadership. She was a finalist for the Hunting Art Prize in 2011 and exhibited her series, "Motherhood" at the African American Museum in 2013. Her first solo show of her “Colorism” series was exhibited at the Arthello Beck Gallery in Dallas. This past year, Valerie’s series, “Rise and Fall” was featured in New York at Kimmel Galleries in Greenwich Village. Valerie works with collage and mixed mediums along with text in order to create views of social and cultural phenomena. Through her work, Valerie deconstructs the ideas surrounding identity and most recently in one of her current series, "Rise and Fall," a glimpse into the realities of the human condition. Recently, Valerie exhibited her 2020 "Becoming" series at College Town Renaissance Center in Arlington, The George W. Bush Presidential Center and currently at Msanii HOUS Fine Art in Carrollton.
Alia Shaban
Selection from the Suntan Series #1 (1 of 11), Cyanotype on hot press paper, $150.00, 2020
Artist Statement:
I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of implied lines and shapes. Our eyes can look at an area of dots that aren’t even touching and our brains can translate that into a shape. If there are enough dots giving enough information our eyes can take that and translate it into a recognizable image. What’s even more interesting is the curiosity that something like pointillism invokes upon its viewers. Maybe at a first glance it just looks like an organic shape, a non-representational cluster of marks, but upon further inspection your brain puts the information together and now you can see the image. It’s almost impossible to unsee it once you do. Or maybe you do see the image right away, but then you get closer, and focus in on the fact that it's all just a bunch of dots. You’re staring at hundreds and hundreds of strategically placed dots.
Instagram: @AliaFitzsimons
Karla Zamarripa
Gorditas pa’l Camino, Acrylic on Gessoed Canvas, $300, 2020
Artist Statement:
Creating art allows me to discover the value of the subjects I choose to represent through a variety of practices including drawing, painting, and sculpture. While I mostly paint and draw, I like to experiment with different distinctive materials such as coffee, found objects, cardboard to create work that explores the value of these materials. The search for value of the materials reflects the search for value in the subjects, thus material and subject are metaphorically connected. My artwork is usually that, a search for value of what is usually unseen and making it seen and valued. I especially am interested in the culture I come from and its humility. I also work a lot with revisiting memories. My artwork consists of unsaturated colors, earth tones, and pastels to bring out its vulnerability and its relationship with the natural world.
The creativity I use stems from sustainable practices my parents and grandparents adopted out of poverty in Mexico. My grandparents upcycled, reused, and reduced because they could not afford to waste and needed to sustain their large families. Because of limited resources, my parents as children used creativity with leftover material and uncommon objects to create and play. As a child when I visited, I did the same using found objects to make my own creations and play. It was in this environment where I found myself to be the most creative. I seek to continue the practice of using uncommon objects and devalued subjects not only to appreciate and honor the practice done that ultimately allowed my existence but to make the practice of art unlimited. The idea that anyone can make art with anything removes constraints on art and extends the possibilities of what is considered art and who can be considered an artist
Instagram: @karlagalletillaart
Cesar Garay
It is all Related, Charcoal, Ink, $600, 2020
Artist Statement:
Ive always been a gregarious individual, making friends with anyone and everyone. Between my peers, I am consistently the “advice guru” or as I like to tell them “a walking talking diary”. Maybe it is because I listen to their problems and approach them with a logical and an empathetic mindset. My interest of people, their emotions, faults, and growth let most of the work that I create revolve around the human condition. Some of my work is more logical and geometric, which I believe is the Architect inside my subconscious. Other times it is free and creative and wants to push the boundaries. Regardless, all my work involves humanity in some way.
Website: www.cesargaraystudio.com
Instagram: @c3s_4rt
Paul Armstrong: $100 cash prize
Palette, oil on canvas, 12 x 36 in, $300 (SOLD), 2019
Artist Statement:
My work serves as an exploration of painting as a practice and what it means fundamentally to represent, especially in the case of identity and the figure. In my process, I seek out what I consider the liminal spaces in painting, playing in the space between representation and abstraction, or between portraying identity and representing the form as an object. I take inspiration in my marks from graffiti script and from familiar patterns and forms in the natural world.
Website: www.PaulArmstrongArt.com
Instagram: @paularmstrongart
Hannah Purvis: $100 cash prize
Bubbles, Oil on Canvas, $1,600, 2020
Artist Statement:
My paintings are abstract works of both the body and portraiture that explore themes of identity, time, and technology components. While each series of work varies in color consistency and different levels of abstraction, my work as a whole is linked by consistency in style and process. My process involves layering and blending multiple images to create compelling and complex imagery that explores the complicated relationship that we as human beings have with technology. Being dyslexic as an artist, I can relate to the complexity of the fractured imagery that I am creating in my paintings. In addition to this, I can also relate to the process of viewing a painting that forces you to take your time and understanding the content as a whole.
My paintings often reference a glitch and explore my interest in our connection as human beings with our advancing modern technology.Our lives are becoming increasingly entwined in technology and the digital world, and I am exploring this idea further by creating a series of works that addresses and shows the influences of the digital with a tangible art such as oil painting. This mixes both organic human portraits and tech to create paintings that relates to current technology. By layering multiple images and colors, I am creating art that is relatable to the viewer, now more than ever, living in a world consumed with increased technical manipulation of the human environment.
Website: www.Hannahpurvis.com
Instagram: @hannahpurvisart_
Aliyah Cydonia
Mar, Oil on paper, $200, 2020
Artist Statement:
In my work I am allowed complete control, in what I say, what I want and also keeping in mind the ideas of “Will I somehow find myself in this?”. The way I see it is, what does my subconscious have to say for itself? Inspiration can come from any and everything, my main source for inspiration is talking. I’ll ramble on for hours, allowing myself to get the unfinished thoughts out. I want my art to tell people that they are not alone, in the unknown abyss. I’ve been working with oil painting for a year now, I’m excited to try new mediums throughout the years. Although, for right now oils have been satisfying the itch.
Website: https://aliyahscobey.wixsite.com/aliyahcydoniaart
Instagram: @notaliyahcydonia
Anna Galluzzi
The Summer of Guns & Rubber Bullets, ink, gouache, and acrylic paint on paper, $200.00, 2020
Artist Statement:
Color and pattern are a device I use for coping with anxiety within my mixed media work. The physical act of making a piece functions as cathartic release.I approach the idea of painting in a very broad sense and consider any mark making material as an extension to traditional painting. I consider my work a contemporary revisit to the Pattern and Decoration movement and am inspired by literature, popular culture, and all things weird.
My current body of work implements bright color combinations inspired by the overly saturated internet. Bringing the color and elements from the digital world into the physical realm gives me a sense of control and enables me to contribute to a visual conversation. Although using intense rich color can give the impression that everything is okay, each piece is deeply rooted in anxiety and trauma.
When designing motifs, I am inspired by textile patterns, embroidery stitches, biology, and language. Verbal language is often insufficient in expressing my physical experiences alone, but by implementing a visual code in combination with words I create my own visual language to impart visceral feelings. For instance, I carve binary code into clay to convey a thought without it being apparent to the viewer, creating a pattern much like one would stitching. In the same vein, I incorporate specific embroidery techniques, such as the chain stitch, to emulate traditional feminine craft, while simultaneously transforming these fabric patterns into a metaphor that symbolizes my lived experience.
Website: www.Agalluzziart.com
Instagram: @annagalluzzi
Kiara Daniels
Transience, Ballpoint, acrylic. Ink, collage and block print, $600/OBO
Artist Statement:
Our relationships with ourselves and with others are what lead us through life. How these relationships evolve changes with us and our journeys, especially for those with mental illnesses. Dissociation is a powerful symptom of these illnesses and something that personally resonates with me as I struggle with it regularly. Using color and texture to explore the way dissociation affects me I want to show those who also struggle with this symptom that they are not alone and educate those who do not.
Website: kiaradanielsart.wixsite.com/folio
Instagram: @kiara.daniels.art
Maria Haag: $100 cash prize + 2022 Solo Show Award Winner
We are whisperers before the silent one, collage, charcoal, oil, wax pastel, gesso and shellac on paper, 33” x 60”, $1,200.00, 2020
Artist Statement:
My practice is focused on the idea of life as an unavoidable journey through which persons and societies are forced to travel. For me, the journey begins with suffering, seen as a sort of storm: a wrenching out of the common through a series of events, active or passive, which create a puncture in what is in order to open space for what could be.
The fragility of things and persons is what inspires my drawings, sweeping lines and crusted layers of paper, charcoal, paint and collage. I draw on my memories of growing up in the American Midwest, watching smoke curl up from burning fields, the green and brown swirling skies giving birth to tornadoes, and the ever-present wind transforming the waving grasses and carving away at the land and its inhabitants.
Website: https://mariahaagart.com/
Instagram: @mariahaagart
Natalie Lambert
Gotta Do What You Gotta Do, Acrylic, ink, gesso, charcoal and pastel on paper, $1,800, 2020
Artist Statement:
I create drawings and oil paintings depicting ambiguous forms that emerge from an achromatic abstract environment. These skin-like forms become characters that portray aspects of primal human behavior. They conquer, consume, control and divide for the sake of survival and to maintain superiority over another. I utilize specific characteristics of drawing and painting media to illustrate the gradual formation of these beings. I begin with a ground composed of lines and masses of ambiguous form in charcoal, a medium associated with human’s first marks. These environments are metaphorical storms of conscience and consciousness that evoke energetic activity but suggest darkness, acrimony and the absence of love. Multiple flesh forms are born out of this space, melded together in paint to create a hybrid creature.
I am drawn to the tactility of skin and fascinated by paint’s ability to be utilized as a chromatic covering. “Covering” can have a devious connotation of hiding something malicious. Conversely, the act of smoothing paint can be seen as nurturing, as in the application of a salve. Fair, rosy-pink voluptuous flesh portraying gluttony in the Rococo art movement influences my palette. Skin in these paintings can be soft, warm and sensual but also inflamed and angry. This series sways from endearing to contentious.
I am intrigued by where the known meets the unknown. These absurd composites of flesh are guided by how a viewer might perceive shapes, colors and surfaces that stimulate connections with their experience. Through the personification of skin through pose and gesture I create a visual language that communicates human behavior. This series represents my process of coping with my current perception of humanity, my complicity in such a system and the difficulty in maintaining love despite dark forces of human behavior.
Website: www.nalambert.com
Instagram: @n.lambertart
Ken Portnoy
Waiting for the Light to Change, Archival Pigment Print, $350, 2016
Artist Statement:
Since retirement four years ago Ken Portnoy has been gratified to find instruction and inspiration in photography from several mentors. Ken began his career as an architect later transitioning into real estate development and investment, so It is no surprise that much of his photographic work involves the play of light and shadow on architectural forms and details. As he says, “I guess you go with your strengths.” He also concentrates on street photography capturing people in their day to day lives and imagining their individual stories. From December 2019 through February 2020 Ken had a one-man show of his work at the Addison Conference Center.
Website: http://www.kenportnoyphoto.com
Victoria Gonzales
It’s Vegan, Oil on Canvas, $1,400, 36”x48”, 2020
Artist Statement:
In my work, I utilize color to explore and meditate energy and space through paint. Color is an instrument to depict my direct observations and faded memories of physical and temporal space. Memories and space blend, layer, and disappear. Through the act of painting, I recreate the experience of being in the world as a participant and observer. Painting is a means to explore the idea of direct action and involuntary observation by manipulating the medium's physicality and allowing room for mark-making's automatic physical function. Process is a foundation of my practice, and the act of painting involves an element of performance. The pushing and pulling of material and imagery creates a physical energy through the action of gesture. This physical energy is captured in the final image and recognizable through the layered evidence of mark-making. The visibility of objects and a particular setting varies. Sometimes the accumulation of objects, people, landscape, architecture, or memories within a space is necessary and dominant. Other times, the representation of accumulation diminishes, and the automatism of mark-making takes over. The abstraction of the tangible and intangible creates a space that expresses my feelings and recollections of the natural world.
Website: www.Victoriagonzales.com
Instagram: @victoriagonzalesart
Destiny Ortiz
Where Am I?, Oil on canvas board, NFS, 2019
Instagram: @destinyyortizz
Beronica Gonzales
My Irrational Fear of Turning Into a Sock on the Sidewalk (Being Forgotten), oil on canvas, hand embroidery, NFS, 2021 (ongoing)
Artist Statement:
My Irrational Fear of Turning Into a Sock on the Sidewalk (Being Forgotten) is about these personal objects (socks) that have been forgotten and left behind that I have been collecting as I come across them in my daily life, never sought out for. The portraits of socks are an embodiment of myself. The process of hand embroidery and hand quilting is a slow meditative state that establishes a connection between my physical self and the personified self I am portraying. The paintings emphasize the environment that the socks are found in, while the quilt, comprised of the actual found socks, acts as a way of recontextualizing these forgotten objects. This piece is ongoing, and I will continue building onto it as a find and collect more socks. The involvement of time is important, and it becomes a greater presence as the piece naturally evolves.
Website: www.beronicagonzales.com
Instagram: @beronicamg
Leian Shaer
Midnight Blue, Photography, $85, 2021
Artist Statement:
What is it about the night that makes it too gloomy to explore? What if we were guaranteed complete safety, when we are outside at night, would that make us trust the moonlight that shines onto the dark? Or are we still going to stay inside? My project called Night Adventure is a series of images that documents light, movement, and space during the night.
Website: www.leianphotograaphy.com
Instagram: @leianshaer
Maisie Varner
Edible Admonition, Acrylic and oil on wood, $100, 2018
Jesse Lay
Investigation, Acrylic on canvas, $2,000, 2020
Artist Statement:
Jesse Lay is an artist currently based in Huntsville, Texas. He is a full time student at Sam Houston State University, full time employee and full time artist. He works in pencil, acrylic, oil, and tempera. Jesse explores his love for people in his portraits and is constantly looking for the truth in their character. He loves to explore the goofy and dramatic side of living while keeping an undertone of reality.
Instagram: @jessedlay
Arthur Mangum
i need friends, ink transfer on wood panel, $150, 2020
Artist Statement:
Arthur Mangum is a 19 year old graphic designer and artist currently attending and majoring in Graphic Design at Sam Houston State University in the small town of Huntsville, Texas. He discovered his passion for graphic design in high school, and his passion for art in different art programs at his university. Mainly working in ink transfers, but not being tied to one medium, he has since been in multiple exhibitions in his small town as well as statewide in Texas, recently scoring a placement in the statewide Rising Eyes of Texas 2021 Exhibition that will take place this March where his work will be seen by thousands as well as sold. Having a deep love and curiosity for the way the world as well as his mind works, he has grown an appreciation for making art that explores and encapsulates the different issues that plague the contemporary world.
Website: https://arthur-mangum.squarespace.com
Instagram: @mangum.art
Aaron Pozos
Higher Ground, Lithograph, $400, 2020
Artist Statement:
Through the use of printmaking and lens-based imagery, my artwork is an attempt to document the present moment through an analysis of material culture. Much of the content I use comes from everyday consumption and physical entities that occupy the same time and space as me. Clear, acknowledged, bias observations add a personal and expressive quality. In addition to documentation, my work utilizes print as a mechanism of archival importance for the future.
Printmaking can preserve the present for future generations to study and is a method for artists to protect their perspectives. I combine silver gelatin prints, films, and digital processes with traditional printmaking and reproduction processes. This combination of old and new creates a conversation in image form of one generation speaking to another. Physical reproduction of images creates a material layer that includes a history of modification by the artist and process. My work attempts to create a coherent physical interface for the viewer to connect with me in a personal way and understand the moment in which the art was created. My art serves many purposes: as an interface, archival document, and symbolic image.
Website: http://www.pozosprints.com/
Instagram: @afterapture
Shellye Tow
Moment in Time, Cyanotype and Thread, $400, 2021, 26in W x 12in
Artist Statement:
My work engages with the lived experience of Time, its intricate layering, and the multiple experiences that exist on a singular plain. I challenge the linear perspective of Time through fragmenting and layering. Cyanotype strips are the foundation for a threaded network creating a visual expression of Time. In my work, Time becomes non-linear through intuitive creation and the exploration space.
Website: www.shellyetow.com
Instagram: @shellyetow
Emily Potts
Bubble Gum Guy, 53 x 40 inches, Digital modification of sculpture (Archivable Inkjet Print) Framed, NFS, 2020
Artist Statement:
My body of artwork revolves around the human condition, how one reacts to one’s own self, how one reacts to others, and how one reacts to the natural world. A specific theme or theory I am addressing in my work is the inherent contradiction found in one’s own conscious being- as we all feel lonely, anxious, isolated, and vulnerable at times.
Website: www.emilypottsart.com
Instagram: @Freespiral_
Dejion Duncan
X in the flesh, acrylic, ink, copy paper, digital editing, $100, 2020
Artist Statement:
Looking back into the past so I can tell the future and make audiences aware of their present. Piecing together vibrant colors and textures to show the void of monochromaticity within ourselves. That display of collage work showcases the embodiment of all the very real and true extensions of ourselves that tell a story on their own. With this connection to your inner self and the emotions of your culture, ancestors, etc...the goal envision a better world (without racism, bigotry, patriarchy, capitalism) outside of our realm. Transport my audience via my medium courtesy of imagination, ancestral work and artistic intention.
Website: https://baseforyourface.github.io/DejionODuncan/About.html
Instagram: @baseforyourface
Hanieh Mandanirad
Silent Shout, Digital art, photography, typography April 2020 20’ x 30’
Artist Statement:
Ever since the revolution of 1979, women in Iran have been suffering from compulsory hijab, injustice family laws, and discrimination in education and workplace. The Islamic regime in Iran has relentlessly attempted to diminish women’s participation in economic, social, and political activities, and to turn them into obedient housewives. To that aim, the government has legislated diverse regulations against women, violently shut down objections, and sentenced women’s rights activists to prison. Four years after immigration – or shall I call it exile? – within me sounds the memories of wearing forced hijab, wrestling with gender discriminations, and coping with insane challenges to play a constructive role in society. I can dress freely now; however, my thoughts are with those 40 million females in Iran who are forced to wear Hijab. Every time the wind blows in my hair, I see them in my mind; I cannot, and will not, forget them, and the extensive hardship they have to go through each and every day. As a female artist raised in Iran, my artworks take a critical view of political, religious, and social injustice against women. I feel the responsibility to cherish the memories of those who sacrificially fought for freedom, and to give a voice to those who have been dragged into silence. My aim is to depict the story of those women who aim to ignite a gleam of light in absolute darkness.
Website: http://www.haniehrad.com/
Instagram: @haniehrad_design
David Silva
Isolation 05, Photography, 20, 2018
Artist Statement:
My series of self-portraits explores my experiences with depression and loneliness. I became depressed as I was not making any progress in life and hanging around corrupt friends. These no good friends were constantly tearing me down. After I quit hanging around my cruel friends I became extremely lonely and depressed. For a while I refused to make friends so I just spent time alone. While alone I tried to build myself up again by practicing the drums, reading, eating, but the energy wasn’t there. I shot these photos while in my undergraduate years at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
Instagram: @sadpizzadontsell
Annie Adams
Faceted Mass 3 {Printer Proof), Woodcut, $300, 2020
Artist Statement:
I grew up in Oklahoma & earned a BFA from OU before moving to Dallas. I worked as a graphic designer for many years which drew me into printmaking. Woodcut collography and intaglio are my favorite print processes. My work has been chosen to appear in in the League of InnovaRon show, in 2019 and 2020.
Website: http://www.aadamsdesign.com/
Instagram: @aoakley