Anastasia
Budziszewski isn't afraid to admit that she admires pretty art.
"Pretty," however, isn't considered a very cool word.
"People always qualify their use of the word "pretty"
by saying 'I hate to say this, but . . .,' " the 29-year-old
associate gallery director says. "I think it's because if they
call a work of art pretty, that might mean it's just decorative
'sofa art.' Art can be about beauty for beauty's sake." Budziszewski
unabashedly admits that "Summer Light," the group exhibition
she curated that is now on view at D. Berman Gallery, is a reflection
of what she considers beautiful. She choose the 39 works by six
Texas artists because she really loved them. "There isn't a
piece in this show that I couldn't imagine in my house," she
sighs, and shrugs: "It's just really hard to get away from
your own aesthetic."
And
hers would be?
Several
things, actually. The University of Texas art history grad confesses
that her aesthetic passions are neatly torn between two very different
eras: contemporary and medieval. But since D. Berman is a contemporary
space, Budziszewski spent the past several months scoping out the
newest work of the half dozen artists she selected for "Summer
Light" -- her first solo curatorial effort since she joined
the gallery in early 2000.
This
is not an exhibit that revolves around a theme or subject. "I
wanted there to be a common thread among the works but not in terms
of content. I didn't want a show that would be just, you know, art
about birds or something," she says, laughing. Nevertheless,
"Summer Light" has a distinctively cool and elegant presence
-- much like Budziszewski herself.
When
she started her search earlier this year, she looked for art work
that had a few specific qualities. "I was looking for art that
really celebrated the luminousness of light," she says. "And
did so in a very colorful way."
Like
Hillevi Baar's. The Houston artist paints and draws in rich colors
on diaphanous plastic which she then slices and folds to create
chimerical objects that are pinned to the wall. Or placed in the
middle of the gallery floor, where her "Jade Ring" stands.
Six feet in diameter and 3 feet high, the perfectly round mylar
circle is painted with a jade green pattern of flowers. It grabs
the light that streams into the high-ceilinged gallery. It positively
glows.
So
do the paintings of Kim Squaglia. In her swirling images of biomorphic
patterns, the San Antonio artist combines multiple layers of paint
and resin to create virtually translucent stratums. Their cool hues
grab and hold the light. Their smooth surfaces beckon to the touch.
Budziszewski,
it seems, is not just an unabashed lover of light and color -- she
is also an unabashed lover of objects. "I love objects just
for for their own sake -- just as objects," says the woman
who admits that she keeps a tiny statue of the Eiffel Tower in her
refrigerator door next to a vintage glass butter dish. She simply
likes the way the two objects look together. And so she has filled
the gallery with art whose materiality is very immediate.
Her
attraction to objects led her to the new work of Daphane Park. Part
of a series called "Arrows Pointing West," Park's small
drawings on thick paper take the basic shape of a deer skin, a reference
to the maps of yore, which were rendered on leather. In Parks' modern
rendition, all of the "heads" point to the left, or west,
and are pinned to the wall sans frames. But instead of mapping real
locales, Parks dreams up imaginary places and events. In "New
World Chicken Pox Reach Islands," a small rectangular island
is covered with pink dots -- a wretched historical circumstance
rendered jarringly pretty.
"Daphane
is mapping out her own very private places," explains Budzisewski.
"It's an idea of nature and place that exist only to her."
Likewise
Faith Gay's "Panookie Pan." Gay melts brightly-colored
small plastic beads into exuberant and seemingly cosmological patterns
that are then splayed out on the wall, tiny individual beads orbiting
around the kaleidoscopic shapes.
Budziszewski
thinks "Panookie Pan" is pretty. And also "endearing,
playful and cool."
"It's
hot outside right now," she says, adding that she has little
tolerance for the Texas summer heat. "I wanted to bring together
art work that was light and colorful and, well, cool."
Make that pretty cool.
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